The Character Statues

Dugald Dalgetty

Found on the east facade of the Scott Monument.

Dugald Dalgetty (from the novel 'A Legend of Montrose', 1819) is depicted wearing a full suit of armour, with armour platelets on his arms and legs, and a dagger in his belt. His helmet has a cockade, he holds a in sword his right hand, and what is possibly a powder horn in the other.

Captain Dalgetty is a soldier of fortune who has served under Gustavus and Wallenstein in Europe and is willing to fight either with Montrose or the Covenanters depending on their terms.

Loquacious and pedantic, he is proud of his education at the Marischal College of Aberdeen, where he learned among other things to take food whenever the opportunity arose, since at the college "if you did not move your jaws as fast as a pair of castanets you were very unlikely to get any thing to put between them".

Lord Menteith thinks of him as "one of those horse-leeches, whose appetite for blood being only sharpened by what he has sucked in foreign countries, he is now returned to batten upon that of his own". But Montrose believes that "we cannot spare the assistance of such fellows as our friend the soldado", and that he is "a man of the times". Montrose is proved right, and he knights Sir Dugald for his gallant service at the battle of Inverlochy.

About the Sculptor

John Rhind (1828 to 1892)

Born in Banff, John Rhind was the son of a master stonemason and descended from a line of stonemasons since the early 18th century.

He studied sculpture in the studio of Alexander ‘Handyside’ Ritchie, and his son, William Birnie Rhind also became a sculptor and created statues for the Monument. Rhind was elected ARSA (Associate of the Royal Scottish Academy) in 1892, but died before signing the membership roll.

His portrait busts include ‘William Gladstone’ 1886 for the Scottish Liberal Club, ‘Victoria and Albert’, ‘Darwin’, ‘Michaelangelo’ and ‘Newton’ all 1859 which can all be found in the Royal Scottish Museum. He executed a fine statue of William Chambers (1890) in bronze in Chambers Street and one of Dick (1883) at the Royal Veterinary College.

Rhind also has other statues in the National Gallery of Scotland, Scottish National Portrait Gallery and St Giles Cathedral.

His statues on the Scott Monument are Ivanhoe, John Knox, Rob Roy, Lucy Ashton, Ravenswood, Dugald Dalgetty, George Buchanan and Richie Moniplies.

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