Last Rays Gild The Martyrs' Monument.

Rising above the Old Calton Burial Ground, and part of the town centre skyline across from The City Observatory and other monuments on Calton Hill, this obelisk was erected by architect Thomas Hamilton in 1844 to commemorate a group of men sentenced in 1793 for demanding legal and parliamentary reform.

Charged with sedition and sentenced to Transportation to the Australian Colonies, the men were convicted by a government fearful of revolt. Thomas Muir, chief amongst them, was a Glaswegian lawyer influenced by the French Revolution of 1789 and demanded a fairer political system less biased toward the rich. The obelisk itself bears a quote from a famous speech he gave at the trial:

"I have devoted myself to the cause of The People. It is a good cause - it shall prevail - it shall finally triumph."