in many different goods but died leaving debts to be paid. William took on his business and managed his father's bank account into the 1740s. Newspaper advertisements from the 1730s and 1740s reveal that his shop was in Forglen's Land from where he also traded in many goods, including tobacco and sugar. William did not follow his father into Town Council politics, but in 1745 he was elected by the magistrates to be its sword and mace bearer for formal processions and ceremonies which gave an allowance of £200 (Scots). However, at the same time, like his father, he too ran into business difficulties. Of the six children he and Mary Thomson had, James was the only one to survive infancy. By then 1750s, William Craig's business was in serious decline, and through rights of his grandfather and father's lives as merchants and familial poverty, James was able to claim a place at George Watson's College, which had been recently set up as a school to educate the sons of "deceased and indigent" merchants. Although James Craig the architect celebrated his family's history primarily through the poet, James Thomson, a review of the books and goods he kept at the family home indicate that there were family heirlooms there inherited from his grandfather Robert. These included a twenty-four-hour clock and pewter plates. Other inheritances were probably old books on religion which Robert, James and John had kept. However, it clear from his business affairs, library and goods, that Craig spent money collecting books and objects celebrating James Thomson and the poets and followers in his circle in England. In fact, Thomson's poetry influenced his work as an architect. He often edited his Uncle's poems to quote them on plans, or derived decorations for buildings based on Thomson's most famous poem, the Seasons. In business, he asked members of the Thomson family to help him. For his contract with the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh he had the financial support of blood relatives James Bell, a Minister in Coldstream, and rector of Lanark Grammar School, Robert Thomson. From 1773 he lived with his uncle, also James Craig, Session Clerk to the High Court, at the foot of West Bow (sometimes then called the Well Bow), off the Grassmarket. In 1775 he even donated a portrait by John Baptist Medina (1659–1710) of the poet to Edinburgh College, which was widely reported