Henri Van Laun, the French master at Edinburgh Academy, lived at No. 8 for about a year, in 1870/71. He was born on 13 December 1819 at Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. About 1848 he moved to England and embarked on a brief career in journalism, before turning to teaching. He was French master successively at King William’s College, Isle of Man and Cheltenham College, before moving to Edinburgh. He left Edinburgh for London about 1876. Over the next twenty years served as French examiner for the Civil Service Commission and the War Office, which he was engaged in until a few days before his death on 19 January 1896.
Van Laun was a translator and author as well as teacher. His translation of M. Taine’s History of English Literature was published while he was resident in Malta Terrace. He had already had published the three volume A Grammar of the French Language (London, 1863-1864). His own History of French Literature was published in 1876-1877, followed by French Revolutionary Epoch, 1774-1870 in 1879.
An obituary in The Times ( Jan 22, 1896) records that “While at the Edinburgh Academy he made the friendship of Professor Blackie, Lord Neaves, Sir Alexander Grant, Mr. Edmondstone, and many other intellectual celebrities, with the result that he was stimulated to undertake his great work, the translation of Molière. He brought to his task a knowledge of French and English idiom such as few men possess, a cultivated critical taste, and a vast store of scholarly erudition.”
“He was a bibliophile of exacting taste, and his acquaintance with editions de luxe and book illustrations could scarcely be rivalled. Up to the last his cheery presence was welcomed at the Savage Club and other social gatherings of the old-fashioned type.”
Henri Van Laun married Sophia Noah (1826-1900) 23 July 1853, Lambeth. They had three children, all born at Castleton, Isle of Man: Alfred Thomas (1859-1915), Henri Theodore (1859-1932), Minnie Sophia (1860-62). His sons were listed at No. 8 Malta Terrace in the 1871 census.