 Robert Burns was born in Alloway in Ayrshire and died at the early age of 37 years in the town of Dumfries. His parents were William Burnes, a tenant farmer, originally from Clochnahill in Kincardineshire, and Agnes Brown, who was a native of Craigenton, Maybole, a few miles south of Ayr. Robert was the first of seven children and he and his brother Gilbert were educated by their father and John Murdoch. Murdoch was hired by a group of farmers, including William Burnes to teach their children. This "formal" education started when Robert was about six years old and continued for a few years before Murdoch left the district in 1768. He returned for a short time in 1772 and further study was pursued under his direction.
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Robert and Gilbert also studied at a summer school in Dalrymple in 1772. Thanks to his father's great love of learning and the very strong grasp of basics, gained from Murdoch, Robert became a voracious reader of a wide range of literature.
Robert tinkered with poetry from an early age and his first recorded poem is "Handsome Nell", which he wrote when he was only fifteen years old, for Nelly Kilpatrick. The family moved from Alloway to Mount Oliphant farm in 1766 and then to Lochlie farm, near Tarbolton in 1777. During the time at Tarbolton Robert moved to Irvine to learn the trade of flax dressing, hoping to make the farm more profitable. During his stay in Irvine (1781/82) he came upon the works of the Scottish poet Robert Fergusson and it is believed that this and encouragement given by friends in the town prompted Burns to consider poetry as a career.
The family moved to Mossgiel Farm near Mauchline in 1784. Burns had farming and personal difficulties. Mossgiel was not profitable, and his willingness to marry Jean Armour, who was pregnant by him, was opposed by her father. The only way out, it seemed, was to emigrate. (Robert had been rejected as a son in law by James Armour despite the fact that Robert an Jean Armour had an Attestation of Marriage which was a legal form of marriage in Scotland until well into the twentieth century. The marriage was finally recognised formally in 1788, some three years after the original attestation.)
His plans to sail for Jamaica were well advanced when events took an unexpected turn. He had been advised by Gavin Hamilton - a local lawyer - to finance the voyage by publishing some of his poems, but the success of that volume - the 'Kilmarnock edition' - caused him to reconsider his plans to emigrate.
Printed by John Wilson of Kilmarnock in July 1786, Burns's Poems, chiefly in the Scottish dialect cost three shillings and the entire print-run of 612 copies sold out within a month, justifying his belief in his abilities and in the merit of his poems. It includied poems The Twa Dogs, Address to the Deil, Hallowe'en, The Cotter's Saturday Night, To a Mouse, and To a Mountain Daisy, many of which had been written at Mossgiel farm. The success of the work was immediate and soon he was known across the country.
The original manuscripts of the first six poems in this edition are held in the Museum of the Irvine Burns Club, in Irvine, Ayrshire.
Following the success of the Kilmarnock edition, Burns decided to further his literary ambitions by visiting Edinburgh. Soon he was being fêted by an Edinburgh society eager to meet the man described by Henry Mackenzie as the 'Heaven-taught ploughman'. For the next 18 months he stayed frequently in Edinburgh to arrange the publication of a second edition of his poems (1787), and to join in the social round. One of the people he met was Mrs Agnes McLehose, with whom he established a platonic relationship. Their ensuing correspondence - using the pseudonyms 'Clarinda' and 'Sylvander' - is one of the most famous examples of stylised romantic letter-writing. But even more famous is Ae fond kiss, the parting song which Burns sent to Mrs McLehose after their final meeting in December 1791.
Also around this time he made a number of tours of various parts of Scotland. This prompted Burns to begin what is a very underrated part of his work. He spent many years collecting old songs and fragments of songs, many of which had not been committed to print. He reworked these and contributed them at no profit to himself, to Johnson's "Scots Musical Museum" and Thomson's "Select Collection of Scottish Airs."
This work did much to preserve a very important part of Scotland's cultural heritage. These works include such famous songs as "Auld Lang Syne" and "My Luve is Like a Red Red Rose" . Much of the work, which he prepared for Thomson was songs which were written by Burns to tunes supplied by Thomson. Two of the great songs, which came from this work are "Scots Wha Hae", and "A Mans A Man", which would both be on most Scots shortlist for a Scottish anthem.
Although heavily involved with his work for the excise whom he joined when he moved to Ellisland, in Dumfries in 1788 he still managed to write poetry, work long hours with the Excise, contribute to Thomson's publication, and bring up a family. It was shortly before he gave up the lease of Ellisland farm in 1791 that he wrote what many believe to be his masterpiece, "Tam o' Shanter".
Burns spent the final years of his life in Dumfriesshire. From 1788 he attempted to farm at Ellisland, but the ground was so exhausted that this ultimately proved fruitless. In September 1789 he began work for the Excise at Dumfries. Though he performed these duties diligently and compassionately, charges of political disloyalty were raised against him.
At the same time failing health, which he sought to remedy by sea-bathing, overshadowed his literary and musical output. Years of hard physical labour working on a series of unproductive farms aggravated his long-standing heart condition. This lead to his premature death at the age of 37 on 21 July 1796.
On the day of his funeral, his wife gave birth to their youngest son, Maxwell.
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