Extra Angielski: Edinburgh part 6. People

Famous people connected to Edinburgh

1. Mary, Queen of Scots

In Mary's time Edinburgh had fewer than 10,000 people.

Why is Mary famous?

Mary was known as Queen of Scots because she was Queen of Scotland. For a short time she was
also Queen of France. She became famous across Europe, especially after her execution in 1587, for plotting (it was said) against England's Queen Elizabeth I.

When did she live?
Mary was born in 1542, when Henry VIII was King of England. Mary became Queen of Scotland as a baby. She was Queen until 1567, when she gave up the crown and left Scotland. She spent many years a prisoner in England, where she was put to death on 8 February 1587.

A portrait of Mary Queen of Scots, also known as Mary Stuart.

A sad life
As a little girl, she was sent away from her mother to France. The Scots rejected her, and the English locked her up. Mary Queen of Scots' sad life ended when she was beheaded in 1587.

Life at Holyroodhouse
Mary was happiest in Holyroodhouse Palace in Edinburgh. Her father and mother had made the palace like a French castle. Mary felt at home, with French servants, music and dancing. On fine days, she rode out hunting and hawking, also practising archery.

source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/famouspeople/mary_queen_of_scots/

2. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Conan Doyle is most famous as the inventor of Sherlock Holmes, but he had a varied career as a writer, journalist and public figure.

Arthur Conan Doyle was born on 22 May 1859 in Edinburgh. He trained as a doctor, gaining his degree from Edinburgh University in 1881. He worked as a surgeon on a whaling boat and also as a medical officer on a steamer travelling between Liverpool and West Africa. He then divided his time between medicine and writing.

3.Robert Adam

1728-1792

Robert Adam was an 18th-century British architect who worked largely in the neoclassical style, reviving the traditions of ancient Greece and Rome but in new, modern ways.

Robert was educated at Edinburgh High School and the university.

Examples of his work are visible in New Town in Edinburgh where he worked between 1772-1792 on Register House at Charlotte Square:

and Edinburgh University (1788-1792):

4. Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson was a famous Victorian author. He mainly wrote mystery and adventure stories, and his books are still read and enjoyed today. When he was just sixteen he wrote The Pentland Rising, a story based on an historical event.

Robert Louis Stevenson went to Edinburgh University. He started to study engineering, but soon switched to studying the law.

Treasure Island, published as a book in 1883 was his very successful book and turned Robert Louis Stevenson into a well-known writer. It is regarded as a book for children, although adults know better his another piece of work: Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, about a man who nvented a potion which changes his behaviour and appearances.

5. Adam Smith

Even though Adam Smith, one of the most famous economics of the history, was not born in Edinburgh, his statue is passed by anyone who walks down the Royal Mile.

Sculpted and cast in bronze, by Alexander Stoddart, this imposing statue of Adam Smith, philosopher and father of modern economics thinking, faces down the high street towards his home town of Kircaldy in fife across the river Forth. It was unveiled in 2008.

Adam Smith became a freelance lecturer in Edinburgh, reading literature, economics and philosophy. It was here, that Smith published his Theory of Moral Sentiment, an antithesis to the human condition of selfishness. Smith spent the last twelve years of his life in Edinburgh and worked as The Commissioner of Customs. He died in Edinburgh on July 17th 1790.

6. John Knox

John Knox, (1514-1572, died in Edinburgh), foremost leader of the Scottish Reformation, who set the austere moral tone of the Church of Scotland and shaped the democratic form of government it adopted. On the accession of Mary Tudor, a Roman Catholic, to the throne in 1553, Knox was one of the last of the Protestant leaders to flee the country. He escaped to the Continent disturbed by the realization that the fate of “true religion” in England had turned on the religious opinions of one woman.

John Knox House in Edinburgh - currently a museum

In Edinburgh Knox was astounded by the progress made by the Reformed cause and by the eager reception given to him by all classes in the community. By the end of June, Edinburgh was temporarily in Protestant hands and Knox was preaching in St. Giles’s; but the triumph was illusory and Knox knew it. Knox was a controversial figure, and his influence will always be variously assessed by men of differing religious and political views.

Knox statue in New College, Edinburgh

7. James Clerk Maxwell

James Clerk Maxwell is one of the most important scientists of all time. Albert Einstein said “The work of James Clerk Maxwell changed the world forever”. He was born in Edinburgh in 1831. He attended school in the city and later studied at the Universities of Edinburgh.

Clerk Maxwell’s research into electromagnetic radiation brought about many of the things we know today like television, mobile phones, radio...He was a genius, and because of this the largest astronomical telescope in the world was named after him.