Odyssey of Thomas Muir

Odyssey of Thomas Muir

The '''Society of the Friends of the People''' was an organisation in Great Britain that was focused on advocating for Parliamentary Reform and votes for all men.

Muir was a leader of a movement for democratic reform and one of the Scottish Martyrs. 

There is a 90ft tall obelisk at the Calton Cemetery Edinburgh to the martyrs. It includes a quote of Muir’s - 'I have devoted myself to the cause of The People. It is a good cause – it shall ultimately prevail – it shall finally triumph. '

His attachment to the popular party in the kirk, his opposition to patronage, his involvement in student politics and influence of contemporary thinkers. The Reformers worked against corruption, nepotism, favouritism and elitism of landowning nobles who controlled the nation’s parliamentary representation at Westminster. Only 5% of men had a vote.

An organisation called 'Friends of the People' led by Thomas Muir, a lawyer from Glasgow and William Skirving, grew to a national movement. Other societies were also formed in England and Ireland.  

In France Muir met Thomas Paine. The movement met with determined and tremendous opposition in London, Edinburgh and Dublin. The radical but self-consciously legal and loyal campaigns of parliamentary reform were mercilessly killed off wittiin 4 years.

Muir and the other leaders were brought to trial, convicted and sentenced to transportation. Muir; Thomas Palmer, a minster from Dundee; Skirving, a farmer from Fife; Maurice a London wine merchant and Joseph Gerrald, a lawyer from the West indies. They were a diverse group.

Their enforced deportation voyage to Australia was recorded in letters and pamphlets by Palmer (published Cambridge 1798) which recorded the government repression and destruction of political and individual liberties.  

**Muir's Pacific journey on the Otter

After 2 years Muir escaped from botany bay on the French ship the otter, which was records in diaries by first mate, Pierre Francois Peron (published Memoirs 1824 Paris) Memoires du Capitane Peron sur ses Voyages.

His voyage took him to Nootka Sound, Vancouver island to Monterrey, San Blas and on to Mexico City, where Muir requested to be allowed travel to America. But the Spanish refused and sent him back to Spain. 

He travelled then Havana, Cuba and Cadiz, Spain – where he was caught up in a naval battle with British men of war and in the gunfire his face was badly injured.

He travelled to Bordeaux, where he was hailed as a 'Hero of the French Republic' and then on to Paris.

Muir's confidant 1798 was Dr Robert Watson of Elgin, emissary to France on behalf of the United Englishmen and he learned of the United Scotsman, the new revolutionary association which replaced the Friends of the People.

In November 1798, Muir moved secretly to Ille-de-France, village of Chantilly, to await the arrival of Scots compatriots. There on 26 January 1799 he died, suddenly and alone. 

Shortly before his death, he said: We have achieved a great duty in these critical times. After the destruction of so many years, we have been the first to revive the spirit of our country and give it a National Existence. 

Martyrs monument Calton hill Edinburgh

Scottish heroes

Alexander Hamilton 

Admiral Cochrane – Named by Napoleon, "the sea wolf', he never lost a sea battle. After exclusion from the Royal Navy he assisted other country's to achieve their independence. 

John MacLean – Political hero

Alexander Hamilton – One of American founding father 

George Buchanan – Father of Democracy

Elsie Inglis -  Scottish doctor and medical reformer. 

Thomas Muir – Votes for all reformer.

Robert Burns – Kept Scots song alive

Charles Rennie MacIntosh – Architect for a simpler beauty of design

Margaret Macdonald -  Scottish artist and designer. 

The scale of contribution of physics and medicine. 

Notably James Clerk Maxwell –  important physicist. electromagnetic radiation

James Clerk Maxwell

Admiral Cochrane

George Buchanan

Lord Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald (1775 – 1860), British naval Officer of the Royal Navy, mercenary and radical politician. He was a daring and successful captain of the Napoleonic Wars, leading Napoleon to nickname him Le Loup des Mers ('The Sea Wolf'). He was successful in virtually all his naval actions. He was dismissed from the Royal Navy 1814 following a controversial conviction for fraud on the Stock Excahnge. He helped organise and lead rebel navies of Chile and Brazil during their successful wars of independence1820s. While in charge of the Chilean Navy, Cochrane also contributed to Peruvianindependencethrough Freedom Expedition of Peru. He was also asked to help the Greek Navy but was prevented by events from having much impact.

In 1832, he was pardoned by the Crown and reinstated in the Royal Navy with the rank  of Rear Admiral of the Blue. His life and exploits inspired the naval fiction of 19th- and 20th-century novelists, particularly the figures of C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower and Patrick O'Brien's protagonist Jack Aubrey. 

John Maclean (1879 – 1923) a Scottish schoolteacher, and revolutionary socialist, Red Clydeside. He was notable for his outspoken opposition to the First World War which caused his arrest under the Defence of the Realm act, and loss of his teaching post, after which he became a full-time Marxist lecturer and organiser. In April 1918 he was arrested for sedition, and his 75-minute speech from the dock became a celebrated text for Scottish left-wingers. He was sentenced to five years' penal servitude, but was released after the armistice. Maclean believed that Scottish workers were especially fitted to lead the revolution, and talked of "Celtic communism", inspired by clan spirit. In captivity, Maclean had been on hunger strike, and prolonged force-feeding had permanently affected his health. He collapsed during a speech and died of pneumonia, aged forty-four.

James Clerk Maxwell (1831 – 1879) Scottish scientist in mathematical physics, His most notable achievement was to formulate the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation. bringing together for the first time electricity, magnetism and light as different manifestations of the same phenomenon. Maxwell’s equations for electromagnetism have been called the "second great unification in physics"^[ after the first one realised by Isaac Newton. With the publication of “A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field”

in 1865, Maxwell demonstrated that electric and magnetic fields travel through space as wavesmoving at the speed of light. Maxwell proposed that light is an undulation in the same medium that is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena. The unification of light and electrical phenomena led to the prediction of the existence of radio waves.