Clean up in progress: Originally I wrote this in HTML as a local history project in S2 at school. Now, I'm cleaning up the HTML into GuideML and editing it. So, please lay off the grammar and spelling for the next wee while.
(Isn't editing so much fun <sarc>? I hate it particularly when what you wrote so wonderfully looks like the ramblings of a 2-year old on retrospection )

The Edinburgh Co-operative Building Company built much of the so-called 'colonies' housing in Edinburgh, Scotland. These 'colonies', as they have become known, were housing for the many workers in Edinburgh. This article details the history and life of the ECBC.

The ECBC was a workers' company founded in 1861 by a group of Edinburgh building workers. In that year the building trade workers requested a reduction from ten to nine hours in their working day. This was part of a national campaign to improve ‘the physical, moral, social and intellectual condition of the working classes.’ The employers rejected this plea and began a building lockout. Over the three spring months of 1861 over 1200 stonemasons and joiners were denied access to building sites right across the city. Before the lockout was over, in April, the ECBC had been formed as a limited liability company. Stonemasons made up the first seven shareholders. By the next year there were 341 registered shareholders.

The building lockout was just a catalyst to the poor state of housing in the old town. The company's stated intention was to build and sell affordable, quality housing to working class people.

In the 1840s and 1850s, the state of accommodation in the old town was appalling. By national and international standards, the housing was condemned. Workers could not afford the grandeur and comfort of the New Town. Friedrich Engels, with knowledge of Continental and British cities, commented in The Condition of the Working Class (1844) that the `brilliant aristocratic quarter ... contrast(ed) strongly with the foul wretchedness of the poor of the Old Town.' In 1842, Edwin Chadwick's Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population stated that the most wretched living conditions in the country were to be found in the wynds of Edinburgh. William Chambers, a member of the Edinburgh publishing dynasty, concluded in 1840, that Edinburgh was `one of the most unclean and badly ventilated' of places when it was compared to both British and Continental cities. Other comments concentrated on overcrowding and unsanitary housing. The housing was packed very close together. Often neighbours could step from one window to another. Sewage was thrown into the gutters.

The housing which the ECBC built was affordable and of good quality. They had gardens and were spacious inside and they were not a tall as the old houses.

The fact that workers themselves had formed their own company was remarkable. It was even more remarkable that in little over a decade they had planned, built and sold almost a thousand homes.

The ECBC's initial 1.17-acre site was obtained from James Haig, the famous whisky distillers and was adjacent to their Canonmills distillery. The distillery occupied the eastern end of Glenogle Road in Stockbridge. This was then called Water Lane.

This site was bounded on two sides by the Water of Leith and formed part of its flood plain. Other builders found this location unattractive which made it more affordable to the ECBC, who had to pay £20 per annum of feu duty for the property. At that time the Water of Leith had sewage, and industrial waste from glue-works, paper-mills, chemical works, gas works and the distillery discharged into it. Lord Palmerston said that the river was `in a worst condition than the Thames.' This made the land cheap and available. It was close to the industry of Canonmills and of Silvermills. These would provide employment and services for the future residents. The terms of the conveyance stipulated that the ECBC housing was to be:

`substantially built with stone and lime and roofed with slate and, exclusive of chimney tops, not to exceed forty-six feet. ... it shall be unlawful to convert or permit to be converted any of the dwelling houses ... into shebeens or brothels ... or to have any cow house, pig house or manufactory.'

