BURNS'S FAMILY HISTORY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3342, 3 April 1918, Page 58

BURNS'S FAMILY HISTORY.

INTERESTING REMINISCENCES. Under the auspices of the London Robert Burns Club some 400 members and friends gathered on January 25 in the Criterion Restaurant, and honoured "the immortal memory." /■ : . , Mr William Will, president of the club, in proposing the toast, "A Salute to Adventurers," remarked that apologies for absence had been received from Burns great grand-daughter and his great-great grandson. But they had with them the great-grandson and great-great-grandson of Burns' landlord. "It is interesting," said. •Mr Will, "in the presence of Lord Glenconner, to recall the fact that when Burns contemplated seriously taking up farming after his Edinburgh success, that remarkable man, Patrick Miller, of Dalswmton, tho inventor of the steam paddle-boat and the carronade, offered the poet the selection of the farms on hi 3 estate. Burns asked his great friend, James Tonnant. of Glenconner, to assist him to select his farm. They selected Ellisland. Patrick Miller and his sons, Peter, and William, were real friends to the poet, and I say this in the full knowledge that one of these sons attempted to seduce Burns into London journalism. The daughter of the second son, Major William Miller, of the Blues, married into a military family named Bairnsfather. And it comes that at a celebration in London of the birthday of their common friend, Robert Burns, the two families again met after a lapse of 130 years—James Tennant being represented by Lord Glenconner and' Patrick Miller by his great grandson and great-great grandson, Major Bairnsfather and Captain _ Bruce Bairnsfather, the brilliant young artist who in a moment of inspiration r discov'erec! to us something of the humour of the British soldier.