Field Marshal Lord Clyde (Sir Colin Campbell), Glasgow

Field Marshal Lord Clyde (Colin Campbell)

John Henry Foley (1818-74), R. A.

1867; unveiled 1868

Bronze, on a granite pedestal

George Square, Glasgow

Glasgow-born Sir Colin Campbell, or Lord Clyde as he became, was the great military hero who commanded the "Thin Red Line" of Highland soldiers who drove back the Russians at Balaclava in 1854. He was also the Commander-in-Chief of the Indian army during the first Indian War of Independence, particularly noted for his defence of Lucknow. The statue shows him standing by the stump of a palm tree, in loose campaign attire, brimmed hat in one hand, telescope in the other, and sword at his side. He looks sturdy and stout-hearted, "with that mixture of grimness and care and eminent intelligence" in his face, for which he was known in life (qtd. in McKenzie 137). However, the fact that the statue depicted him in the prime of life, while his accoutrements seemed to indicate the later, Indian phase of his career, did raise some hackles, as did the need to move the monument of another military hero, Flaxman's Sir John Moore (of 1819), to make a more pleasing arrangement of statuary in the square.

  • Entire monument
  • Photograph, caption, and commentary by Jacqueline Banerjee, 2009

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