Ann Park


Helen Anne Park, known as Anna Park or Ann Park, was born in 1769 at Moffat, Scotland. She was thought to have been the daughter of Joseph Park, an Edinburgh coachmaker and Jean Dick however recent research has shown that she was actually the daughter of Walter Park and Elizabeth Blacklock. Margaret Ewing nee Park, a onetime landlady of 'The Globe', was her sister and she worked there as a barmaid. Anna bore the poet Robert Burns an illegitimate child named Elizabeth 'Betty' Burns as a result of an adulterous affair.

Life and character

Anna was a niece of Mrs Jean Hyslop, who had been the landlady at the Globe Tavern in Dumfries before Anna's sister Margaret Ewing nee Park took over. Anna had five sisters in all, namely Margaret, Janet, Betty, Elizabeth and Janet. Anna's father was a servant and later a chaise driver.
Anna first met Burns when she was only 21 and following an adulterous affair with the poet, gave birth on 31 March 1791 to Robert Burns's daughter, Elizabeth 'Betty' Burns, just a few days before his wife Jean Armour gave birth to his legitimate son, William Nicol Burns. Anna Park is said to have given Elizabeth to Burns in 1793 when was seeking a position as a domestic servant. The birth is thought to have taken place in Leith where she was sent so that the birth would not lead to Burns being the subject of scandal at this stage.
One other tradition is that Anna actually died whilst giving birth to Elizabeth or soon after, and Maria Riddell did write that Jean Armour was a generous person for having taken in an illegitimate child "... who had lost her mother." She certainly vanishes from history in the early 1790s.
Brown records that two of Anna's grandsons were at the 1859 Glasgow Anniversary Celebrations, sons therefore of her daughter Betty and John Thomson.

Association with Robert Burns

Burns first met Anna Park at the Globe Tavern in Dumfries, where she worked as a barmaid. She was Burns's "Anna of the gowden locks" although when the song was first published in 1799 the subject of the song had "raven locks."
Anna may also have been the inspiration of "Yestreen, I had a pint of wine," the lovesong that Burns considered his best. In his totally unrepentant postscript the poet wrote :



Very little primary evidence survives about the relationship between Burns and Anna Park who vanishes from the records after their child 'Betty' was born. Local tradition relates that Anna "had other pretty ways to render herself agreeable to the customers at the inn than the serving of wine", however no real evidence exists to confirm this.

Elizabeth "Betty" Burns

is considered to have been born on 31 March 1791 in Leith, Midlothian, Edinburgh. Elizabeth was indisputably the daughter of Anna Park and Robert Burns. Jean Armour brought up Elizabeth, as one of her own family, commenting that "Our Robin should hae had twa wives." She received, at the age of 21, the sum of £200 from the fund raised by her father's admirers.
Betty kept in contact with the family and in November 1819 Isobel Begg, Burns' youngest sister, relates in a letter that Betty's husband had been out of work for some time and was now working as a labourer earning nine shillings a week except for when the weather was bad. She wrote "God help them! Poor creatures! I have not filled my mouth once but I have thought of them." In 1843 she wrote to Isobel Begg nee Burns recalling that she had named her children James and Sarah at the behest of Jean Armour and that in 1833 Jean had sent her £2 to purchase a frock for her youngest child. The letter to Isobel dated from after Jean's death and in it she was highly complimentary about Jean, the lady who had raised her.
Interestingly, given the uncertainty over her mother's fate, she is said to have been named by her mother's friends and remained in Leith for two years until Jean sent a servant to bring her to the Burns's home at Ellisland. She may even have been initially raised in Moffat. She had her father's looks and the neighbours at Leith were aware of her parentage. Jean gave her the surname Burns after her husband's death.
Elizabeth or 'Betty' Burns as she was known, married Private John Thomson of the Stirlingshire Militia. He was the son of William Thomson and Agnes Adam, and had been born in Glasgow in 1788. They married on 2 June 1808 in Dumfries, Dumfriesshire, Scotland. Thomson sent Betty to stay with his parents in Pollokshaws, Glasgow, until he left the militia in 1814, taking up the trade of handloom weaving, and remaining in Pollockshaws until their deaths. John died on 22 February 1869, and Betty died on 13 June 1873 in Crossmyloof at the age of 82. They are both buried in the Old Burgher churchyard in Pollokshaws.
Their children were William Thomson b. 23 March 1809, d. 22 May 1855; Jean Armour Thomson b. 27 July 1815, d. 22 January 1891; Robert Burns Thomson b. 16 December 1817, d. 14 April 1887; Agnes Thomson b. c 1821, d. 6 May 1865; Sarah Burns Thomson b. c 1825, d. 15 December 1885; James Glencairn Thomson b. 19 October 1827, d. 9 July 1911; Elizabeth Thomson b. 26 July 1830; and Margaret Thomson b. 3 May 1833, d. 23 November 1896.
She felt that the Burns family did not accept her, most notably through her exclusion from the Burns Festival in Ayr of 1844. Significantly her son Robert was rejected upon trying to greet his father's sons, his uncles, at the Ayr Festival. She stated that her 'unfortunate' birth was the greatest stain by far on her father's character.
Some confusion exists over Anna Parks first name and surname in the various sources, with variations such as Ann Hyslop, Helen Anne Hislop, Etc. The variation Helen Hyslop adds to the confusion as a 'beauty' of this name from Moffat is said to have had an affair and a daughter, also Helen, by the poet.
A letter of 1792 to Maria Riddell has led to speculation that she had been asked by Burns to carry out a task regarding Elizabeth, Ann's daughter.
Janet Elsie-May Coom, the great, great, great granddaughter of Robert Burns, through Anna Park, was made an honorary member of the Irvine Burns Club in January 2009.