1750 William Burnes (1721–84), of Kincardineshire in the North-East of Scotland, moves south to Edinburgh to work on the Meadows project before moving west to Alloway to become a gardener on the estate of Provost Fergusson.
1757 15 December – Marries Agnes Broun (1732–1820) of Maybole, also in Ayrshire. They set up home in the two rooms of the clay cottage he builds with his own hands.
1759 25 January – Robert Burnes born at Alloway.
26 January – Baptised as Presbyterian by the Reverend William Dalrymple of Ayr.
William Burnes begins his own Manual of Religious Belief (completed circa 1764).
1760 28 September – Gilbert Burnes born (m. Jean Breckenridge. d. Haddington 1827).
1762 30 September – Agnes Burnes born (m. William Gault. d. Dundalk, N. Ireland 1834).
1764 14 September – Annabella Burnes born (Dies unmarried, Haddington, 1832).
1765 January – Robert and Gilbert attend William Campbell’s school at Alloway Mill.
March – Campbell closes his school. William Burnes engages a tutor, John Murdoch (1747–1824) to teach his sons and some neighbouring children for a three-year period.
1766 April – William Burnes takes over 70-acre Mount Oliphant farm near Alloway on 12-year lease from Provost Fergusson at forty pounds per annum. Leases his cottage.
1767 30 July – William Burnes born (Dies unmarried, London, 1790).
1768 John Murdoch leaves Alloway. William Burnes teaches his sons himself.
1769 10 July – John Burnes born (Dies unmarried, Mossgiel, 1785).
1771 27 July – Isobel Burnes born (m. John Begg. Dies Bridge House, Alloway, 1858).
1772 The Burnes boys take turns to attend Dalrymple School, week about, during the summer.
1773 John Murdoch returns to Ayr. Robert joins him for a month to study French, Latin and English poetry.
1774 Hard times at Mount Oliphant but Robert falls in love for the first time – with 14-year old Nellie Kilpatrick in the harvest field. He writes his first song for her – My Handsome Nell.
1775 Summer term at Hugh Rodger’s school at Kirkoswald to study mensuration and surveying. Makes friends with Willie Niven. Falls in love with Peggy Thompson. Writes O Tibbie, I hae seen the day, I Dream’d I lay where Flowers were Springing.
1776 Provost Fergusson dies. Affairs put into the hands of a factor. Annual rent increased. Writes The Ruined Farmer.
1777 Whitsun – the family moves to Lochlie Farm, near Tarbolton. 130 acres at 130 pounds per annum. The land is wet and William and his sons work hard and long to improve drainage. Robert’s reading increases. Attends dancing class at Dalrymple. William Burnes fails to break lease. His health deteriorates.
1778 Burns meets Agnes Fleming and Annie Rankine, the first of his many heroines in song. Writes The Tarbolton Lasses.
1779 Makes friends with such as James Smith (b. 1765) and James Candlish (1769–1806). Becomes increasingly skilled as ‘blackfoot’ and letter-writer on behalf of local suitors. Writes Montgomerie’s Peggy.
1780 29 July and 3 November – Writes first published letter to William Niven from ‘Lochlee’.
11 November – Founds the Bachelors’ Club in Tarbolton in the company of Gilbert, Hugh Reid, Alexander Brown, Thomas Wright, William McGavin and Walter Mitchell. Later members included Davie Sillar (1760–1830). Writes The Ronalds of the Bennals, The Lass of Cessnock Banks, Mary Morrison.
1781 Courts Alison Begbie. Courts Elizabeth Gebbie. Writes Winter: A Dirge. Dispute between William Burnes and his landlord, David Maclure, about improvements. Robert sent to Irvine to learn flax-dressing. Writes A Prayer under Pressure of Violent Anguish. 4 July – inducted into St David’s Lodge, No 174, Tarbolton. Passed 1 October. Meets Richard Brown (1753–1833) at Irvine. First idea of publishing verses. November – Falls ill in Irvine, visited by father. Writes A Prayer in the Prospect of Death.
1782 1 January – Fire at heckling-shop in the Glasgow Vennel, Irvine. Burns returns home.
24 September – Maclure dispute referred to arbiters.
Burns’s poetry increases. Writes No Churchman am I, My Father Was a Farmer, John Barleycorn.
1783 16 January – Awarded three pounds prize for ‘linseed saved in growing’.
April – begins First Commonplace Book 1783–85 – (‘Observations, Hints, Songs, Scraps of Poetry etc., by Robt. Burness.’). Includes My Bonny Nanie-O, Green Grow the Rashes, The Rigs o Barley, Now Breezy Winds, The Death & Dying Words of Poor Mailie. It also includes the first of two verse letters to John Lapraik.
17 May – William Burnes receives Writ of Sequestration.
Appeals.
18 August – The ‘Oversman’ reports in favour of William.
25 August – He makes further appeal to the Court of Session in Edinburgh.
Autumn – Robert and Gilbert make secret arrangement with Gavin Hamilton (1751–1805) to rent Mossgiel Farm in the
parish of Mauchline – 118 acres at ninety pounds per annum – ‘as an asylum for the family in case of the worst’.
1784 27 January – The Court of Session in Edinburgh finds in favour of William Burnes.
13 February – He dies at Lochlie. Robert’s affair with Bess Paton, a serving girl in the house. He and Gilbert move the Burnes family to Mossgiel.
27 July – Elected Depute-Master of St James Lodge Kilwinning, Tarbolton.
Writes The Poet’s Welcome to His Bastard Wean, Man Was Made to Mourn and The Twa Herds; or the Holy Tulzie.
1785 His annus mirabilis
He writes Holy Willie’s Prayer, Death and Doctor Hornbook, Rantin Rovin Robin, To a Mouse, The Jolly Beggars, The Cotter’s Saturday Night, Address to the Deil.
April – Meets Jean Armour at a dance during Mauchline Race Week.
22 May – Bess Paton gives birth to Elizabeth Paton Burns (d. 1817) – his first child.
Courts Jean Armour. Suffers first fainting fits, headaches, irregularities of the heart.
September – Writes The Belles of Mauchline – first mention of Jean Armour in verse.
Jean pregnant – and ‘every day arising more and more to view’. He writes an Attestation of Marriage to mollify Armours but his mind in a whirl of love and verses.
September – Writes Love and Liberty (or The Jolly Beggars) after night with John Richmond at Poosie Nancie’s Inn in Mauchline. He is on a creative high surge.
October – Finishes his first Commonplace Book in the middle of a line.
November – Writes To A Mouse. Poems, Epistles and Epitaphs pour from him.
In the Epistle to William Simpson (1785) he signs himself ‘Burns’ to match the rhyme required for the line – ‘While Terra Firma, on her axis, / Diurnal turns;’
1786 March – James Armour scornfully cuts out his daughter’s name from ‘marriage’ paper.
3 April – Subscription proposals for printing his poems sent to John Wilson, Kilmarnock. Robert and Gilbert officially arrange with Postal Service to change their surname to Burns.
14 April – Wilson sends out proposals.
23 April – James Armour repudiates Burns as son-in-law. Jean is packed off to Paisley to be reconciled with Robert Wilson. Burns immediately tries to forget her in – ‘all kinds of dissipation and riot – Mason-meetings, drinking matches… and now for the grand cure: the Ship is on her way home that is to take me out to Jamaica.’ Meantime, he takes up with Mary Campbell (1763–86), a Highland dairymaid at Coilsfield House.
14 May – Burns and Mary Campbell exchange Bibles and ‘matrimonial vows’ at Failford prior to her departure for Greenock where she would await him and together they would set sail for the West Indies. He writes two songs for her – The Highland Lassie-O and Will Ye Go to the Indies, my Mary? He also writes in this year The Auld Farmer’s New Year Salutation, The Twa Dogs, Address to the Unco Guid, To A Louse, The Holy Fair, To A Mountain Daisy, The Brigs o Ayr, Tam Samson’s Elegy, Address to A Haggis.
June – Burns sends copy to Wilson for printing.
10 June – Jean confesses by letter to the Kirk Session that Burns has made her pregnant.
15 June – Burns makes the first of three consecutive Sunday penitential appearances before the Reverend William Auld (1709–91) and the congregation of Mauchline Kirk.
9 July – James Armour issues writ against Burns – ‘for an enormous sum’. He goes into hiding – ‘wandering from one friend’s house to another’.
22 July – Transfers his share of Mossgiel to Gilbert.
31 July – Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect by Robert Burns – The Kilmarnock Edition – 618 copies at three shillings a copy published to immediate acclaim and is sold out within a week. Burns emerges from hiding to find himself famous throughout Ayrshire. Armour withdraws his writ. Burns as Ayrshire’s Bard.
6 August – He makes his final appearance at Mauchline Kirk and is thereby granted his Certificate of Bachelorhood by ‘Daddy’ Auld. He is a free man again.
1 September – First postponement of the West Indies voyage on the Bell out of Greenock on 20th. Still hoping for a second edition from Wilson at Kilmarnock.
3 September – Jean gives birth to twins – Robert (d.1857) and Jean (d.1787).
27 September – ‘The feelings of a father’ prompt Burns to cancel the second sailing in the Roselle under Captain Richard Brown.
October – Mary Campbell dies at Greenock, possibly of premature childbirth induced by typhoid fever. Burns abandons all ideas of emigration. Considers idea of Excise. Jean returns to Mauchline. Meets secretly with Burns. Second edition rejected by Wilson. Dr Blacklock recommends that Burns try for a second Edition in Edinburgh while he goes forward with plans for the Excise.
15 November – Begins correspondence with Mrs Dunlop of Dunlop.
27 November – Sets out for Edinburgh on a hired pony.
29 November – Arrives Edinburgh. Lodges with John Richmond at Mrs Carfrae’s. Meets May Cameron, a serving-girl.
1 December – Bess Paton accepts settlement of her claim on Burns.
9 December – Henry Mackenzie reviews the Kilmarnock Edition in The Lounger.
1787 7 January – Meets ‘a very pretty girl, a Lothian farmer’s daughter, whom I have almost persuaded to accompany me to the West Country’.
13 January – The Grand Lodge of Scotland toasts Burns as ‘Caledonia’s Bard’.
14 January – Patrick Miller of Dalswinton offers lease of Ellisland Farm in Nithsdale.
6 February – Writes to Bailies of the Canongate regarding memorial to poet, Robert Ferguson (1750–74) – ‘my elder brother in misfortune’.
22 March – Completes proof-reading of Edinburgh Edition at William Smellie’s Print Shop.
9 April – Begins Second Commonplace Book but calling himself ‘Burness’.
Sits for portrait to Alexander Nasmyth (1758–1840).
17 April – William Creech publishes first Edinburgh Edition.
23 April – Burns sells his copyright to Creech for one hundred guineas.
5 May (to 1 June) – Tours the Borders with Robert Ainslie.
22 May – First volume of Scots Musical Museum published by James Johnson.
26 May – May Cameron gives birth to a boy and claims Burns as the father.
2 June – Burns asks Ainslie, a lawyer, to ‘send for the wench and give her 10 or 12 shillings… and advise her out to some country friends’.
4 June – Made an Honorary Burgess of Dumfries. Given Freedom of Lochmaben.
8 June – Returns triumphant to Mauchline. James Armour changes his mind. Burns meets Jean again. Continuing his ‘leisurely progress through Caledonia’, he tours the West Highlands to Arrochar and Inveraray.
2 August – From Mauchline, writes long autobiographical letter to Dr John Moore.
8 August – Returns to Edinburgh.
15 August – Freed from May Cameron’s writ in meditatione fugae.
25 August – Begins Highland Tour with schoolmaster, William Nicol.
16 September – Returns to Edinburgh via Queensferry.
4 October – Tours Stirlingshire with Dr Adair.
20 October – Returns to Edinburgh. Takes up residence with William Cruickshanks and family at St James Square. Jean Burns dies in infancy. First London edition.
November – Collaborates with James Johnson on The Scots Musical Museum. Goes to Dalswinton to discuss lease of Ellisland Farm with Patrick Miller.
4 December – Meets Mrs Agnes MacLehose (1759–1841) at Miss Mirren’s tea-party.
7 December – Dislocates knee in carriage fall with actor William Woods (1751–1802).
28 December – Begins correspondence with Nancy McLehose.
1788 4 January – Visits Clarinda at home.
7 January – Seeks patronage for Excise from Graham of Fintry.
14 February – Second volume of Scots Musical Museum published. Writing four letters a day to Nancy/Clarinda. Involved with her maid, Jenny Clow.
18 February – Leaves Edinburgh. Returns to Jean.
23 February – Sets up house in Mauchline with Jean. Buys her a mahogany bed, thus making public acknowledgement of her as wife. Continues to write to Nancy.
27 February – Re-visits Ellisland with John Tennant of Glenconner.
3 March – Jean gives birth to twin girls who die on 10th and 22nd.
13 March – Burns returns to Edinburgh.
18 March – Signs lease of Ellisland at rent of fifty pounds per annum.
20 March – Leaves Edinburgh.
April– May – Receives instruction in the Excise at Tarbolton and Mauchline.
Enters ‘marriage’ arrangement with Jean. Writes notice giving her ‘legal entitlement to the best blood in my body; and so, farewell Rakery!’
11 June – Burns settles at Ellisland. Begins on second great creative period (until 1791). Writes Of a the Airts, Auld Lang Syne, The Wounded Hare, Tam Glen, Go fetch to me a pint o wine, John Anderson, my jo, Ca the Yowes, To Mary in Heaven, Tam o Shanter, The Banks o Doon, Bonie Wee Thing, Sweet Afton and A Scots Prologue.
14 July – Excise Commission issued to Burns.
5 August – Burns/Armour marriage recognised by Mauchline Kirk Session. Friendship begun between Burns and Riddells of Friar’s Carse.
September – Commutes between Nithsdale and Mauchline.
November – Jenny Clow bears Burns’ son in Edinburgh.
December – Jean joins Burns in rented accommodation at the Isle, Nithsdale.
1789 16 February – In Edinburgh to settle matters with Creech the Publisher and to deal with paternity writ issued by Jenny Clow.
27 February – Settles with Jenny Clow. Returns next day to Ellisland.
April – Burns orders books on behalf of Monkland Friendly Society in Dunscore.
May – Waits for an Excise appointment.
June – Meets Captain Francis Grose, an English antiquary.
18 August – Francis Wallace Burns (d.1803) born to Jean.
7 September – Commences as Excise Officer in Upper Nothsdale at 50 pounds p.a.
November – Ill with ‘malignant squinancy and low fever’.
December – Influenced by reading of Shakespeare, has ‘some thoughts of the drama’.
1790 January – Overworked as farmer and exciseman, complains of ‘an incessant headache, depression of spirits, and all the truly miserable consequences of a deranged nervous system’, but nevertheless listed for promotion to Examiner or Supervisor on 27th.
February – Third volume of Scots Musical Museum published.
18 February – Inaugural meeting of subscribers towards a new theatre in Dumfries.
July – Transferred to Third Division of Excise, Dumfries.
Meets Anna Park at Globe Tavern. Francis Grose asks for story to go with drawing of Alloway Kirk.
November – Writes Tam o Shanter at Ellisland.
1 December – Sends manuscript to Francis Grose.
1791 January – Burns injured by fall ‘not from my horse, but with my horse’.
30 January – Death of patron, the Earl of Glencairn, at Falmouth on return from Portugal.
31 March – Birth of Elizabeth Park Burns (d.1873) by Anna Park at Dumfries.
9 April – Birth of William Nicol Burns (d.1872) to Jean at Ellisland.
March – Tam o Shanter printed in Edinburgh Magazine and Edinburgh News.
April – Tam o Shanter published in the Grose’s Antiquities of Scotland.
27 April – Glenriddel Manuscript formed.
19 June – Attends Gilbert’s wedding in Mauchline.
25 August – Auction of crops at Ellisland. Thirty people engage in three hours of fighting – ‘such a scene of drunkenness was hardly ever seen in this country’.
August – Sends an account of the Monkland Friendly Society to Sir John Sinclair for inclusion in the Statistical Account.
10 September – Formal renunciation of Ellisland lease.
11 November – Burns moves his family to three rooms above John Syme’s solicitor’s office in the Wee Vennel (now Bank Street) in Dumfries.
6 December – In Edinburgh. Parts from Nancy McLehose.
27 December – Sends Ae Fond Kiss from Sanquhar to Nancy as parting gift.
1792 February – Promoted to Dumfries Port Division at seventy pounds per annum with extra in perquisites – ‘worth twenty pounds a year more than any other Division, besides as much rum and brandy as will easily supply an ordinary family’. Writes Duncan Gray.
29 February – Capture of the French brig Rosamond at Gretna.
10 April – Elected an Honorary Member of the Royal Company of Archers.
16 April – Offers Creech ‘about fifty pages of new material’ for a new edition.
19 April – Sale of French carronades at Dumfries. Burns tries to buy them in order to return them to the French revolutionaries.
August – Fourth volume of Scots Musical Museum contains sixty songs by Burns.
September – Visits Ayrshire.
16 September – Contributes to George Thomson’s Select Collection of Scottish Airs.
29 September – Theatre Royal opens in Shakespeare Street in Dumfries.
October – Contributes to fifth volume of Scots Musical Museum.
13 November – Subscribes to Edinburgh Gazetteer.
21 November – Birth of Elizabeth Riddell Burns (d.1795).
December – Four-day visit to Mrs Dunlop at Dunlop House with Dr Adair. Friends of the People formed in Edinburgh. Political unrest in Dumfries.
31 December – Collector Mitchell ordered to investigate Officer Burns’s political conduct – ‘as a person disaffected to the Government’.
1793 5 January – Defends himself before Robert Graham of Fintry, Excise Commissioner.
18 February – Second Edinburgh edition of Poems published by Creech.
March – Burns asks for Burgess privileges for the education of his sons in Dumfries.
19 May – Burns family moves to Millbrae Vennel (now Burns Street).
May – First set of Thomson’s Select Collection of Scottish Airs published.
30 July (to 2 August) – Tours Galloway with John Syme. Writes Scots Wha Hae, O Whistle and I’ll Come to Ye, my Lad, also epigrams, addresses and prologues.
1 August – Meets Pietro Urbani at Lord Selkirk’s, St Mary’s Isle.
30 August – Sends Scots Wha Hae to George Thomson
October – Meets Nathaniel Gow, fiddler son of the famous Niel Gow.
9 December – Attends Isabella Burns’s marriage at Mossgiel.
1794 7 January – Proposes reorganisation of the Dumfries Excise service.
12 January – Maria Riddell breaks with Burns.
20 April – Robert Riddell dies at Friar’s Carse.
1 May – Declines post with London Morning Chronicle.
25 June (till 28th) – Second Galloway tour with John Syme.
12 August – Birth of James Glencairn Burns (d.1865).
22 December – Begins work on Select Collection of Scottish Airs for Thomson. Writes Wilt Thou be My Dearie?, My Love is like a Red, Red Rose, Charlie, he’s my Darling, My Nanie’s Awa, For the Sake of Somebody.
1795 January – Income reduced – ‘These accursed times, by stopping up Importation, have for this year at least, lopt off a full third of my income.’
12 January – Estranged from Mrs Dunlop.
31 January – Joins Dumfries Volunteer Militia as founder-member. Buys uniform.
February – Reconciled with Maria Riddell.
March – Supports Patrick Heron’s candidacy for the Stewartry Election.
April – Sits for miniature portrait by Alexander Reid of Kirkennan (1747–1843) – ‘who has hit the most remarkable likeness of what I am at this moment.’
24 June – Death of William Smellie, printer, in Edinburgh.
September – Death of Elizabeth Riddell Burns – ‘Autumn robbed me of my daughter.’
December – Ill with rheumatic fever. Writes A Man’s A Man, I’ll Ay Ca in by Yon Toon, Last May a Braw Wooer.
1796 31 January – Recovering slowly – ‘beginning to crawl across my room’.
March – Famine in Dumfries – Bread riots in the streets – ‘money cannot purchase it’.
June – Final letter to James Johnson. Writes O Lay thy Loof in mine, lass, Here’s a Health to ane I love dear, O wert thou in the cauld blast, and his very last song – Fairest Maid on Devon’s Banks.
3 July (till 16th) – At Brow Well. Meets Maria Riddell for the last time.
12 July – Final letter to George Thomson – ‘Do, for God’s sake, send me five pounds…’
18 July – Final letter to James Armour asking for Mrs Armour to come to Jean.
21 July – Dies at five o’clock in the morning.
25 July – Funeral to St Michael’s Kirkyard in Dumfries. Gilbert attends.Jean gives birth to Maxwell Burns (d.1799). John Syme and Alan Cunningham raise subscriptions for Jean and the children. The response is poor due to the bad press received by Burns in the national obituaries.Jean refuses to leave Dumfries to return to Ayrshire. She lives on in the same house for another 37 years – her late husband’s exact lifetime.
1800 Dr James Currie (1756–1805) chosen as first biographer. The resulting four volumes go into nine editions, damaging Burns’s reputation for more than a century.
1801 The first Burns Dinner at the King’s Arms Hotel, Alloway The first Immortal Memory by Rev Hamilton Paul. The Burns Movement had started, the Burns Industry was about to get under way and the Burns Supper may now be served…