The Martyrs Monument · BARRICADES PROJECT

Title

The Martyrs Monument

Description

Although I conducted the majority of my research within archives, there were various other means through which I obtained information surrounding 19th century Radical movements. One such method was the examination of monuments, graves and other markers that commemorated reformist individuals and their actions. A particularly prominent example of this was the Martyrs Monument in the Old Calton Burial Ground on Calton Hill, Edinburgh.

The Monument was significant for two key reasons. Firstly, it was erected in 1844 in memory of five individuals – namely, Thomas Muir, Thomas Fyshe Palmer, William Skirving, Maurice Marcarot and Joseph Gerrald – some of whom (Muir and Skirving) were instrumental in establishing the Edinburgh-based Society of the Friends of the People. The ‘Society of the Friends’ was a political reform group in the late-18th century that were likely inspired by the ideals that were central to the French Revolution, as per its societal counterpart in England. Fyshe Palmer was a member of the short-lived Dundee reformist group ‘Friends of Liberty’ and was involved in the revision, publication and distribution of an address to the public which called for universal suffrage, and also critisised the government over their war taxation policy . Others, such as Gerrald and Marcarot, held more Radical views than the Society of Friends and joined the London Corresponding Society. In 1793, all five were arrested on charges of sedition and sentenced to transportation to Australia. Skirving and Gerrald died of dysentery and tuberculosis respectively in New South Wales, while Muir, Marcarot and Palmer died outside of Australia (Muir in France, Marcarot in England and Palmer in Guguan, now modern-day Guam).

The second notable aspect of the Martyrs Monument regarding my research concerns the erectors of the statue. The plan to establish a monument commemorating the five men and their objectives was formulated in 1837 by the Radical politician David Hume; building did not begin until seven years later. The proposal was buttressed by other propagators of Radicalism – for instance, William Tait, the founder of the Radical-supporting Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, placed a request at the same time as Hume’s proposal asking for land to be made available on Calton Hill for the statue . What I think is particularly significant about the decision made by Hume to erect the monument is that it was clearly not merely established for historical reasons – or, at least, Hume was not purely confined to motivations of historical reminiscence. Rather, it is clear that by constructing a statue commemorating past reformists, Hume aimed to connect the Radical aims of the past and present and thus reinforce the Radical cause concomitantly with the rise of new reformist groups with Radical aims, such as the Chartist movement (Hume was an early supporter of the London Working Man’s Association, a reform body formed in 1836 that was foundational to early Chartism). Moreover, in 1837 Hume created the Constitutional newspaper which appealed to the militant wing of the Radical movement . Since certain individuals commemorated on the monument were either directly involved in more militant activities in the late 18th century, such as Margarot and Gerrald, or indirectly in the case of Skirving, the establishment of the monument further served to fuse Hume’s interests and objectives with historical precedent. In turn, upon the statue’s completion in 1844, Hume could demonstrate that the cause of the people, which both himself and the five ‘martyrs’ of 1794 were devoted to, would (in the words of Thomas Muir as inscribed on the side of the monument) “ultimately prevail [and]… finally triumph” .

Language

eng

Contributor

Zac Cash

Spatial Coverage

Scotland, Edinburgh

Temporal Coverage

1844

Date

1844

Bibliographic Citation

Alexander Hastie Millar, ‘Thomas Fyshe Palmer’, The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, vol 43, ed. by S. Lee (London: Elder Smith & Co, 1895)

Daniel Parker, ‘Field Visit’, Canmore, 7 March 2000, see Field Visit | Canmore

Ronald Hutch and Paul Ziegler, Joseph Hume: The People’s MP, (Ephrata, Science Press: 1985)

Creator

Zac Cash