A Model Carronade

This Carronade model was made in the later 18th century for the Carron Iron Company, and presented to the gun's inventor Lt. General Robert Melville.

It represents how the local impacts on the global. The carronade was made in Falkirk, and was a weapon which contributed to British military and imperial ambitions around the globe.

The opening of the Carron Company in Falkirk in 1759 signalled the start of the industrial era in Scotland. The creation and manufacture of the carronade effectively secured the company's fortunes. The town's industrial history is a matter of local pride, it is this industrial heritage that gives the community its identity, but it is a pride which overlooks the darker global impacts of this product - the death, destruction, oppression and exploitation which were the dark heart of British industrial, economic and imperial progress.

Sustainable economics and global justice demands that we 'think globally and act locally'. This object signifies how we need to rethink our attitude to history in this light.