Andy Arthur - ThreadinburghThe thread about Asa Wass & Son; the rags-to-riches rag-and-bone men of Victorian Edinburgh
This thread was originally written and published in January 2020.
There was for many years a Steptoe-like institution in Fountainbridge by the name of Asa Wass & Son Ltd. Asa is a biblical Hebrew name and Wass an ancient Anglo-Norman surname, most common in Asa’s time in the Midlands of England. According to my Dad, who grew up in nearby Dalry in the 1950s, the correct local pronunciation is “Azzy Woz“. There is an old Edinburgh tongue-twister which goes;
Izzy Azzy A’ways Iz, or Izzy Azzy Woz?
Asa Wass tongue-twister, source, (Is He as He Always is, or is He As He Was / Asa Wass?)ASA WASS & SON Ltd. Licensed. Registered.Asa Wass was born in Morley, Yorkshire in 1833 to Judith and Stephen Wass, a carpenter and moulder. According to the 1851 census, when he was 18, he was trained in his father’s trade. He married Hannah Hirst in Dewsbury, Yorkshire, in 1858 when he was 25 and she 24. They moved to Edinburgh and their first daughter, Elizabeth, was born here in 1859 within the year. More children followed; Judith Ann (Judith was the name of both Asa and Hannah’s mothers) in 1861; Clara in 1866; Thomas Henry in 1868; John Arthur in 1871; Sarah Hannah in 1874.
The “Mapping Jewish life in Edinburgh” publication by the The Research Network in Jewish Studies at Edinburgh University lists the Wasses as Jewish, and indeed Asa and Hannah are names from Hebrew. However, Asa’s mother was baptised into the Wesleyan Methodist Church; he and his siblings were baptised into the Church of England and Asa and Hannah were married in a civil ceremony, so I am not sure on the basis for this assertion. The Wass family are buried under a Celtic cross but I suppose that might just be fashion!
In 1861, the family was resident in the humble surroundings of the Old Town at 235 Cowgate (at the foot of Blair Street), with Asa’s occupation being rag merchant. They are first advertised in Edinburgh in the 1863 Post Office Directory as being at 4 St. Leonard Street, which was the family home, and the shop and yard were now at 260 Cowgate. so we can make an assumption that they are not living and trading in the same place. The entry in the PO Directory is also a symbol of success as it means that they can afford to pay for the listing.
Cowgate by James Skene, 1817. 235 Canongate was in this range of buildings, about in the middle of the illustration. Little would have changed between the time this sketch was made and the Wass family living here. © Edinburgh City LibrariesIn 1871 the Wass family residence and the business itself are moved to 63 Fountainbridge, where they are listing themselves as “woollen rag merchants“. This was on the corner of Lothian Road and Early Grey Street, so a prime position to trade from. In 1878, Asa Wass (“Broker, Fountainbridge“) his wife and his manager James Erskine were found guilty at the Burgh Court of contravening the Brokers Act for purchasing “three small quantities of old hair without being in possession of the necessary licence“. Each was fined £1 with the option of 3 days imprisonment instead. Despite this curious brush with the law they obviously prosper, as within ten years the business has moved to a much larger premises in a yard at 161 Fountainbridge and the family are at Spyfield Cottage in Colinton. They have a shop unit that occupies 153-159 and 163 Fountainbridge and at number 161 is the pend given access to their yard.
1944 OS Town Plan showing 161 Fountainbridge through the pend. WM = Weighing Machine. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandThe same census that places them here also records only 12 Wasses in Scotland, all in Midlothian and 9 of them being Asa, his wife and his children. They are still living in Colinton in the 1891 in the census, by which time there are an entire 16 Wasses in Scotland. Asa’s occupation is still recorded as being the humble-sounding “Rag, Rope, Paper and Metal Merchant“. However we begin to get a real sense of his success in business; the family had a live-in servant, Margaret Catcher, with them in Colinton and the PO Directory lists a house in town at 17 Leamington Terrace, as good a neighbourhood then as it is now. In 1893, Asa Wass was given permission by the Dean of Guild Court to erect stores at his yard at 161 Fountainbridge.
