Alexander Nisbet was the eldest son of Dr James Nisbet, a former Deacon of the Incorporation. He is always referred to in the Minutes as ‘Mr’. He was therefore a Master of Arts, probably of Edinburgh. The Catalogue of graduates lists three MAs of his name.
Nisbet took part in the second public anatomy demonstration in 1704, his subjects ‘the liver,vesica fellis, with their vessels, spleen, kidneys, glandulae renales, ureters and bladder’.
He was Deacon from 1708 to 1710 and from 1740 to 1742. While in Office as Deacon, he took a very active part in the affairs of the Town Council. In 1741 he was proposed as Member of Parliament for Edinburgh and it was thought that he had the support of the other crafts. However, he was defeated and it was reported to the Surgeons that the Deacons of several of the Incorporations who had promised their support had, in fact, voted for his opponent, a merchant.
Nisbet owned a house on the south side of the High Street. At the time, the town of Edinburgh consisted of little more than the High Street and the many narrow steep closes and wynds running down to the north or south. Until 1675, the houses were usually built of wood which constituted a major fire hazard, particularly as there was no water supply to the city until that year. In 1675, the Town Council encouraged the use of stone for new building and introduced other regulations to minimise the danger. The houses occupied by the surgeons varied. Nisbet's father had a half storey on a fourth floor. Hugh Broun granted his son a ‘great tenement of land at the head of Bell's Wynd’. Gideon Eliot had the second storey of a stone tenement, consisting of five rooms, a waiting room and a closet. The juxtaposition of people of different social strata under the same roof was typical of Edinburgh and Eliot had a Writer below him and a servant above (albeit a ‘servant to Lord Carmichael’).
