 Located in the former Canongate tolbooth on the Royal Mile - a building dating from the late sixteenth century - the People's Story is one of the free museums which offers a brief glimpse of what life in Edinburgh has been like across the years. Focusing on the lives of the people in the city, the museums showcases a variety of aspects of Edinburgh life, with atmospheric soundbites based on the actual testimony of city residents.  It's not as large as the Museum of Edinburgh, which is directly across the road, and the exhibitions have a decidedly old-fashioned feel to them - I'd go as far as to say suggest that much of the information hasn't been updated since the 1980s, when the museum first opened... The displays are also fairly text heavy - take your reading glasses if you need them! But there are some intriguing details revealed, and it offers quite an insightful perspective on what life in Edinburgh has been like in the past.  It is the people of Edinburgh who take centre stage here, and as such there are costumed models through the museum giving a visual sense of the figures who have lived and worked in the city, and whose stories are being told. From law and order - the Canongate tolbooth served as a prison, at a time when this area was still separate from Edinburgh and operating as an independent town - to the traditional trades and guilds of the city, to a peek into workplaces of the past, with domestic tableaux showing how people lived at home, there is a wealth of information to be uncovered.  One exhibit shows two ladies enjoying afternoon tea at a tearoom on Princes Street, back to back with a display of their husbands enjoying a drink in a local pub before heading to the local derby between rival football teams, Heart of Midlothian and Hibernian. Stand for a moment and listen as the conversation between the women is cut with the conversation between the men, highlighting how life was different for husbands and wives, and the variety of concerns they discuss. For the women there's a discussion of temperance and their fears for their children, while the men joke about which of their teams will be victorious at the match...  There's much more sobering content, too. One scene shows a mother and her four children sleeping under the eaves of the room on Blackfriars Street in which she lives in the middle of the 19th century, while the display at the side details what life was like for the more than 1,000 people who lived on the lane. Look closely and you'll notice the woman is shown with tears rolling down her face... Certainly the museum shows, without gloss, how conditions in Edinburgh were pretty pitiful for many people for many years. And unlike much of the focus of popular histories, which fixate on kings and queens and the high status figures of society, the People's Story is very specifically focused on showing the history of ordinary working people.  Find out about the public washrooms - the steamies - which were the heart of the community, and the housing available to single men who couldn't afford their own accommodation, and spent their days (and nights) in what were described as chicken coops.
From the rise of industry to the rise of socialism, there's a fair amount of political detail to the way Edinburgh's history has unfolded. The museum won't take more than thirty minutes of your time, perhaps, but it is charming in a municipal, old-fashioned way - and for anyone with an interest in social history there's guaranteed to be something to discover. Discover more of Edinburgh's local history with my private city walking tours! Comments are closed.
|
Categories
All
Archives
September 2023
|
