[1] One famous former resident is David Bowie, who shared a small basement flat in Drummond Street with the mime artist Lindsay Kemp for several months in the early 1970s.

[8][9] Gamgee recognised that the Drummond Street location was not ideal and by 1862 had moved his college to the west side of Lothian Road on a site now occupied by the Caledonian Hotel.

[10][11] Dr. John Smith, with his friends Frances Imlach, Peter Orphoot and Robert Nasmyth, opened the Edinburgh Dental Dispensary at 1 Drummond Street in January 1860.

[12][13] At the west end of the street was Rutherford's Bar,[14] patronized in the time of Robert Louis Stevenson and by members of The Speculative Society at the University.

[15] Lord Guthrie, joint president of the Society with Stevenson in the years 1872–1873 and 1873–1874, recalls in his personal memoirs of Stevenson: About nine we adjourned for half an hour, when most members left "to buy pencils", as they gravely informed any new-comer, a euphemism for a visit to Rutherford's public-house in Drummond Street, otherwise (also euphemistically) known as "The Pump".The premises were remodelled in 1899 and had a U-shaped bar.