While America celebrated it's 250th birthday in July this year, a local organisation celebrated 225 years of its history - Greenock Burns Club!
While we usually associate the annual celebrations of the life of poet Robert Burns with his birthday on 25 January - known worldwide as Burns Night, a commemoration of the 5th anniversary of the poet's death on 21 July 1801 took place in Greenock. Admirers of the poet, along with members of the Greenock & Ayrshire Society met in the White Hart Hotel in Cathcart Square, Greenock to mark the occasion. This was the start of Greenock Burns Club.
The Greenock & Ayrshire Society started in 1796 and included in its membership many local men as well as Ayrshire men with business interests in the area. You can read about some of these Ayrshire men in a previous post here.
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| Certificate of Greenock Ayrshire Society (also on view in Burns Club Room in Greenock Custom House |
On Friday 24 January 1902, an article appeared in the Greenock Telegraph noting that the Centenary celebrations of Greenock Burns Club would take place the following day in the Town Hall Saloon. But also mentioned, as proof of the earlier 1801 meeting, an important artefact which was once housed in a wooden chest with other important documents belonging to the Club. The article states –
“The principal treasure, perhaps, in this chest is the original minute-book of the Greenock Club, the first entries in which are dated 1801, in the summer of which year the society was first formed. It is an excise book which belonged to Robert Burns or rather was in his keeping and for his use as a Government servant. It is of the once familiar form, oblong and narrow in width, and bound in thick brown calf boards. The leaves have taken on an age-worn appearance, but otherwise the little volume is in a state of good preservation. On the first leaf under the top cover is the following inscription:
“This Book was found in the house of the late Mr Robert
Burns at his demise and presented to the Burns Club of Greenock by Adam
Pearson, Esq, of His Majesty’s Excise, Edinburgh, AD 1801.”
On the second page is the following in large and legible handwriting: “Greenock Burns Club and Ayrshire Society.”
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| Cover on display in Greenock Burns Club's Archive and Exhibition Room in Greenock Custom House |
The donor of the book, Adam Pearson (1743-1815) was Secretary of Excise for Scotland based in Edinburgh. He was a witness at the trial of Deacon Brodie and his associate who were charged with robbing the Excise Office in Chessels Court in the Canongate, Edinburgh. They were found guilty and hanged in front of the Tollbooth in the High Street. Adam Pearson died in 1816. He and his family are buried in the Canongate Kirkyard in Edinburgh. Also buried in the same place are poet Robert Fergusson (1750-1774), whose work was greatly admired by Robert Burns. Burns was responsible for providing the headstone for Fergusson's grave. Agnes Maclehose (1759-1841), Clarinda to Burns' Sylvander is buried there too.
The Greenock Telegraph article continues by describing the first entry in the minute book -
"The minutes in this book open with an Ode on the poet composed by Mr Neil Dougal, a prominent and gifted local musician of the years of the last century, and the author of some Psalm tunes long popular with Presbyterians, including the well-known “Kilmarnock.”
The long Ode – oh, how lengthy and gushing these old odes on Burns usually were! – concludes as follows:
“Sae for his [Burns] sake the dainty cheil,
I wish his weans and widow weal,
Gude grant them wealth
O’ milk and meal, For brose and bread,
And bless them with a cosy beil,
Till they are dead.”
Neil Dougal (1776-1862) was a Greenock born poet and composer. He started life at sea but was seriously injured in 1794 while in Greenock when the ships in harbour were ordered to fire a salute in honour of Lord Howe's victory over the French. His gun misfired and he lost an arm and the sight in his right eye. He had to give up his life at sea and turned to other ways of making a living. He taught singing and composed many psalms, the best known being "Kilmarnock". He was a lifelong member of Greenock Burns Club.
The cover of the excise book still exists and can be seen in the Archive and Exhibition Room of Greenock Burns Club in the Custom House in Greenock. Unfortunately, the rest of the book has been lost. No one knows what happened to the inside pages after the cover was removed to be photographed.
