Inch by Inch

Tradition plays a key part in one of Edinburgh's finest jewellers, but it hasn't stopped Hamilton and Inches moving from strenth to strength. Kate Patrick goes shopping

In the year Alfred Nobel invented dynamite, Degas first painted ballet scenes and the Civil Rights Act was passed by US Congress, James Hamilton and his nephew Robert Kirk Inches formed a partnership in Edinburgh to create and sell jewellery and fine silver. It was 1866, and Victorian Edinburgh prospered. The architecturally exquisite New Town, started 100 years earlier, was nearing completion, and where industrialisation and shipbuilding were making Glaswegians wealthy, Edinburgh was the stately home for banks and insurance companies. What better time to capitalise on the new wealth by dangling silver and precious stones before their eyes?

Hamilton had, for 20 years, been principal assistant at an old-fashioned firm of goldsmiths and jewellers in Princes Street, and 26-year-old Inches had served his apprenticeship as a jeweller and watchmaker in Edinburgh and London. The pair set up shop in Princes Street, and in 1952 the company moved into the stylish premises it still occupies at 87 George Street. Number 87 had been built in 1835 by David Bryce for the jeweller J&G Hunter Marshall, so the ground floor was designed to provide a sumptuous and well-lit backdrop to the merchandise.

But as well as this ostentatious interior, what set Hamilton & Inches apart then, and continues to do so, is the way the founders' heirs used the building's upper floors. Instead of renting rooms to bachelor businessmen, they incorporated their own silver workshops. Different sections were designa...

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• By : Kate Patrick
• In : Contemporary Scotland
• Issue : 1
• Page : 62
• Words : 1,045