On your left, look for the tall, dark sandstone obelisk rising like a stone needle above the tombs, set on a square base inside the burial ground wall.
This is the Political Martyrs’ Monument… and it’s basically Edinburgh’s way of saying, “We remember when asking for the vote could get you shipped to the other side of the planet.” Casual.
The monument went up in 1844, designed by Thomas Hamilton, and it stands about 90 feet high-clean lines, ashlar sandstone blocks, no frills, just a big, blunt statement. The setting matters too: the Old Calton Burial Ground is already packed with memorials, and this one muscles its way into your attention like it has something urgent to say.
The “something” is five men-two Scots and three English-who pushed for parliamentary reform in the 1790s, when the French Revolution had governments all over Europe nervously checking the locks. These reformers backed ideas like universal suffrage and annual parliaments. Today that sounds like a civics class. Back then, it sounded like sedition.
So came the trials, in 1793 and 1794… and the punishment was penal transportation to New South Wales. Four of them were sent together on a convict ship called the Surprize; one, Gerrald, followed later on the Sovereign. Imagine the smell of the hold, the creak of timbers, the cold math of distance-your “sentence” measured in oceans.
Their fates weren’t neat. Muir escaped in 1796, stowing away on an American ship and ending up in revolutionary France, where he died in 1799. Gerrald reached Port Jackson but died of tuberculosis that was made worse by heavy drinking. Skirving died just three days later-likely dysentery, or possibly laudanum. Only Palmer and Margarot served the full 14 years. Palmer stayed on and built a successful brewing business near Sydney Cove… then died of fever on a voyage back toward England. Margarot was the only one who made it back to the British Isles. Reform is a long game. Sometimes a brutal one.
When you’re set, City Observatory is about a 6-minute walk heading north-take the stairs.