The design of the ECBC Colony houses owes something to the earlier model dwellings at Pilrig and to the Rosebank Cottages plans by the architect A. Macgregor for James Gowans. These were not tenement flats with access through a common front door and a shared stair. Each family at Rosebank and in the colonies had their own front door. Above is a photograph of the cottages at Rosebank. From one side of the house you can gain access to the upper flat and from the other you can gain access to the ground flat. The ECBC design separated families - one family occupied the ground floor while the other living in the upper flat had their own distinctive stone staircase with a wrought iron balustrade. The intention of not having an undifferentiated space as in tenement flats was to clearly define room functions. Below are floor plans for the colonies houses. Ground floor houses consist of three rooms; a kitchen, a bedroom and a parlour. When you went in the front door you entered a hall that led into the parlour and kitchen. The upper floor was similar, except that it had two extra bedrooms. Each flat had a indoor toilet. Several features were different to those found in tenement flats. Tenement flats consisted of two rooms. As soon as you entered you were in the middle of the living space. Colony houses separated the kitchen from the main room, the parlour.

In the 1840s Irish immigration filled Edinburgh with the largest number of Irish in the UK. They were concentrated mostly in Leith and the Cowgate. This worsened already poor conditions in the Old Town. The 1832 cholera epidemic was still a recent memory, and there was public concern about the overcrowding. A doctor, George Bell revealed how 10 consumptive Irish immigrants lived in a single room, and three generations of women had to share a single bed. He also revealed how overcrowding in the Blackfriars area was four times greater than in prison cells.

Another vigorous campaigner on behalf of the poor was the Reverend Dr. James Begg. Begg and other ministers developed a programme to improve housing conditions. The stonemasons who founded the ECBC drew inspiration from the Free Church of which Begg was a prominent member. Another influential figure was Hugh Gilzean Reid. He wrote columns in the Evening News. Hugh Miller aided him in the Free Church paper.

Encouraged by this, David Rintoul, John Ogilvie, James Collins and James Colville, in 1861 founded the Edinburgh Co-operative Building Company on the basis of mutual help instead of self-help.

Shares in the company cost £1 each. Even this low price was unaffordable to some, so they could be bought in four five-shilling instalments over a year. But if people couldn't even afford a £1 share, how could they afford to buy a house that cost well over £100? The company found a solution of cooperation of Property Investment Companies in the city. They were prepared to lend over £100 to Co-operative house buyers on the security of the title deeds. With this arrangement everyone on a modest but secure income could afford to buy a house and to start living in it immediately. For example, if someone wanted to buy a £130 house, they would pay only £5 as a deposit and the rest of the money, £125 being borrowed from the Property Investment Company. Over the next 14 years the borrowed money plus interest would be paid back. This introduced people to the idea of mortgages and home ownership. There was an added bonus for house buyers who owned shares in the company. They could use their annual dividend to help them finance the property buying and other expenses like furniture.

The most well known of the colonies is the Stockbridge colony, named by the company as Glenogle Park. This is the best known of the colonies. The company also built on ten other sites, Hermitage Park, Restalrig Park, Abbeyhill, Hawthornbank, Ferry Road, Barnton Terrace, Saughtonhall, Dalry, North Merchiston Park, and Shaftesburgh Park. These were situated on sites around the city.

The building trades (masons, joiners, plasterers &c.) were well represented in all the colonies. The building trades usually made up between 10 and 20 percent of the total residents. Many of the end walls show builders' insignias. One household in six was from the building trades. Each of the 7 colonies had a wide and varied mix of trades. Some trades were concentrated in particular areas. There was also the distinctive feature that one in seven ECBC homes was lived in by a widow or a single parent family. Another important feature was the persistence of people at the same address, two in every five household heads stayed at the same address for more than 20 years. Younger household heads were more common than older ones in the early years but this shifted towards older people as whole streets and families aged together. This made the neighbourhoods stable. Female household heads were 40% more likely to have a lodger than male ones. Below is a table showing the occupational composition of the colonies between 1871 and 1891. Notice the large percentage of building trades and the concentration of certain trades in some of the colonies, this depended on the location of the houses.

In the Stockbridge colonies the most people work in the building trades. This is probably because it was the first colony to be built and so share holders and workers could use income from their shares to buy houses. Dalry has a lot of people working in the railway because it is practically on top of a railway depot.

