There will be found in the Appendix a copy of a MS. Register of Births and Deaths kept by Francis Brodie in his family Bible, together with some account of that interesting volume, from which it appears that William was the eldest of eleven children, most of whom died in infancy. The entry relating to his birth has been cut out of the Register, presumably on his public disgrace some forty-seven years later. Francis Brodie was a substantial wright and cabinetmaker in the Lawnmarket of Edinburgh, where he carried on an extensive and prosperous business. In 1735 he was made a Burgess, and in 1763, a Guild Brother of his native burgh. That he stood high in the estimation of his fellow-craftsmen is evidenced by his being, in 1775 and 1776, elected a member of the Town Council as Deacon of the Incorporation of Wrights, and again in 1779 and 1780, in the same capacity; while in 1776 he also represented the Incorporated Trades of the city as their Deacon Convener. A further proof of the position and circumstances of the family is to be found in the fact that the close in which their house was situated became known by their name. This mansion, the most important in the close, was originally the town residence of the Littles of Craigmillar, having been built by William Little, a magistrate of Edinburgh, in 1570, whose brother, Clement Little, was the founder of the University Library. In the earlier titles of the property the close bears the name of its old residenters; but in Edgar’s map of 1742 it appears as Lord Cullen’s Close, from the eminent judge, Sir Francis Grant of Cullen, who in turn resided there. Brodie’s Close was formerly a “throwgang” or thoroughfare passing from the Lawnmarket to the Cowgate, the upper portion of which alone has escaped the “improvements” that have so effectively changed the features of this part of the Old Town. The area occupied by the Deacon’s dwelling is now covered by Victoria Terrace, the building having been demolished about 1835, when the principal carved stones of the mansion were transported by Clement Little’s descendants, in whose possession the property remained, to the garden of the family seat, Inch House, near Liberton, as relics of the habitation of their ancestors. The lower extremity of the close, in which were situated the Deacon’s workshops and woodyard, survived until a later date, the last traces of it disappearing to make way for the foundations of the Free Library.