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Jamaica Streets: the thread about how Edinburgh and Leith street names evidence the time of colonialism and slavery

This thread was originally written and published in July 2023.

There are an unusual number of Jamaica Streets in Scotland: there are (or were) streets of this name in Aberdeen, Dundee, Inverness, Glasgow, Greenock, Peterhead and Edinburgh. Street names can tell us many things from the people, events and places that they commemorate. Set in stone or metal signs, they can give us insights into the past. In the case of Jamaica Street, this is a direct link to colonialism in the West Indies and, by extension, slavery. In fact Edinburgh has not just had one Jamaica Street, it has had at least five.

Jamaica Streets and associated place names in Edinburgh, overlaid on Kirkwood’s Plan of Edinburgh and Leith, 1817. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

The best known Jamaica Street in Edinburgh is that which was in the Northern New Town, built from around 1805 onwards, marked by the red dot in the map above. It was not amongst the New Town’s most splendid streets or highest quality residences and by the 1950s had been classed as a slum, with demolition following after an order of 1964. The surrounding mews lanes of Jamaica Street North Lane and –South Lane were retained, and in 1981 a new development of courtyard flats called Jamaica Mews was completed in the vacant plot for Link Housing Association. Stubs of the original street remain at the east and west sides as access to the lanes.

Jamaica Street immediately prior to demolition in 1966. Looking north east from the western end, from approximately outside where Kay’s Bar is located © Edinburgh City Libraries

But this was not the first Jamaica Street in Edinburgh, that honour goes to a relatively short-lived route through the Southside of the Old Town (yellow dot on the map at the top of this page. This existed prior to the opening of the South Bridge and is shown on maps in the 1780s. Running along the axis of Infirmary Street and North College Street (now Chambers Street), this name never appears to have caught on and by a 1784 town plan was not in use.

Tobago Street on the John Ainslie town plan of Edinburgh, 1780. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

A third Jamaica street also existed in the first quarter of the 19th century, forming the foot of what is now known as Morrison Street (orange dot on the map at the top of this page). This land was owned by a William Morrison esq., who lived in the house of Rosemount shown on the below map just below the “J” of “Jamaica”. The streets here were a speculative development on his part. Development of this street was extremely slow, with only a handful of houses completed by the time of the 1849 Ordnance Survey town plan, by which time the name Morrison Street is in use.

Jamaica Street at the West End shown on Kirkwood’s Plan of Edinburgh and Leith, 1817. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

A further example could be found in Edinburgh’s port town of Leith. In 1809, a new street was planned along the Ferry Road in North Leith, part of which took the name Jamaica Street (the green dot on the map at the top of this page).

The North Leith Jamaica Street. Kirkwood plan of Edinburgh & Leith, 1817. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

This name was suppressed after the 1850s, however if you are eagle eyed, and look (the best vantage position is the top deck of a bus) on the oldest block of this street – above 142A Ferry Road – you can still spot the original name inscribed in the masonry.

Jamaica Street, Ferry Road, North Leith. Thank you to Jennifer Longstaff for pointing this out to me.

But during the late 18th and early 19th century Leith was formed of two distinct and independent parishes of which North Leith was only one. In the other, South Leith, a further Jamaica Street existed for a period. This one does not show up on maps, and as far as I can tell has been overlooked by the two principal references on Edinburgh Street names (Stuart Harris and Charles Boog-Watson) but is referred to in a number of adverts for the rouping (sale by auction) of land. This street was probably not developed before it was renamed to the present day Duke Street around 1818 (darker blue dot on the map at the top of this page).

Jamaica Street, off Leith Walk, South Leith, from Caledonian Mercury – Saturday 16 May 1795

There are further connections to Caribbean islands in the street names of Georgian Edinburgh. After around 1790, an upper section of Morrison Street adjacent to the then Jamaica Street was known as Tobago Street, and just off it was a property known as Tobago Place (pink dot on the map at the top of this page). The landowner here at this time was one “Mr Nathaniel Davidson of the Isle of Tobago”.

Tobago Street and Tobago Place highlighted on the 1849 OS Town Plan of Edinburgh. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

Stuart Harris – the late authority on Edinburgh and district place names – said that the the theory what is now Bridge Street Lane in Portobello was once another Tobago Street was one where “evidence is lacking“, how there is more than one mention of a street of this name in Portobello in the 1850s.

A Tobago Street in Portobello, Edinburgh Evening Courant – Saturday 30 October 1852

And around 1804, one of the many “places” along Leith Walk was named Antigua Street (the light blue dot on the map at the top of this page), a name it keeps to this day (although there was a concerted plan by the Corporation to rename it as part of Leith Walk or Leith Street in 1935).

Antigua Street, highlighted on the 1817 Kirkwood Town Plan. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

Of course these are just streets named directly after colonies and by attachment, slavery in the Caribbean (you can read some of these links for Edinburgh on this blog). There are of course myriad other connections in street names, where they are named after individuals who owned slaves, colonial land or plantations; after their investors; after colonial administrators; and other parts of the British Empire, such as India Street and the now demolished India Place in the Northern New Town (white dots on the map at the top of this page). There is much more work to be done than this simple scratch of the surface by flicking through a few books on place names in order to identify deeper and less obvious links to the past.

Footnote. There is one set of “colonial” names though that do not actually have any colonial links, these are the Colonies houses, of Stockbridge, Abbeyhill, Restalrig Road, North Leith etc. The name may either refer to them being communities outwith the then city boundary (so thought of as a distinct colony of workers) or due to their builder – the Edinburgh Cooperative Building Company – using the beehive – a symbol of worker cooperation – as an identity.

Decayed beehive emblem on a gable end of the North Merchiston colonies

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