page_title: Isabella Burns
section_title: Association with Robert Burns
hierarchical_section_title: Isabella Burns / Association with Robert Burns
caption_attribution_description: English: Signature, etc of Robert Burns Begg, grandson of Isabella Begg nee Burns and a great nephew of Robert Burns the poet.
context_page_description: Isabella Burns or Isobel Burns was the youngest sister of the poet Robert Burns, born to William Burness and Agnes Broun at Mount Oliphant Farm on the 27 June 1771 and christened on 2 July 1771 by Rev. William McGill, a friend of her father. When she died she was the last member of Robert Burns's immediate family and when living at Bridge House in Alloway for the last sixteen years of her life she entertained many visitors who were interested in his life and works. She was the source of many published insights into Burns' life, character and loves. Her siblings knew her as 'Isbal'.
context_section_description: Isabella's religious education was partly taught at home by his father, using the A Manual of Religious Belief that William Burnes had written for that purpose, assisted by John Murdoch. Her siblings had been taught with the same manual.
  Isabella was the source of many published insights into her brother's life and loves, in particular she is the sole authority for Burns's first love being Nelly Kilpatrick although she was only around three years of age at the time and up until then Nelly Blair had been the accepted name of the lady concerned. Isabella identified 'Montgomerie's Peggy' as the housekeeper at Coilsfield House. She may have been 'Highland' Mary. Isabella Steven was identified with O Tibbie, I hae seen the day by Isabella. At times her recollections were manifestly wrong.
  Memorably Isabella was the one who described the deathbed scene of her father on 13 February 1784 when he advised ..to walk in Virtue's paths and to shun every vice and intimated that there was a member of his family whose future conduct he feared. Her brother Robert asked Oh, father, is it me you mean? His father said it was and Isabella recollected that he turned towards the window with tears streaming down his face and his chest heaving with barely suppressed emotion.
  Isabella's daughter of the same name wrote to Dr Chambers and informed him that it was her Uncle Gilbert and his sisters who were set against Robert marrying Elizabeth Paton.
  Isabella provided the name Alison Begbie, the lady who refused his marriage proposal, to the Burns biographer Robert Chambers when she herself was 76 years of age, recollecting events and details from when she was only 9 or 10 years old. Research by the author James Mackay suggests that 'Elison Begbie' was more likely to be a confused recollection of the name Elizabeth Gebbie, a surname which does appear in the Galston parish register. 
  For the four years that Burns remained at Mossgiel Farm he would ask Isabella to sing through the words of the songs he was composing and Isabella also recalled secretly reading the poems that Robert would write on a slate in his room after his mid-day meal having composed them in his head in the morning. Robert may have become aware of this as he starting using a simple code in parts of his compositions. Her brother died when she was twenty-five years old.
  In the autumn of 1786, Isabella recalled the delivery of a letter that clearly caused Robert considerable distress and this is thought to be news of the death of 'Highland' Mary Campbell. 
  Whilst at Lochlea Farm Robert wrote a story, The marriage of Robin Redbreast and Jenny Wren, for his young siblings which Isabella remembered and told to Dr Chambers in 1850/51. The story was published in Chamber's Nursery Rhymes of Scotland. 
  On 10 June 1844 Isabella, now living in Ayrshire, was part of a family reunion in which her nephews Robert, William Nicol Burns and James Glencairn Burns met together on the banks of the Doon in what was a great public event with at least eighty thousand in attendance.
  A jotting-book used to record simple transactions by William Burness also had records by Robert and Isabella was in the habit of cutting out sections of the jotter for souvenir hunters who visited her at her Belleisle home.
  She recalled that Robert never gained any proficiency with the fiddle or the German flute.
  Robert Chambers donated the £300 profits from his 1851 four volume book The Life and Works of Robert Burns to Isabella's two daughters in order to secure their future financial security.
  In 1891 Robert Burns Begg, Isabella's grandson, privately published for the family a Memoir of Isobel Burns, signed and numbered by him. In 1894 this was reprinted for general circulation. It is not clear why her name was shortened to 'Isobel' as she signed her letters 'Isabella', however her family knew her as 'Isbal'. The book was dedicated to his father and namesake, Robert Burns Begg.
  In 1843 David Octavius Hill photographed her when she was seventy-two, the only one of Robert Burns' siblings to be so.
  At the age of seventy-seven a 
caption: Signature of Robert Burns Begg, Isabella's grandson.
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