Robert Burns was born 200 years and almost 6 months before me on January 25, 1759 to a gardener and his wife in Ayr, in the southwestern part of Scotland. When Burns turned six his father, William, hired a tutor to teach Robert and his brother Gilbert at home. Though he did not attend school much, Burns was fairly well educated and read. Shortly after that, his father rented a farm to try to increase his income, but was not successful. By 1777, The Burns family moved to a new farm near a slightly larger town, Tarbolton, where Robert in his late teens and early twenties founded a debating club, joined a dancing class, became a Mason, and enjoyed the fellowship at the local pubs. At home, he and his brother had to work harder and harder as their father became ill and grew weaker and weaker.
In 1783, Robert and Gilbert rented another farm in an effort to help their struggling family and the following year, after their father’s death, they moved the family there. In the next three years, he fathered the first three of 12 children (with four women), one with a servant, and twins with his eventual wife, Jean Armour. They tried to declare themselves married, but Jean’s father would have none of it. He didn’t want his daughter marrying a poor farmer with no prospects and a reputation for being a little odd, a hazard for the literary. Also during this phase, he started his Commonplace Book, making observations and notes and writing poetry.
In 1786 he published his first collection of 36 poems to great acclaim. The first printing sold out quickly and made Burns’ name known throughout much of Scotland. By this time, he had written three-fourths of the poems that would make him famous. Jean’s father tried to sue him for support of the twins Jean bore. For several months, Robert intended to go to Jamaica and earn money, but with the publication of his poems at the end of July, his prospects completely changed.
In 1787 he traveled to Edinburgh and around Scotland, plus had another collection of poems published. By 1788 he returned home where the church acknowledged his marriage to Jean. He began his work of collecting, compiling and re-writing Scottish folk songs, and wrote his greatest work, Tam o’ Shanter.
From 1787 until his death in 1796 he worked as a tax collector and continued to collect songs and published the songs in several volumes of the Scot’s Musical Museum. He died of rheumatic fever in July of 1796.
This telling of Burns’ life omitted much, but touched on the essentials.
