Alloway

The bed inside Burns Cottage. Image by dmcneil

I was born a very poor man’s son - For the first six or seven years of my life, my father was gardiner to a worthy gentleman of small estate in the neighbourhood of Ayr.

Robert Burns, Letter to Dr John Moore, 1787

Robert was the eldest of seven children. His mother, Agnes Broun, was the daughter of a tenant farmer from Carrick. 

Robert grew up listening to his mother sing songs as she spun flax by the fire and worked in the kailyard where they grew their food.

In 1765 Robert and his younger brother Gilbert started school in Alloway. A few weeks later the school shut down. Robert’s father William convinced other parents in the village to join together to pay for a teacher for their children. 

Their teacher John Murdoch later noted:

Gilbert always appeared to me to possess a more lively imagination, and to be more of a wit, than Robert.

I attempted to teach them a little church-music. Here they were left far behind by all the rest of the school. Robert's ear, in particular, was remarkably dull, and his voice untunable. It was long before I could get them to distinguish one tune from another.

Robert's countenance was generally grave and expressive of a serious, contemplative and thoughtful mind. Gilbert's face said, 'Mirth with thee I mean to live'; and certainly if any person who knew the two boys had been asked which of them was most likely to court the Muses, he would surely never have guessed that Robert had a propensity of that kind.

Far from being an uneducated ploughman poet, Robert Burns was very well read and schooled for the time. His father worked hard to make sure his children received the best education available.