ID:QZP40_CARD_0329DESCRIPTION:Hugh Miller's Monument, Cromarty, which stands on a hill above the town with the Cromarty Firth and the coast of Easter Ross in the background.
The Hugh Miller Monument was erected by the people of Cromarty in 1859. A statue of the writer and geologist, sculpted by A. Handyside Ritchie, stands on top of a 154.2.metre high Doric column built by Thomas Watson.
Hugh Miller was born in Cromarty in 1802. His father was a shipmaster who was lost at sea in 1807. The boy was brought up by his mother and his uncles. Intelligent and an avid reader but rebellious at school Miller preferred to wander along the coastline where he first developed an interest in geology. After a dispute with his schoolmaster he left school and went to work as a stonemason in Edinburgh but the dust damaged his lungs. He returned to Cromarty to work as a monumental mason and began to write articles for the Inverness Courier and other journals.
In 1830 Miller discovered fossil fish in the old red sandstone at Cromarty. His interest in geology developed in to serious study.
He became an accountant with the Commercial Bank in Cromarty in1834 and married Lydia Falconer Fraser. They had five children. The first, Elizabeth, died in infancy. Their eldest daughter was the writer Harriet Miller Davidson.
Miller, influenced by his mother, had always been fascinated by local history and folklore and his first book "Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland" was published in 1839.
Miller's interest in Church affairs and his views that the Church of Scotland should be free to choose its ministers without interference from landowners brought him to the attention of leading evangelists and he was asked to edit a new evangelical newspaper, the Witness. Miller moved with his family to Edinburgh to take up this position and went on to become the proprietor. He was at the forefront of the Disruption when the evangelicals left the Church of Scotland and formed the Free Church.
Miller continued to write and published books on natural science and geology, notably "The Old Red Sandstone" as well as an autobiography "My Schools and Schoolmasters".
Miller struggled with the new ideas of evolution but endeavoured to reconcile science and religion. He overworked and socialised little. The lung disease flared up again and he suffered bouts of depression possibly as a result of a neurological problem. Finally on the night of 23rd / 24th December 1856, thinking he was going mad, he shot himself. He was buried at the Grange Cemetery in Edinburgh.
Today trees cover the hill and the column is almost obscured but the statue still looks out over the top towards the North Sea where modern geologists found oil.PLACENAME:CromartyOLD COUNTY/PARISH:ROSS: CromartySOURCE:Highland LibrariesCOLLECTION:Highland Libraries' Postcard CollectionAsset ID:32235KEYWORDS:
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