Wallace Monument’s secret heroine
The shadowy confines of the National Wallace Monument’s Hall of Heroes have always been a distinctly masculine environment.
All 16 of the Scottish poets, scientists and royalty immortalised in marble are male, and for 130 years it was believed that their sculptors were too.
However, a project launched in 2017 to introduce gender parity to the line-up has unearthed an unlikely feminist secret. An old photograph has revealed that the bust of the Victorian explorer David Livingstone was created by a woman.
Graciela Ainsworth, a conservation sculptor responsible for one of the new female additions, has proved Livingstone is the work of Amelia Hill, an artist living and working in Edinburgh during the 1860s.
“We had worked on the busts more than 20 years ago