local newspaper archives.
In 1800 it was recorded that “The Soap Boilers of the town were want to cast their soap leys (offensive smelling soap waste) on the street where they lay inconvenient and disagreeable to the neighbours and every passer-by”.
In 1801, the Dundas family gave permission to the council to use the land behind the Carmelite Kirk (Priory Church), for a rent of 3 guineas a year, on condition that the streets of the burgh be kept free of carts and all rubbish. This yard was then used by the fishing community for drying fishing nets and storage of fishing tackle.
It was reported in the Gazette in 1918, that there was a serious cycling accident when “a young man from Leith lost control of his cycle travelling down the Loan on his way to the ferry boat. Gathering speed as he went down the steep descent, he dashed across the street and down Harbour Lane at an alarming rate. The bicycle struck a three feet wall at the harbor head and disappeared with its rider as it shot over the wall. Many witnesses of the occurrence hurried to the spot and found the unfortunate youth lying on his back across the gunwale of a rowing boat, lying aground about four yards from the wall. Besides internal injuries, one of his legs was broken. He was carried on a stretcher to an ambulance and was then conveyed to Leith hospital”.
A more serious accident was reported in 'The West Lothian Courier' in January 1937 - “there was a fatal accident to a painter employed by the Forth Bridge Railway Company. He fell a distance of 150 feet from scaffolding and was killed instantly. He was engaged in painting the southern or Queensferry cantilever of the bridge with a squad of painters when he slipped from the scaffolding and fell headlong into the water. He was picked up within two minutes by a motor boat patrolling the waters but was found to be dead. It is understood that the death was due to shock and to the impact of the fall. It is very seldom that fatalities of this kind happen on the Forth Bridge amongst the experienced painters. Special scaffolding of wood and steel and safety belts are used by the painters while at work on the most dangerous parts of the structure”
The West Lothian Courier reported on 20th July 1937 that “South Queensferry was becoming popular as a port of call for German cruising liners and on Sunday the fourth liner, the St Louis, of Hamburg, completed a three day stop in the Firth to the East of the bridge. A party of about 500 tourists from the liner disembarked at the Hawes Pier and many of them travelled by bus to Edinburgh, Loch Lomond and the Trossachs.
(Less than a year later, in May 1939, the German liner St. Louis sailed from Hamburg, Germany, to Havana, Cuba, carrying 937 passengers, almost all Jewish refugees. The Cuban government refused to allow the ship to land, and the United States and Canada were unwilling to admit the passengers. The St. Louis passengers were finally permitted to land in Western European countries rather than return to Nazi Germany).
Another German Liner, the Columbus, arrived at South Queensferry in 1937 with a tourist party bound for a cruise to the Northern Capitals.
(Three years later, in 1940, SS Columbus was scuttled at sea by order of Hitler. Rather than surrender the ship, her crew scuttled her, and she sank. The passengers and crew were taken aboard the American neutral cruiser Tuscaloosa as rescued seamen, but not as prisoners of war.)