Author: Gilfillan, Robert
Biography:
GILFILLAN, Robert (1798-1850 ODNB)
He was born on 7 July 1798 at Dunfermline, Fife, the second of three sons born to Robert Gilfillan, a master weaver, and Marion (Law) Gilfillan; he also had a sister. He was baptised on 29 July. He received only rudimentary education because his father’s ill health rendered him unable to work. In 1811 the family moved to Leith where he was apprenticed to a firm of coopers; although he disliked the work, he completed the apprenticeship. He began to write songs at this time and taught himself to play the flute. Returning to Dunfermline in 1818, he was employed in a grocer’s and then, having moved back to Leith, as a clerk. Gilfillan was intent on self-improvement and attended evening meetings and classes at the Edinburgh School of Art. He began sending his poems out for publication and soon gained a name for himself. His poems focus on scenes of Scottish domestic life; the finest and most enduring are his songs. He died of a stroke at Leith on 4 Dec. 1850 and was buried in the South Leith cemetery where there is still a monument. In addition to the works listed here, he also published Poems and Songs (1839). The fourth edition of this, issued in 1851, includes some poems left in manuscript on his death and a memoir written by William Anderson (q.v.). (ODNB 8 Jan. 2019; ancestry.co.uk 22 Mar. 2025; Robert Gilfillan, Poems and Songs, 4th edn [1851]) SR