Plaque call for monument nets further support

A councillor has backed a call for a plaque to be placed on a Comrie monument to explain links between the prominent landmark and the slave trade.

The 22m Melville Monument sits on Dunmore, overlooking the village, and was erected to honour Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville.

Dundas delayed William Wilberforce’s parliamentary motion to abolish the slave trade in 1792 by winning an amendment to have the word “gradually” inserted into the document, which saw slavery legalised in the UK for another 15 years.

Strathallan councillor Tom Gray spent a lot of his youth in Comrie but conceded he only had a “nodding awareness” of the monument.

He said: “The statues of Colston, Dundas and many more were invariably erected by a divided society, commemorating the heroes of a divided society and now have their relevance disputed by a divided society.

“I don’t believe for a minute that, while many lived in poverty and squalor, all society of Edinburgh thought erecting the Melville statue in St Andrew’s Square was money well spent for whatever reason it was being erected.”

He added: “How many in and around the village of Comrie in 1823 were aware of all the personal achievements of Henry Dundas when his friends graced his memory with a monument?

“History is factual and can only be recorded by words, pictures and historical artefacts.

“The Melville Monument overlooking Comrie – erected to the same Dundas, the laird at Dunira – is somewhat different to those bearing a statue in that it is a curio begging questions rather than a pride-ofplace statue carrying the assumption of greatness in whoever stands at its summit.”

Comrie author Felicity Martin wants to see a plaque added to the monument, detailing Dundas’s links with the slave trade.

Cllr Gray said: “This is surely a most pertinent time to adopt Felicity Martin’s suggestion to let those who venture up Dunmore learn the full story and have something worthy of reflection as they amble back to the village, or westwards through Dunira Estate.”

This is surely a most pertinent time to adopt the suggestion