Alex Kedslie, a grocer and spirit dealer, was the proprietor of Malta House in 1855 and listed there in the Post Office Directory for 1854-55 but does not appear to have taken up residence before 1862. The Wright family were recorded there in the 1861 census and Alex Kedslie at 1 Leslie Place. The Kedslie family remained at Malta House until 1874 when they moved back to 1 Leslie Place.
Alexander Kedslie was born at Tranent on 16 June 1798, son of William KEDSLIE and Alison Turnbull. By 1825 he was a grocer and wine merchant in the Stockbridge district of Edinburgh. He was also a property owner, leasing shops in Deanhaugh Street and housing in the High Street and Canongate. The 1865 Valuation Roll shows he owned 20 different properties in Edinburgh. Alex Kedslie died at 1 Leslie Place there on 04 February 1879.
Alexander Kedslie married Mary Margaret Geddes on 31 March 1835 in Edinburgh. She was born at Abercorn, West Lothian on 14 November 1813, fourth child of William Geddes and Catherine Duncanson. After the death of her husband in 1879, she lived at 6 Warrender Park Terrace and then 3 Waverley Terrace, where she died on 24 September 1880.
The first three children of Alexander Kedslie and Margaret Geddes died in infancy on the same day in 1841, long before the family’s residence at Malta House. Five subsequent children were all recorded at Malta House in the 1871 census. They were:
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- John Alexander Kedslie was born in Edinburgh on 21 December 1842. His occupation in 1871 was recorded as (unemployed) clerk.35 In 1881 and 1891 he was recorded as living on private means. He married Isabella Duncan Gray Wilson in 1879 and died on 12 January 1895.
- Alice Margaret Kedslie was born on 02 March 1845, in Edinburgh. She married David Carss in 1876. He was a spirit merchant in 1881 and a brewer’s representative in 1891. In 1901, and living in Clerkenwell, London his occupation was recorded as ‘horse keeper, groom’. He died in 1908. She died in 1914 and was buried at Morden, Surrey on 29 December 1914.
- Janet Geddes Kedslie was born in Edinburgh on 03 May 1847. She married George Harris Marshall in 1880 and died in Edinburgh in 1913.
- Wilhelmina Caesar Kedslie was born on 26 June 1850 and died unmarried on 09 January 1879.
- Henry Turnbull Kedslie was born in 1856. In the censuses of 1891 and 1901 he was recorded as living on private means. He died in Edinburgh on 08 July 1926. In 1895 he married Margaret Swanson Mackay.