Robert Fergusson Memorial - Edinburgh, Scotland
N 55° 57.095 W 003° 10.761
30U E 488800 N 6200705
This statue of Robert Fergusson, a Scottish poet, is located outside Canongate Kirk church along the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Waymark Code: WMEZGR
Location: Southern Scotland, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 07/28/2012
Views: 10
This statue Robert Fergusson depicts him walking along the sidewalk in front of the Canongate Kirk church along Edinburgh's Royal Mile. On October 17, 2004, this statue was unveiled by Lord Provost Lesley Hinds. The bronze statue was created by sculptor David Annand as part of a public competition.
Paving stones placed around the statue include an inscription of a portion of Fergusson's poem titled "Auld Reikie":
Auld Reikie, wale o’ ilka Toun that Scotland kens beneath the Moon
Where couthy Chiels at E’ening meet their bizzing Craigs and Mous to weet;
And blythly gar auld Care gae bye Wi’ blinkit and wi’ bleering Eye.
Robert Fergusson Scots Poet
Born in Edinburgh 1750
Died in Bedlam 1774
A nearby plaque reads:
Robert Fergusson
(1750-1774)
Robert Fergusson was born just up the road in Cap and Feather Close (now demolished).
He attended the Royal High School, Dundee Grammar School and the University of St. Andrews. The death of his father cut short his life as a student. To support his widowed mother and family he returned home to Edinburgh in 1772 and took an ill-paid job as a copyist clerk in the Commissionary Office.
His poetic career lasted for just three years. In 1774 he injured himself falling down a flight of steps and was incarcerated in the Edinburgh Bedlam as a madman. Despite his early death, he died at the tender age of 24, he packed an intense outburst of creative energy into the last years of his life. His poetry in Scots expresses the character, spirit and very taste and smell of the Edinburgh of his day.
Fergusson is so much the poet of Edinburgh that later figures, including Robert Burns, R.L. Stevenson and Robert Garioch, all acknowledged him as one of their sources of inspiration. He is buried in this graveyard.
He was nine years older than Robert Burns, but they never met. Robert Burns, on arriving in Edinburgh, found Robert Fergusson had been buried here in a pauper's grave. He paid for the gravestone which you can see if you walk round the left-hand side of the church.
Read on.... 'The Daft-Days', 'Caller Oysters', 'To the Tron-Kirk Bell', 'Auld Reikie', will tak yer mind into the mirk o' land syne.
STATUE - give to the guid fouk o' Edinburgh by Friends of Robert Fergusson
SCULPTOR - David Annand
FOUNDER - Powderhall Bronze
PLAQUE - Presented to our friends, the people of Scotland, by the Burns Society of the City of New York and St. Andrew Society of the State of New York