Seat of high status for scientist

Published on Thursday 1 November 2007 12:06

THE first statue to be erected on George Street in more than 100 years has been given the go-ahead by city planners.

Images of the monument to Edinburgh-born scientist James Clerk Maxwell have also been unveiled.

One of Scotland's best-known sculptors, Alexander Stoddart, is designing the bronze statue, which will depict the Victorian scientist in the typical gentlemen's dress of his day.

Maxwell pioneered colour photography and - by discovering the nature of electromagnetic waves - paved the way for radio, television, radar and the mobile phone. The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is behind the campaign to recognise Maxwell, and has raised around 100,000 of the estimated 300,000 cost of the statue.

An international fundraising campaign is to be launched with the aim of unveiling the statue in October next year.

The monument will sit in the central reservation area at the far east of George Street, facing west and backing on to St Andrew Square.

RSE spokesman Stuart Brown said: "Maxwell is a local and national hero, long overdue recognition. All of the communications technologies we enjoy today are based on Maxwell's work.

"It is fitting that a monument to Maxwell is located in a prestigious street such as George Street, so close to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, of which he was a fellow."

Edinburgh World Heritage, Historic Scotland, the city council and heritage watchdog the Cockburn Association have all supported the campaign.

Sculptor Professor Alexander Stoddart, who designed the "Kidnapped" memorial to Robert Louis Stevenson in Corstorphine, has produced sketches of the statue, and is now working on small-scale 3D models.

George Street is already home to statues of King George IV, Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger and mathematician Thomas Chalmers, all unveiled in the 19th century.

Mr Stoddart said: "All through my career, people have asked why I don't make a statue of Maxwell - it is the most commonly requested statue when I give talks. Such a project takes time, support, and a massive amount of money, and the co-operation of a lot of people.

"This is a huge undertaking, and it's thrilling to be able to do it. A statute to Maxwell is long over-due - this is a man who has a monument on Venus [a mountain range], but not in Scotland."

The Edinburgh World Heritage said the statue would raise public awareness of a "forgotten hero".

THE FACTS

James Clerk Maxwell's discovery of electromagnetism laid the foundations for all modern communication, such as TV and radio, yet he is not a household name.

Maxwell, who was born in India Street in the New Town in 1831, had his first scientific paper presented to the Royal Society of Edinburgh when he was just 14. His four electromagnetic equations, describing how electromagnetic fields vary in space and time, have been judged by a panel of experts for Physics World magazine as the most impressive yet devised by the human mind.

Maxwell's discoveries laid the foundations for TV, radio, X-rays and radar. He also produced the first colour photograph.

The scientist, who was educated at Edinburgh and Cambridge universities, died in 1879 and was buried in a now-disused country graveyard at Parton in Galloway, near his ruined family home at Glenlair.

In 2004, physicist Stephen Hawking said Maxwell's equations ranked "with those of Einstein as the fundamental equations of the universe".