Robert Burns

Robert Burns (1759–1796), Scotland's national poet, was born at Alloway in Ayrshire, the son of a poor tenant farmer, and began writing songs while labouring on his family's farms. In July 1786, hoping to pay for passage to Jamaica, he published Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect at Kilmarnock; its success carried him to Edinburgh instead, where a second edition appeared in 1787.

He later farmed at Ellisland and worked as an exciseman in Dumfries, while composing and collecting songs such as Auld Lang Syne and Scots Wha Hae. He died at Dumfries in July 1796, aged 37.