Agnes Broun

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Agnes Broun (1732-1820), the mother of the poet Robert Burns, was born on a farm near Kirkoswald, South Ayrshire.^[1]

She was the oldest of her five siblings, and age 10 when her mother died. Two years after, when her father remarried, she was sent to live in Maybole with one of her grandmothers, Mrs. Rennie. This grandmother was a repository of much oral tradition, including Scottish songs and ballads.^[2]

Agnes was eventually engaged to one William Nelson, a ploughman, but broke off the engagement due, reportedly, to an indiscretion on Nelson’s part. It is thought that she met William Burns, a market gardener, at the Maybole Fair in 1756. They married in 1757, and settled in Alloway, Ayrshire, where they raised seven children, including Robert, born on January 25, 1759.^[3]

She is widely known to have entertained her young “Robbie” with legends from local oral traditions, and folk songs.^[4]

She was to outlive both her son and husband by several decades. William Burns died in 1784, and Agnes went to live with her son, Gilbert. She lived until age 88, and was buried in the churchyard at Bolton.^[5]

According to Robert Burns’ sister, Mrs. Begg, she “was rather under the average height; inclined to plumpness, but neat, shapely, and full of energy; having a beautiful pink-and-white complexion, a fine square forehead, pale red hair but dark eyebrows and dark eyes often ablaze with a temper difficult of control. Her disposition was naturally cheerful; her manner, easy and collected; her address, simple and unpresuming; and her judgement uncommonly sound and good. She possessed a fine musical ear, and sang well.”^[6]

Mark Twain wrote of her in Innocents Abroad (Ch. XXXVI): "It reminds me of what Robert Burns’ mother said when they erected a stately monument to his memory: 'Ah, Robbie, ye asked them for bread and they hae gi'en ye a stane.'"

There is a monument to her, called Burns' Mother's Well, near Bolton on the roadside from Haddington, East Lothian. ^[7]

According to the Scottish Gazetteer Project, the inscription for the well reads: "Drink of the pure crystals and not only be ye succoured but also refreshed in the mind. Agnes Broun, 1732 - 1820. To the mortal and immortal memory and in noble tribute to her, who not only gave a son to Scotland but to the whole world and whose own doctrines he preached to humanity that we might learn."

In 1932, William Baxter FSA (Scot) restored the well. Some 100 yards away is the site of one of the Burns’s former homes. ^[8]

A bed and breakfast called the Whitestone Cottage, on the Culzean estate, Ayrshire, claims to be Agnes Broun's birthplace.^[9]

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