Faculty honours early reformer with dramatic trial re-enactment

A dramatic re-enactment of one of Scotland’s most notorious court cases, the sedition trial of the political reformer Thomas Muir of Huntershill, is to be created to mark the 250th anniversary of Muir's birth.

The event will be staged by the Faculty of Advocates in Parliament House, Edinburgh, where Muir, himself an advocate, was convicted and sentenced to 14 years’ transportation in 1793.

Featuring historian Professor Sir Tom Devine, who will set the scene in a lecture, there will also be dramatic reconstructions of passages of the evidence and speeches, devised and directed by one of the Faculty’s members, Ross Macfarlane, who has professional experience as a writer and director.

Thomas Muir, often referred to as the “father of Scottish democracy”, is one of five men commemorated on the Political Martyrs’ Monument on Calton Hill, Edinburgh. Admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1787 at the age of 22, he became a leading figure in reform movements and was arrested in 1793 and charged with sedition. While on bail he went to France to remonstrate against the proposed execution of Louis XVI, but in his absence was declared a fugitive from justice and subsequently expelled from Faculty.

Tried before the notorious Lord Justice Clerk Braxfield and four other judges, with a handpicked jury of anti-reformists, Muir stated to the court: “I admit that I exerted every effort to procure a more equal representation of the people in the House of Commons. If that be a crime, I plead guilty to the charge. I acknowledge that I considered the issue of parliamentary reform to be essential to the salvation of my country; but I deny that I ever advised the people to attempt to accomplish that great object by any means which the constitution did not sanction.”

Convicted and transported to Australia, Muir was rescued by a party despatched from New York where his case had attracted much sympathy. After surviving further adventures he returned to France, where he died, aged 33, in 1799.

Professor Devine said: “The trial of Thomas Muir and the guilty verdict which resulted in him being sentenced to transportation in Botany Bay, is one of the most notorious and controversial in modern Scottish history.

“The Faculty of Advocates is to be warmly congratulated on the enterprising idea of recreating this historic event in Parliament House. It will have wide appeal to the general public. I am personally delighted to be part of it.”

The event is on Tuesday 25 August from 6.30-8pm. Click here for ticketing information.