The Corstorphine Trust

The Corstorphine Trust, at The Dower House, Corstorphine, has a collection of photos of the Corstorphine district, in the West of Edinburgh.  Many of these photos were taken by the local photogrpaher, Sidney C Salmon

Evening News

The Evening News regularly features historic photographs of Edinburgh.  Many photographs from the Evening News Collection are displayed on its web site. 

Edinburgh Public Library

The Edinburgh Room in Edinburgh Central Library, George IV Bridge has a large collection of books, maps, paintings and photographs that can be consulted.

The books include a comprehensive range of Edinburgh Trade Directories, useful for  researching old photographic businesses, together with old account books, membership books and minute books for Edinburgh Photographic Society dating back to the 1860s.

The paintings include:

- 19th century watercolours by James Skene.

The photographs include:

-  photographs by JG Tunny, 1854-55

-  photographs by David Doull, 1866-1867

-  photographs by Thomas Keith

-  photographs by JCH Balmain

-  photographs by Thomas Begbie,  1857-58

-  books by Charles S Minto, former librarian.  He compiled books of old photos from the Library's Collection.

Early photography in the collection includes:

-  calotypes from the Hill & Adamson partnership, 1843-47

-  the Edinburgh Calotype Album from the late 1840s

-  a photograph album of Early Views of Edinburgh

-  photos of the Canal Basin including Ports Hopeton and Hamilton before their removal.

-  photos of the Edinburgh (Leith) Improvement Scheme 1924.

Several of the photographs from the early albums, and some of the early photographs of Edinburgh have been copied to enable the material to be consulted more easily.

Catalogues

Two catalogues have been published listing the prints and drawings in the Edinburgh Room Collection at Edinburgh Central Library;

-  The Edinburgh Scene  Edinburgh Public Libraries Committee, 
with notes by William Cowan, Chairman of the Libraries Committee  Publ 1951

-  Prints and Drawings of Edinburgh  R Buchart  Publ 1955

The Museum of Edinburgh

The Museum of Edinburgh, formerly Huntly House, in the High Street, Edinburgh, has a collection including many early views of Edinburgh and Newhaven.

RCAHMS

The Royal Commission for Ancient and Historic Monuments in Scotland has a good collection of photographs of buildings in Edinburgh and elsewhere in Scotland.  This collection includes some early work by Begbie.  

The Royal Commission Library also has a collection of aerial photographs.

Royal Museum of Scotland

The Royal Scottish Museum has some early photographs by Talbot, Hill & Adamson and others.

This Museum also houses the Scottish Life Archive, a collection of photos of different aspects of Scottish life, taken over many decades by lesser-known photographers.

The Scottish National Photographic Collection

The Scottish National Photographic Collection was established in 1984 and is housed at the National Portrait Gallery, Queen Street.  There is currently [Oct 2001] an exhibition of work from this collection on display at the Gallery.  [See Catalogue]

The collection was established in 1984, the Gallery's 5,000 Hill & Adamson negatives and calotype prints passing into this collection. Subsequent donations have been received including:

-  Edinburgh Photographic Society
-  The Peter Fletcher Riddell Collection
-  John Muir Wood's photography

and the work of many others.

Consideration is being given to establishing a permanent home to display work from this collection.  Rock House, home of Hill & Adamson, came onto the market recently and was considered, but was found to be too small.  Another possibility, currently under consideration is to use the former Royal High School, a building close to Rock House, beneath the Calton Hill, which was one of the options considered for for housing the Scottish Parliament.

An appointment is necessary to view material in this collection.  However, many items from this collection are currently [at December 2001] on display in the exhibition: The Fine Art of Photography at the National Portrait Gallery

Aberdeen University

The George Washington Wilson archive.  Several booklets of photographs of scenes around Edinburgh have been produced from this archive.

Glasgow University

Glasgow University has a collection, including some calotypes by Hill & Adamson.

St Andrews University

St Andrews University has a collection of early photographs, including work by Edinburgh and St Andrews' photographers, together with the archive of photographs from the post card publisher, James Valentine of Dundee.

Royal Photographic Society

This collection includes early work by several of the prominent photographers who exhibited their work in the Photographic Society of Scotland exhibitions in Edinburgh in the 1850s, together with photos by Moffat and other Edinburgh photographers.

There are plans for this collection to be housed as part of the Science Museum's photographic collection at the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford.