Robert Burns Memorial

Robert Burns was born the first of seven children to humble tenant farmers in the village of Alloway, Scotland on January 25, 1759. Placing a high value on education, his father instructed him in the family cottage on various subjects. He also encouraged his eldest son to read at an early age and enrolled him in a mathematics school for a year. Beginning in his teenage years and continuing well into adulthood, Burns engaged in innumerable dalliances with women, some of which resulted in illegitimate children. Love and his passion for women, in fact, inspired much of his work. In 1784, Burns’s father died and he and his younger brother Gilbert took over the family farm. Within a few years, however, the farm was in serious financial trouble. Exacerbating this was the fact that he had already fathered an illegitimate child. 

To escape the drudgery of farm work and the stark reality of his situation, albeit temporarily, Burns turned to poetry. Between 1784 and 1786, he experienced a creative outpouring, which resulted in the publication of his first collection of poetry entitled Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (1786). Including such poems as “The Cotter’s Saturday Night” and “To a Mouse,” the volume was a stunning success and, with the publication of a revised edition the following year, transformed Burns into a literary star before the age of thirty. On the heels of the collection’s success, he moved to Edinburgh, where he resided briefly. Burns then married Jean Armour, the only consistent lover in his life, and with her moved to Dumfries in 1788, where he received a commission as an excise officer. 

In the final twelve years of his life, Burns published his most well-known poem, “Tam o’ Shanter” (1791). Additionally, he worked on two music volumes, Scots Musical Museum and A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs. For the former, in collaboration with engraver and music seller James Johnson, Burns not only compiled traditional Scottish folk songs, but also wrote new lyrics to existing ones and created his own pieces. Today, the collection is best remembered for “Auld Lang Syne.” Years of arduous farm labor coupled with the rigors of being an excise officer, however, led Burns to develop heart disease. He died on July 21, 1796 at the age of thirty-seven. 

Nearly a century after Burns’s death, Chicago residents formed the Burns Memorial and Monument Association in the 1880s with the intent of erecting a memorial in the city to honor the famed Scottish poet. The organization commissioned Edinburgh sculptor William Grant Stevenson to design a statue of Burns along with bas-reliefs that would adorn a pedestal. The fundraising effort, however, progressed slowly and Stevenson refused to complete the project until he was paid in full. This was the situation in 1903, when the group elected Elizabeth Ballentine as its new director. Shortly after ascending to the position, she traveled across the Atlantic Ocean to Scotland, where she met with Stevenson, who agreed to accept payment in installments. Dedicated in the city’s Garfield Park on August 25, 1906 by Illinois Governor Charles S. Deneen, the memorial consisted of a larger-than-life-sized bronze sculpture of Burns on a granite pedestal decorated with bronze bas-reliefs that featured scenes from his poems. Several decades ago, unfortunately, vandals stole the bas-reliefs. They have never been recovered. 

"Robert Burns." Chicago Public Art: One of the Most Comprehensive Guides to Outdoor Public Art in the City of Chicago. 2013. Web. 2 March 2021 <http://chicagopublicart.blogspot.com/2013/08/robert-burns.html>.

"Robert Burns." Poetry Foundation. Web. 2 March 2021 <https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/robert-burns>.

"Robert Burns." Poets.org. Academy of American Poets. Web. 2 March 2021 <https://poets.org/poet/robert-burns>.

"Robert Burns Memorial." Chicago Park District. City of Chicago. Web. 2 March 2021 <https://www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/parks-facilities/robert-burns-memorial>.

"The Life of Robert Burns." Robert Burns Birthplace Museum. National Trust for Scotland. Web. 2 March 2021 <https://www.nts.org.uk/visit/places/robert-burns-birthplace-museum/the-life-of-robert-burns>.