City's most famous faces fail to inspire council web guide

Published on Saturday 7 April 2007 12:11

ANY list of famous people from Edinburgh would be crammed with instantly recognisable names.

But it seems the city council is unaware of the achievements of the likes of Dame Muriel Spark, JK Rowling, Sir Sean Connery and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

For the local authority has managed to identify just four famous people in a new internet guide to the city that has been created for newcomers to Edinburgh. The "Welcome to Edinburgh" guide, highlighted on the front page of the council's own website, features just four figures under the "famous people" section - all of them artists, but only one of whom is alive.

Extensive biographies have been provided for Richard Demarco, Anne Redpath, Sir Henry Raeburn and Samuel Peploe, but the council has ignored a long list of others who were either born, brought up or have spent much of their lives in the city.

But there is no mention of famous figures like the physician James Simpson, one of the pioneers of anaesthetics, Charles Darwin, who studied medicine in the city and later came up with the theory of evolution, or Edinburgh-born Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone.

Snubs have been dished out to the likes of writer Sir Walter Scott, sculptor Eduardo Paolozzi, artist Allan Ramsay, town planner Patrick Geddes, philosopher David Hume, rocker Shirley Manson, and Prime Minister Tony Blair, who went to school in the city.

Novelists Irvine Welsh, Ian Rankin and Alexander McCall Smith also all fail to rate a mention, despite being ambassadors of the One City Trust, a charity fronted by the Lord Provost, Lesley Hinds. Just last week Rankin was honoured as the first ever recipient of the new Edinburgh Award.

SNP group leader Steve Cardownie said: "It sounds as if this has been compiled by someone without a clue about Edinburgh.

"Edinburgh has a long history of people who have given things to the world and you could go to almost any country and there would be people who would be able to identify more famous folk than our own council."

Lib Dem group leader Jenny Dawe said: "I'd have thought the council would have been able to do better than come up with four famous people."

Mr Demarco said: "It's unbelievable the council has missed out people like Connery, McCall Smith, Hume, Paolozzi, Conan Doyle and Geddes.

"I'm a bit overwhelmed the council have included me, maybe they are still checking if I'm alive."

Ironically, the contributions of Edinburgh's most famous figures are said to be behind the "Inspiring Capital" tag, which is used to sell the city around the world.

Council leader Ewan Aitken commented: "In the great scheme of things I do not really think it is anything to get too upset about.

"This website is in the very initial stages, particularly this section.

"It's quite clearly not a comprehensive list at the moment."