Later the same year, Gilchrist moved to Edinburgh where, in partnership with James Inglis, he founded a banking firm, Inglis, Borthwick Gilchrist & Co, which operated from a flat in Hunter Square. He also became in 1807 a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (proposed by William Moodie, John Playfair and James Bonar), the Horticultural Society, the East India Club, and the Scottish Military and Naval Academy. He gained a reputation for being somewhat eccentric, with a fiery temper and violent politics and language. One of his eccentricities was to erect an aviary containing exotic birds on the side of his house on Nicolson Square.