The Old Calton Burial Ground is a cemetery in Edinburgh, Scotland. It located at Calton Hill to the north-east of the city centre. The burial ground was opened in 1718, and is the resting place of several notable Scots, including philosopher David Hume, scientist John Playfair, rival publishers William Blackwood and Archibald Constable, and clergyman Dr Robert Candlish. It is also the site of the Political Martyrs' Monument, an obelisk erected to the memory of a number of political reformers, and Scotland's American Civil War Memorial.
The burial ground was altered following the construction of Waterloo Place in 1819, which divided the graveyard into two sections. Along with Edinburgh's other historic graveyards, Old Calton is managed by City of Edinburgh Council. The burial ground, including screen walls, and its monuments are protected as a category A listed building.
History
The villagers of Calton, a village at the western base of Calton Hill, buried their dead at South Leith Parish Church. This was so inconvenient that, in 1718, the Society of the Incorporated Trades of Calton bought a half acre of ground at a cost of £1013 from Lord Balmerino, the feudal superior of the land, for use as a burial ground for the village. Permission was granted for an access road, originally known as High Calton and now the street called Calton Hill, up the steep hill from the village to the burial ground.
The Society of the Trades of Calton expanded the burial ground a number of times. Burials ceased in 1869 but the Society remained in control until 1888. A new road, named Waterloo Place after the contemporary victory at Waterloo, was approved in 1814 and built between 1815 and 1819. This road cut through the existing graveyard, requiring major removal of bodies and stones which was done with a high degree respect, bones being carefully grouped and wrapped for removal to New Calton Burial Ground, eastwards, where several of the more substantial stones were also re-erected. These transported stones belie the age of that burial ground, as it is odd to find 18th-century stones in a 19th-century cemetery. Due to the cut, a small section of the graveyard is isolated to the north side of Waterloo Place, and is accessed from Calton Hill (the street). The building to its east, part of Archibald Elliot's Waterloo Place development, was originally the Calton Convening Rooms for the Incorporated Trades of Calton built as a replacement for their old convening rooms, which were demolished to make way for Waterloo Place and the Regent Bridge.
In 1795, Herman Lion (one of several versions of his name), a Jewish dentist and chiropodist of German nationality who had moved to Scotland in 1788 and who could not be buried in a Christian graveyard, petitioned the Town Council of Edinburgh for a small piece of ground as a burial ground for himself and his family. A council minute of 6 May 1795 records that the Council agreed to convey to Lion a piece of ground on Calton Hill for seventeen pounds sterling. The location of this burial ground is indicated on the 1852 Ordnance Survey map as "Jews' Burial Vault (Lyons Family)" just outside the north wall of William Henry Playfair's City Observatory.
Monuments and burials
Martyrs' Monument
In 1793 several members of The Friends of the People, an early universal suffrage movement, were brought to trial and sentenced to 14 years' deportation, being charged before Lord Braxfield with "unconscious sedition" and treason for attempting to correspond with the French. Their true crime in the eyes of the judges was to push for universal suffrage, and the rights of the common man to control his destiny, i.e. voting rights for all, not just landowners. The men became known as the Chartist Martyrs. Thomas Muir of Huntershill was their leading figure, and he, along with four others who followed him, was banished to Botany Bay in Australia on 30 August 1793.
The huge obelisk (designed by Thomas Hamilton buried just behind), clearly visible from many central Edinburgh viewpoints, is the focal point of Old Calton Burial Ground, and was erected in their memory. The choice of this site is probably linked to the graveyard's lack of affiliation to any church, and prominent position. There is no known connection between any of the martyrs and Calton parish. The inscription reads:
The Scottish Reform Act 1032 eventually brought about their aim, and the men were pardoned in 1838. The monument was erected some 50 years after their stand, but was inspired by the Reform Act brought about by their original actions.
Scottish-American Soldiers Monument
(See also: List of statues of Abraham Lincoln)