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Author: Burness, John

Biography:

BURNESS, John (1771-1826: ancestry.co.uk)

Born on 23 May 1771, he was the youngest son of William Burness, a farmer at Bogjorgan, Glenbervie in Kincardineshire, and his wife Helen Thomson. Both parents had died by the time Burness was thirteen and he had just one year of formal schooling. He apprenticed as a baker in Brechin and subsequently worked as a journeyman baker in Forfar. In 1794 he enlisted in the Angus Fencible Volunteer Corps of Infantry. This took him in 1796 to Dumfries where he met Robert Burns (q.v.), a relation. Burns was by then in failing health but he encouraged Burness to publish his “Thrummy Cap.” The Angus Fencibles disbanded in 1799 and Burness returned to work as a baker, this time in Stonehaven, Kincardineshire. On 28 Nov. 1801 he married Margaret Davidson at Dunnottar, near Stonehaven; they had at least one child. His business failed to prosper and he enlisted with the Forfar militia. In 1815 he was discharged in County Kildare, Ireland, and he returned to Stonehaven where he worked as a subscription canvasser for books. This too proved unrewarding and, broken in health, Burness died in a snowstorm at Portlethen in late Jan. 1826. He was buried in what is now St. Peter’s churchyard, Aberdeen. His “Thrummy Cap” may have been first published before 1800 but no copy has been located; it was frequently reissued, often collected with other tales and works. At least some of the plays collected in Plays, Poems, Tales were separately published; they include Charles Montgomery (Aberdeen, 1800), The Hermit; or, The Dead Come to Life (Edinburgh, 1808).  (ancestry.co.uk 16 Feb. 2022; BAM; DWS; ESTC; Caledonian Mercury 30 Jan. 1826; R. M. Lawrance, “John Burness, ‘Thrummy Cap’” Burns Chronicle 22 [1913]: 110-14)

 

Books written (8):

Dundee: Printed by T. Colvill for the author, [1791]
Montrose: printed by Smith and Hill, 1819