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David Sillar
David Sillar (1760–1830) was a Scottish farmer, poet, grocer, schoolteacher and baillie who was a close friend of the poet Robert Burns. He died in 1830, aged 70, after a long illness, and was buried in Irvine's Old Parish Church cemetery. His eroded gravestone was replaced by a facsimile thanks to the Irvine Burns Club. He married twice and had only one son survive him, a Dr. Zachary Sillar M.D. of Liverpool. His father was Patrick Sillar, tenant farmer at Spittalside near Tarbolton, Ayrshire. He first married a widow, Mrs Margaret Kerr, née Gemmell shortly after moving to Irvine and had seven children and his second wife was the sister of John Bryan of the Sun Inn, Kilmarnock. Life and character David was the third son of four, his father being Patrick Sillar, farmer at Spittalside (NS 425 277) near Tarbolton, close to the Burns family farm at Lochlea.Westwood, Page 125 His brother William took on the lease of the farm and his elder brothers Robert and John became mercha ...
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Tarbolton
Tarbolton ( sco, Tarbowton) is a village in South Ayrshire, Scotland. It is near Failford, Mauchline, Ayr, and Kilmarnock. The old Fail Monastery was nearby and Robert Burns connections are strong, including the Bachelors' Club museum. Meaning of place-name Tarbolton has been suggested as having one of three meanings: * Village by the tor or hill, from Old English ''torr'' 'tor, hill, cliff' and ''boðl-tun'' /''bothl-tun'' "village with buildings, equivalent to Bolton in Greater Manchester. The name was recorded as ''Torbolten'' in 1138, suggesting this origin. * Village by the field and hill, from Old English ''torr'' 'tor, hill, cliff' and ''bāll'' 'field (not meaning the same as ball 'ball', i.e. football), as in Dunball, Somerset, with ''tun'' 'farm, village'. The name's record in writing as ''Torballtone'' in 1209 suggests this origin ''may'' be possible. * Village by the hill, from Old Gaelic ''tor'', modern Gaelic ''tòrr'', (where the Old English word is derived fro ...
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Wetherby
Wetherby () is a market town and civil parish in the City of Leeds district, West Yorkshire, England, close to West Yorkshire county's border with North Yorkshire, and lies approximately from Leeds City Centre, from York and from Harrogate. The town stands on the River Wharfe, and for centuries has been a crossing place and staging post on the Great North Road midway between London and Edinburgh. Historically a part of the Claro Wapentake (as part of the parish of Spofforth) within the West Riding of Yorkshire, Wetherby is mentioned in the ''Domesday Book'' of 1086 as ''Wedrebi'', thought to derive from ''wether-'' or ''ram-farm'' or else meaning "settlement on the bend of a river". Wetherby Bridge, which spans the River Wharfe, is a Scheduled Ancient Monument and a Grade II listed structure. The course of the Old Great North Road passes through the town and, as result of its situation on the road, many coaching inns were established in Wetherby which are still used by ...
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List Of 18th-century British Working-class Writers
This list focuses on published authors whose working-class status or background was part of their literary reputation. These were, in the main, writers without access to formal education, so they were either autodidacts or had mentors or patrons. This lack of standardized education gave rise to the notion of the "rough," "untutored," "natural" artist. There was a vogue among middle- and upper-class readers, particularly later in the eighteenth-century and throughout the Romantic era, for writers with an "interesting story of genius-in-rags," for "the Unschooled Sons" — and daughters — "of Genius."Williams, John. "Displacing Romanticism: Anna Seward, Joseph Weston and the Unschooled Sons of Genius." ''Placing and Displacing Romanticism''. Ed. Peter J. Kitson. London: Ashgate, 2001, 48-59. Writers Notes Resources *Andrews, Corey E. "'Work' Poems: Assessing the Georgic Mode of Eighteenth-Century Working-Class Poetry." ''Experiments in Genre in Eighteenth-Century Literature' ...
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Lesley Baillie
Lesley Baillie (1768–1843), later Mrs Lesley Cumming, was born at Mayville, Stevenston, Ayrshire. She was a daughter of Robert Baillie and married Robert Cumming of Logie, Moray. Her lasting fame derives from being Robert Burns's 'Bonnie Lesley', ''"the most beautiful, elegant woman in the world"''. On her tombstone her name is given as Leslie Baillie. Life and character The daughter of sea captain Robert Baillie of Mayfield,Love, Page 45 she married Robert Cumming of Logie, Moray in 1799. She had a sister named Maria (Grace) and her mother was May Reid. She was a granddaughter of Anna Cunninghame and John Reid, second son of the minister of the parish, their daughter being her mother. Through her mother she was related to Sir Robert Cunninghame of Auchenharvie.Clements, Page 72 In 1799 Lesley married Robert Cumming of Logie, Morayshire. Lesley had six children of whom four sons died on army service in India. Her husband predeceased her by a good many years. Her character was ...
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Kate Kemp
Kate Kemp of Barskimming lived with her father at the Bridge House on the northern side of the single span Barskimming Old Bridge (Barskimming Auld Brig), River Ayr, Scotland. Both Robert Burns and James Andrew, the miller at Barskimming Mill, had a romantic interest in her and one visit led to the composition of the poem and dirge " ''Man was made to Mourn''". Life and character Her father may have been the James Kemp of Barskimming who is recorded in the Parish of Stair as the father of William Kemp who was baptised on 19 August 1766 being around eighteen in 1784 and any sibling a likely similar age. No other 'Kemp' births are recorded around this time, however in 1781 a Margaret Kemp from Mauchline came to live in the parish of Stewarton with a 'clearance certificate' of good character. Kate lived in a sylvan and delightfully rural location at the old Barskimming Bridge or Kemp's House (NS4906525460) that lay on the north or Mauchline side of the road to Stair about two mi ...
