Memory and Public Commemoration - Robert Burns
Our Aim
Throughout the world Robert Burns (1759 – 1796) is one of the most commemorated poets. Commemoration has taken many forms, from the ubiquitous Burns supper through to major public statuary and monuments and smaller private artefacts such as Mauchline ware.
The public reaction to Burns’s death in 1796 produced a great outpouring of grief. Almost immediately there appeared a need amongst the public to remember but also to celebrate Burns and his poetry. This yearning was still as potent over a century after his death.
A key aim of this project, ‘Robert Burns: Inventing Tradition and Securing Memory 1796 - 1909’, funded by the AHRC and involving researchers at the universities of Dundee and Glasgow, is to document the objects and monuments that commemorated Robert Burns, as well as to explore the variety of reasons that lay behind his incredible popularity.
Photo opposite:
Statue group of Robert Burns and Highland Mary, Beacon Hill Park, Victoria, B.C.
Erected 10th November 1900.
Sculpted by Hamilton P. MacCarthy.
This simple stone directs Pale Scotia's way, To pour here sorrows o'er her Poet's dust.
Extract of words Robert Burns had engraved on the headstone he arranged over the grave of the poet Robert Fergusson.
The Project
The research team at the University of Glasgow (led by Professor Murray Pittock and assisted by Pauline Mackay) is concentrating on the private commemoration of Robert Burns, creating a web-based listing of the different kinds of Burns-related material culture produced commercially between 1796 and 1909.
The focus of the University of Dundee’s research team, comprising professors Christopher Whatley and Murdo Macdonald and our research assistant Katherine McBay, is on the public statuary and monuments erected after Burns’s death - during the ‘long’ nineteenth century, up until 1909.
The later part of the century (ie from 1877, when a statue of Burns was unveiled in Glasgow) saw a surge of life-sized and heroic statues erected both in the UK and overseas in Burns’s honour. This was in addition to the construction of a smaller number of substantial architectural monuments erected earlier, the first of these being the Alloway Monument completed in 1823.
An online database comprising fifty-eight of the major life-sized and heroic statues of Burns or related to Burns’s works, including the architectural memorials, has been created. View the database website. Apart from images of the statues and other memorials, the database provides information on the sponsors and funders of the memorials, the sculptors and the variety of ways that they represented Burns, and the public reaction to these productions.
The database, hosted by the University of Glasgow, will remain as a permanent, accessible, and we hope invaluable resource which will provide enthusiasts and admirers of Robert Burns with a window into the range of Burns memorials erected worldwide. It will also function as a platform from which it is hoped future research can be carried out.
The research carried out at both Dundee and Glasgow universities is intended not only to reveal the different ways in which Burns was commemorated, but also to act as a starting point for reflection on the linkages between public art forms as material culture and the literary culture of Burns’s works – examining how the commemoration of Burns impacted on the way his poetry was and is received.
Photo opposite:
Statue of Robert Burns, Albert Square, Dundee.
Erected 16th October 1880.
Sculpted by Sir John Steell.
Project Team at University of Dundee
- Professor Christopher A. Whatley FRSE
- Professor Murdo Macdonald
- Research Assistant – Katherine McBay
The project team welcome feedback from viewers of the online Robert Burns memorial database and the taxonomy. We are also happy to receive further information and images on any of the memorials and private artefacts listed within the project website, and also on those memorials and smaller objects which commemorate Robert Burns which are not currently included on our website.
Email the project team at:robertburnsbeyondtext@dundee.ac.uk