The family also owned the huge Gogar Park estate just west of the city (now serving as the Royal Bank of Scotland headquarters).

He left in 1845 and was trained as a merchant in his father's premises in Leith and sent to Lille in north France to learn French.

In June 1862, aged 31, he was appointed Professor of Civil Law at Edinburgh University, at a salary of £250 per annum, replacing Prof Archibald Campbell Swinton.

[4] In 1862 he wrote an important legal treatise on the assimilation of Scots and English marriage laws (but these remain quite different).

The grave lies on the central east-west path just south of the large memorial to the 79th Highlanders.

He left a huge library of law books, many of German origin, which were sold after his death.