The Character Statues

Diana Vernon

Found on the lower tier on the South East buttress of the Scott Monument.

Diana Vernon (from the novel 'Rob Roy', 1817) is shown as a heroine, wearing a ladies riding habit. In her right hand she holds her gloves; her left is pointing to the ground in front of her as if summoning her horse.

The cousin of the novel's hero, Frank Osbaldistone, whom she eventually marries, Di Vernon is a beautiful, high-spirited, fox-hunting, horse-riding Amazon upon whom, she tells Frank, "compliments are entirely lost".

"I am a girl, and not a young fellow, and would be shut up in a madhouse if I did half the things I have a mind to…"

Her "frank and unreserved disposition" and "smooth brow", however, hide an "aching heart" and a set of Jacobite and Catholic intrigues - "such a series of nets, and toils, and entanglements, that I dare hardly speak a word for fear of consequences…" True to her nature, and unlike many of Scott's heroines, Di does actively participate in the adventures of the novel.

About the Sculptor

George A. Lawson (1832 to 1904)

Lawson was born in Edinburgh and died in Richmond, Surrey. He studied at the Trustees Academy under RS Lauder and became a pupil of Alexander Handyside Ritchie. He specialized in portrait busts in bronze, terracotta and marble and exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy in 1860, and elected as HRSA (Honorary Member of the Royal Scottish Academy) in 1884.

He also sculpted Bailie Nicol Jarvie on the Scott Monument, the frieze on Glasgow City Chambers depicting the countries of the World paying homage to Great Britain and Queen Victoria (1888), and the Wellington Monument in Liverpool.

A bronze figure of a boy ‘Summer’ is in the George Watsons College, Edinburgh.

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