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Jessie Lewars
Jessie Lewars also known as Mrs. James Thomson,Westwood, Page 1 was the youngest daughter of John Lewars, a supervisor of excise. Following the death of her 69-year-old father in 1789, Jessie was only 11 years old, when she and her brother John moved to a house in Millhole Brae (now Burns Street) that lay opposite that of Robert Burns in Dumfries. Jessie was a close Burns family friend and when nearly at the age of eighteen helped the family by nursing Robert in the days leading up to his death and doing the domestic chores.Mackay, page 624Westwood (2008), Page 96 Life and character Jessie had a brother and also an older sister, Mary, who married William Hyslop, a Dumfries builder. As teasingly predicted by Robert Burns, Jessie married James Thomson, a lawyer or solicitor, in Dumfries on 3 June 1799. The couple had five sons and two daughters. The sons were James (1800–1820); John (1802–1834), who worked with his father; William (1805–1858), who was a captain in the mercha ...
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Jenny Clow
Janet, Jennie or Jenny Clow was a domestic servant to Mrs Agnes Maclehose, née Craig (1759-1841), the Clarinda to Robert Burns' Sylvander.Burns Encyclopedia
Retrieved : 2012-02-26
She was the daughter of Andrew (or AlexanderWestwood, Page 138) Clow and Margaret Inglis from and was the youngest of eight children.Rootsweb
Retrieved : 2012-02-26
Her mistress sent her to deliver a letter to the poet and he seduced her.
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Jean Glover
Jean Glover or Jennifer Glover (1758–1801) was a Scottish poet and singer. She was the daughter of James Glover, handloom weaver and Jean Thomson, born in Townhead, Kilmarnock; was well educated for the time she lived in, clever and sharp-witted.Burns Encyclopedia
Retrieved : 2012-11-25
She had a fine singing voice and exceedingly good looks of ''"both face and figure"''. admired her voice and additionally he copied down her song ''"O'er the moor amang the heather"'' and sent it for printing in the in 1792. ...
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Jean Armour
Jean Armour (25 February 1765 – 26 March 1834), also known as the "Belle of Mauchline", was the wife of the poet Robert Burns. She inspired many of his poems and bore him nine children, three of whom survived into adulthood. Biography Born in Mauchline, Ayrshire in 1765, Armour was second oldest of the eleven children of stonemason James Armour (died 1798) and Mary Smith Armour. She met Robert Burns on a drying green in Mauchline around 1784 when she chased his dog away from her laundry. According to Armour's testimony in 1827, she met Burns again at a local dance. By the time Burns's first illegitimate child, Elizabeth "Bess" Burns (1785 – 1817), was born to Elizabeth Paton (1760 – c. 1799) on 22 May 1785, he and Jean Armour were in a relationship, and by the end of the year she was pregnant with his child. Her announcement, in March 1786, that she was expecting Robert Burns's baby caused her father to faint. The certificate of an informal marriage agreement between Burns ...
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Isabella Steven
Isabella Steven or Tibbie Stein was the daughter of a tenant farmer from Littlehill or Little Hill Farm (NS467305) that adjoined the Burns's farm at Lochlea.Boyle, Page 86 'Stein' is an alternative form of the surname 'Steven'. Littlehill had three acres of land that are said to have been little better than peat moss. She is also said to have lived in Tarbolton.'' Life and character Isabella or Tibbie was regarded as having been very good looking and at the age of seventeen Robert Burns was greatly attracted to her. The poet ''"deemed himself doing well in his courtship"'' until 'Tibbie' came into a legacy and dowry of £75 at which point she decided herself above a mere farmer's son. She married a more prosperous suitor soon after. Aged nine or ten at the time of these events, Isobel Burns, sister of the poet, is the only source of Isabella Stevens identification as being the 'Tibbie' of the song.MacKay, Page 80 A Tarbolton tradition holds that 'Tibbie' lived in the village on ...
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Helen Hyslop
Helen Hyslop, also Nelly or Ellen Hyslop was a 'noted local beauty' in Moffat and a strong local tradition maintains that Robert Burns was for some time a great admirer of her and that she had an affair with him. A daughter, also Helen, is said to have been born as a result of this liaison.Westwood, Page 138 Parish records show that a Helen Hyslop, the mother of Burns's possible daughter, was born in the area in 1766, her parents being John Hyslop and Janet Howatson of Langholm.Mackay, Page 687 Associates An article was published in a Moffat newspaper in circa 1885 recalling that a Mrs Richardson of Moffat, born in 1864, recalled running messages as a child for Helen Armstrong, the daughter's married name, and knew her as a daughter of Robert Burns.Robert Burns Chronicle, Page 51 Life and character Little detail is extant regarding Ellen/Helen or Nelly, other than her good looks. The daughter, also Ellen/Helen, after retiring, lived until the age of ninety-eight in the same litt ...
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Elizabeth Paton
Elizabeth "Betsey" Paton or later Elizabeth Andrew of Lairgieside (1760 – c. 1799) was the daughter of James Paton and Eleanor Helen Paton of Aird Farm, Crossroads, Ayrshire. Following an affair with Robert Burns she gave birth on 22 May 1785 to his first child, Elizabeth "Bess" Burns, the ''"Dear-bought Bess"'', who was baptised when only two days old. Betsey met Robert Burns when she was employed as a servant girl at the Burns's Lochlea FarmHecht, Page 54 during the winter of 1783–84.Burns Encyclopedia
Retrieved : 13 February 2012
When the Burns family moved to Mossgiel Farm in March 1784, Betsey returned to her own home, where Robert Burns visited her later that year. In 1786, Elizabeth made a claim on Burns, but accepted a settlement of twenty pounds which the poet paid out of the profits of the ...
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