Glenogle Park

Above is a map showing the site of the colonies as it was in 1896 with an inset showing the site today. Notice the gas works that have been replaced by Standard Life and the Brewery, which has been replaced by modern housing. Work started on Reid Terrace, the first houses to be built by the Co-operative in October 1861. Lower floor homes cost £130 and upper floor homes with an attic cost £150. Reid Terrace was named after Hugh Gilzean Reid. This was the only colonies street to be built without dormer (oriel) windows in the attic floor. The Reverend James Begg laid the foundation stone. In the street lived glasscutters, watchmakers, jewellers and other professions. Below are two drawings of Reid Terrace.

The next street to be built was Hugh Miller Place in 1862. It, of course, was named after Hugh Miller. At the road end a small cottage was built. Originally the Colville family used it as a house, but it was later converted to two shops. And finally it was converted to the state that it can be seen in today: one shop with a small flat above. The shop is called the colonies shop. There is a picture of it below. The ownership of these houses is interesting, being the first and only street in which the majority of the houses were sold to one person, J. Ross, who was a photographer. They were all rented out to a wide variety of people.

The ECBC kept on building and in the next year, 1863, Rintoul Place was built; named after David Rintoul. Following this street in 1865 was Colville Place. In this street two adjacent lower floor houses were sold to the same person and were not rented out. Peter Hume the owner of these two houses was an inspector of lighthouses and may have had a large family and bought both houses to accommodate all of them.

Next the company built Collins Place in 1866, named after James Collins, who was chairman of the Co-operative during 1866-1867. This was the last terrace they built at the west end of the site for several years. They chose it to have a plaque commemorating the start of building on the colonies site. On this plaque the name of `Glenogle Park' was chosen for the site. There is a picture of this plaque above. The two river-end houses were used as trials for building oriel (bay) windows onto the parlours. The ground floor house here cost £215 and the upper one cost £265. Above the windows on the gable end wall of this street two insignias were carved, a sculpted head and what was supposed to be the Co-operative's seal but actually turned out to be the masons' insignia.

They built the next street at the east end of the site. They named it Bell Street after David Bell who was another Chairman of the Co-operative. In 1894 the wooden footbridge at the end of Bell Place was built at a total cost of £435.13s. It was paid for by the Town Council and was built by John Morris and Sons. It replaced much earlier stepping-stones, which were further west than the bridge. On the gable ends of the next streets to be built insignia of several building trades were displayed.

Several streets were extended when the builder's yard at the river end of Dunrobin Place was closed. The last full street to be built was in 1872 and was Bridge Place. The extensions to other streets and the conversion of Glenogle House continued after this date. It was named Bridge Place because of the wooden footbridge that connected the colony to Stockbridge. Three years later a new road bridge was built, replacing, on the same site, the wooden footbridge. It cost £1000 and the Town Council and the City Road Trust paid for this robust new bridge. It was opened in 1877 by the then Lord Provost, James Falshaw. It was named the Falshaw Bridge after him. In 1956 it was resurfaced and rebuilt with concrete to manage the heavier loads of the mid- and late-twentieth century. This street was of houses and shops. The street originally consisted of four shops and four houses. The houses, which were on the upper floor, cost £220 and shops could have cost £300 or £350. At the time of the 1902 census the shops consisted of a grocer, a dairy, and another grocer. Later these included a greengrocer, a dressmaker, and a sweetshop. Today the shops have all been converted into houses and the only shop on the colonies site is the Colonies Shop.

The ECBC achieved great things. In just ten years after it was founded in 1861 the ECBC had become the largest builder in Edinburgh. In this time it had built almost 1000 houses. By 1914 the company had built in excess of 2300 houses. In the first ten years the ECBC was a success. In its late years less of its property was sold and more was rented, so in 1945 the company converted to an ordinary building contractor.

Bibliography

• Housing the People by Richard Rodger
• The Colonies of Stockbridge by Rosemary J Pipes
• No Whistling on a Sunday by Rosemary J Pipes
• Old Ordnance Survey Maps: Inverleith & Canonmills 1896