William Turnbull was born at Ancrum, Roxburghshire, 29 July 1834. On 22 October 1880, he and Thomas Wilkie had been working on the construction of the Medical School for about 2 years. That date found them working on the boiler house chimney and they sealed into the structure, a bottle containing their details, along with some cuttings from The Scotsman. The bottle and its contents were discovered when the chimney was demolished in 1965.

This small collection includes a note written by William Turnbull contating details about him, his wife, Cecilia, and Thomas Wilkie, which describes their idea.

People such as Turnbull and Wilkie leave little trace of course in the official record. This gives just a small insight into who they were.

[Ref: EUA GD5]

(This article appeared previously on the main CRC Blog)