Queen Victoria Memorial

     This monument in Leith, Scotland, was made by John Stevenson Rhind, a Scottish sculptor. It was intended as a memorial not only to Victoria but also to the local regiments who fought in the Boer War. The monument was unveiled on October 12, 1907, by Lord Rosebery, ex-Prime Minister and Lord Lieutenant of Midlothian. In addition to the standard program of hymns, prayers, speeches, and the unveiling itself, pipers played Lochaber No More, an eighteenth-century song about the homesickness of an enlisted Highland soldier. In his speech Rosebery emphasized the connections between Scotland, Britain and the wider empire forged during Victoria’s reign: “She knit her peoples together, and that, I believe, will be her noblest epitaph.”