Hugh Miller's collection - a memorial to a great geological Scot

Abstract

• Some would argue that Hugh Miller's greatest memorial lies in his writings and his enduring reputation. Nevertheless, as well as the Nelson's Column style monument overlooking his birthplace cottage preserved by the National Trust for Scotland at Cromarty, he also enjoys four other statues or portrait busts. Appropriately for an advocate of self-improvement, a street is named after him in the pioneering self-help housing for the working class at Stockbridge in Edinburgh, as is a library at Cromarty. On the geological side Alaska has its Hugh Miller Glacier thanks to John Muir, and the Old Red Sandstone fish site of Escuminac Bay in Québec rejoices in its Hugh Miller Cliffs. But it may be a surprise to learn that the Hugh Miller collection at the National Museums of Scotland (NMS) was intended to be a key memorial.