Robert Forrest (sculptor)

Robert Forrest (27 November 1790 – 29 December 1852) was a Scottish monumental sculptor, receiving many important commissions in the early 19th century.

He was self-taught, beginning his working life as a mason in a stone quarry in Clydesdale.

Allegedly his first patron, Colonel Gordon, discovered him in 1817, carving figures of animals in his quarry.

On Calton Hill in Edinburgh, he built a hall next to the National Monument of Scotland in 1832, where he exhibited equestrian statues of the Duke of Wellington, the Duke of Marlborough, Queen Mary, Lord Herries and the conversion of St Paul, together with Robert Burns, "Robert the Bruce and the Monk".

[1] In his home area of Lanark he was commissioned to create a statue of William Wallace.