An old cemetery lying on Calton Hill in Edinburgh which opened in 1718 for the burial of tradesmen and merchants. It was extended in 1767, but divided by the building of Waterloo Place (1818). The larger part lies to the south of Waterloo Place and includes a number of grand and interesting memorials. An enormous obelisk by Thomas Hamilton (1784 - 1858) remembers the political martyrs of 1793, who were 'transported' for sedition. The classical monument to philosopher David Hume (1711-76) was built in 1777 by Robert Adam (1728-92) and the Emancipation Monument (1893), comprising a bronze of Abraham Lincoln with a grateful freed slave, remembers the Scottish soldiers who fought in the American Civil War (1861-5).
Other residents include adventurer and entrepreneur Peter Williamson (1730-99), known as Indian Peter, painter David Allan (1744-96), Robert Burn (1752 - 1815), who had built the Nelson Monument on Calton Hill and was the father of architect William Burn (1789 - 1870), publisher Archibald Constable (1774 - 1827), botanist William McNab (1780 - 1848), engineer James Anderson (1793 - 1861) and sculptor Sir John Steell (1804-91).
