For more than 500 years Edinburgh’s civic authorities have awarded the Freedom of the City to prominent and influential individuals with a connection to Edinburgh or to those who have deserved recognition from the city, granting them an honorary Burgess ticket and admitting them as a Burgess and Guild Brother of the City. The choice of individuals honoured has remained solely in the jurisdiction of Edinburgh’s ruling council, and the choices often reflected how those in power wished to influence the way the city was perceived by the outside world. Political and social changes over the centuries frequently are mirrored in the choice of individuals honoured, from the Queen’s barber in 1451 to Harry Lauder in 1927. Reasons for the honour have been varied, from leadership in war to bringing rhubarb seeds to Scotland. Some awards have been hotly contested while others have been cheered by massed crowds. Presentations have elicited stirring speeches while others have gone awry.

In Honoured by Edinburgh author Barclay Price picks out the most interesting recipients through the centuries, most of whose reputations still resonate with us today, but there is space for some whose names deserve to be rediscovered, including two nineteenth-century anti-slavery campaigners. This book will appeal to all those interested in the changing and at times turbulent history of Scotland’s capital city.