The Political Martyrs' Monument on Edinburgh's Calton Hill

Located within the Old Calton Burial Ground on Calton Hill, Edinburgh, Scotland, the Martyrs' Monument, Category A listed, remembers five political reformists from the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Designed by Thomas Hamilton in 1844, the monument stands at 27 meters tall, constructed with ashlar sandstone blocks, taking on an obelisk form on a square-plan base plinth. The monument hosts engraved quotations from two of the honored men. The five men - two from Scotland and three from England - were imprisoned for advocating parliamentary reform, specifically for their support of Palmer’s 1793 address that championed universal suffrage and annual parliaments.

In a series of trials in 1793 and 1794, they were charged with sedition and sentenced to 14-year terms of penal transportation in the British colony of New South Wales. Only Palmer and Margarot served their full sentences and were released. Palmer remained in New South Wales, establishing a successful beer-brewing enterprise near Sydney Cove; he eventually succumbed to a fever during a trading voyage back to England. Margarot departed the colony upon completion of his sentence and was the only one of the five to return to the British Isles.

Muir escaped in early 1796, stowing away aboard an American ship and making his way to revolutionary France where he died in 1799. Gerrald died in Port Jackson in 1796 from tuberculosis, and Skirving died three days later from either dysentery or an overdose of laudanum.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons