Mary Campbell

Mary Campbell (Highland Mary) was born in a straw thatched cottage on Auchnamore farm, near Dunoon. Her father Archie Campbell was a seaman. In 1773 the family moved to Campbeltown when he became part owner of a sloop which carried coal between Ardrossan, Campbeltown & Troon . At the age of fourteen Mary went to work as an “under nursemaid”.  At first she was employed near her home but she later moved to work on Arran with the family of David Campbell, a Catechist who was related to her mother. She then moved to work in Ayrshire. Being a Gaelic speaker she spoke 'English' with a Highland lilt and hence the nickname Highland Mary.  She eventually moved to serve with the Eglinton family and settled in the Castle of Montgomery, near Tarbolton, Ayrshire.  Robert Bums spotted Mary in church at Tarbolton, when his family were settled in the nearby farm of Lochlea. They fell in love and Mary eventually went to work for Gavin Hamilton, a friend of Bums. At this time Burns was known to be involved with Jean Armour. In March 1786 Jean became pregnant. In order to avoid the disgrace, the Armours sent Jean to live in Paisley with her uncle.

To satisfy the Scots marriage laws it was necessary to have a statement signed before a witness. Jean Armour and Robert Burns 'appear' to have 'married', but their certificate was destroyed by her father. This though did not actually invalidate the 'marriage'.

Mary, perhaps influenced by the rumours of Burns and Jean had decided to leave her work in Ayrshire in the early summer of 1786 and move on. Burns was in financial difficulties and contemplating emigrating to the West Indies to work as a bookkeeper, for which he would have received £30 per annum. 

There is a theory, that Mary returned to her family in the summer of 1786 in order to prepare to emigrate with Burns to Jamaica. Perhaps this is based on his writing ...........

“Will ye go to the Indies. my Mary.

And leave auld Scotia’s shore?

Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary.

Across th’ Atlantic’s roar?

Burns’s Kilmarnock edition resulted in his receiving patronage in the autumn of 1786. Emigration was therefore postponed, and finally forgotten as his finances recovered due to the popularity of his work

Burns and Jean were “married” by Scots law, and this required only a statement signed before a witness. However this document was declared null and void. On 14th May she had her final meeting with Burns on the banks of the Fail, a tributary of the Ayr. They washed their hands in the water before exchanging Bibles and plighting their troth. This second 'marriage' poses the question whether or not Burns was a bigamist under Scots law.  

In the song 'The Highland Lassie O' Burns wrote .............

'She has my heart, she has my hand, 

By secret troth and honour’s band, 

‘Till the mortal stroke shall lay me low, 

I’m thine, my Highland Lassie O!'

.......  this certainly suggests that some type of “marriage” had taken place.

There is no trace, of the bible which Mary gave to Burns. The two volume Bible which Mary received was handed down through the Campbell family to Mary’s nephew, William Anderson. He emigrated to Canada in 1834, and sold the Bible to a group of Burns enthusiasts who were resident in Montreal. They in turn loaned it to the Provost of Ayr, and it is now on display at the Alloway Monument. Although the inscriptions are smudged, sufficient letters remain to read Mary in Volume One and Robert in Volume Two. 

Shortly after the 'marriage' Mary left her work in Ayrshire, came to Greenock and then sailed to Campbeltown. In October Mary sailed back from to Greenock with her father for a celebration to honour her brother Robert who was an apprentice carpenter at Scott’s Shipyard, and had just completed his indenture. They both lodged with their cousin Peter MacPherson at 31 Upper Charles Street in the centre of the town.

Robert became ill with typhus, which was prevalent in the Greenock area. While nursing him Mary caught the disease and died on 20th or 21st October 1786. She was buried in the MacPherson's lair at the Old West Kirk yard. Her romance with Burns caused great interest for years, and in 1842 a monument was erected by public subscription over Mary’s grave in the Old West Kirk yard.  With Burns’s poetry increasing in popularity, interest in Highland Mary was aroused, but although the Burns Club suggested a memorial to mark her grave as early as 1803, it was not until 25th January 1842 that the foundation stone was eventually laid in the Old West Kirk yard by Patrick Maxwell Stewart, the Member of Parliament for Renfrewshire.

According to a report published in the Greenock Advertiser on 23rd January 1842, a scaled bottle containing an inscription, coins, and newspapers was placed in the cavity of a stone. The inscription read - 'The structure which is over this stone has been erected by the contributions of many admirers of Scotia’s Bard in memory of his early love Mary Campbell or Highland Mary.'

The Old West Kirk was in an area near to the harbours. In 1926, so that Harland & Wolff’s shipyard could expand, the church was moved to it's present site on the Esplanade . Highland Mary’s remains and monument however were removed to the Greenock Cemetery and details are as follows.

In 1917, the Burns’s Federation appointed a committee to deal with the logistics of moving Highland Mary’s grave from the Old Kirk yard. On 8th November 1920, the remains of Highland Mary were disinterred and put in an oak casket, supervised by Greenock Burns Club.

 However, the exhumation created a new controversy as a child’s coffin was found in the grave. Was this the child of Burns and Mary, or could it have been that Peter MacPherson gave permission for a neighbour’s child to be buried in the same plot? This caused much speculation that the cause of Mary’s death may have been premature childbirth brought on by her fever. The alternative theory was that the Typhus could well have resulted in a still birth just before her death, and in these circumstances the child would very likely be buried in its mother's coffin.

Considerable research, which included dating the board, has established that the child’s coffin was placed in the grave some 40 years after Highland Mary’s death. It is more likely that the child was the daughter of a ship’s captain called Duncan Hendry who was related to the MacPhersons. Agnes Hendry, who was born on 4th January 1827, died on 27th February 1827 and was buried in the MacPhersons grave.

Finally, on 13th November 1920, the casket was re-interred in Greenock Cemetery, and members of the Greenock Burns Club carried the bier. The service was attended by representatives of several other Burns Clubs, and numerous Burns enthusiasts.