The photograph that I have found of Asa Wass shows a dignified, respectable-looking Victorian gentleman, clearly somebody who was doing well in life. Edinburgh had a big glue & gelatine manufactory near Fountainbride at Cox’s in Gorgie which demanded bones and skins and both the rivers of the Esk and Water of Leith supported a paper industry who made use of copious quantities of linen rags in their process. A central clearing house, the General Rag Warehouse, had been established in the city as early as 1793 to act as a middle-man between the paper makers and the individual collectors of rags. Rags would be sorted into one of five different categories; Superfine, Fine, Blue, Second and Grey, before being sold, and there was a big premium for the better quality. There was a ready demand in the city for Asa’s skins, bones and rags and he obviously made a lot out of these.
Asa Wass, from Ancestry.comHe passed away aged 66 in on November 10th 1898 at the family home at 11 Morningside Park, a very respectable address. His funeral was held on Monday 14th at 3PM at the Dean Cemetery – not where you neccesarily expect to find a rag-and-bone man buried. Asa left an estate worth about £160,000 in today’s money. All the evidence points to him having done very well out of his trade. Hannah Wass continued to live at Morningside Park and died there in 1911.
Wass family gravestone in the Dean Cemetery in EdinburghOn the death of Asa, his eldest son Thomas Henry takes over the running of the business, although the properties are is in his mother’s name and it remains known as Asa Wass & Son. However the following year the entire business is listed for sale, and the year after a shop that they used in Rose Street is also sold. By the 1915 valuation rolls the business and proprietor of 161 Fountainbridge are Asa Wass & Son Ltd, but with Thomas Henry in charge. He lived in a pleasant house at 6 Merchiston Grove and died in 1922 at an even larger and more pleasant one at 3 Midmar Avenue, leaving an estate worth at least £400k in today’s money. His son was also Thomas Henry, known as Harry, but I am not clear if he took over from his father. There is a photo of the Wass nag and cart in 1925, by which point Asa has not been around for nearly a quarter of a century, his son too has died, but it still trades under their name and reputation.
Wass Horse & Cart in 1925. CC-By-NC Edinburgh CollectedIn 1941, Asa Wass & Son Ltd. occupies 161, 169 and 177 Fountainbridge, telephone number 21544. By this time, they are the only bone merchants listed “in the book” in Edinburgh. The are also listed under rag merchants and metal merchants and have taken out a not insubstantial advert. Business is clearly still prosperous and the local paper and glue industries still have a use for the wares of Asa Wass & Son Ltd. and of course wartime Britain could not get enough scrap metal.
Asa Wass & Son advert in the 1940-41 PO DirectoryThe business ceased trading and was abandoned in the early 1960s, by this time it had traded for longer under the Asa Wass & Son name for longer than either Asa himself was involved. The yard became a haunt for local children to play in and there are some photos from this period here; http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/0_B/0_buildings_-_asa_wass_yard.htm. The whole area was very run down and was swept away in the early 1970s when Scottish & Newcastle relocated the Fountain Brewery there (from over the road) .
Asa and Hannah’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth, moved to Devonshire on her marriage and when she died in 1934 was recorded as living at a house called Dunedin Crediton, one wonders if this was some sort of family joke about the source of the family’s wealth. Her younger brother, John Arthur Wass, was confined to the Crichton Institution for Lunatics in Dumfries in June 1890 around the age of 19, far from home. This is another indication of the family’s wealth; this was the best sort of place money could afford to send somebody with a mental health condition at this time. He was discharged around a year later, but is admitted to the Aberdeen Royal Asylum in 1895. In 1899 he is transferred to the Dundee Asylum, from where he escapes in November of that year.
John Arthur Wass’s admission to Dundee Asylum in 1899. NRS MC2/478John Arthur was a private patient (i.e. he or his family were wealthy enough to pay), and was suffering from moral insanity (“madness consisting in a morbid perversion of the natural feelings, affections, inclinations, temper, habits, moral dispositions, and natural impulses, without any remarkable disorder or defect of the interest or knowing and reasoning faculties, and particularly without any insane illusion or hallucinations“) according to his Notice of Admission to Dundee in 1899. After his escape he emigrates to the US in 1901 (I am not clear if he was ever “recaptured”) and here he settles down, marries and becomes a poultryman, in Monmouth, New Jersey. By 1915 he was living in New York as a landscape gardener and by 1920 was a sculptor. I sincerely hope he found peace here after the torment of his years in Victorian asylums.
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