Jean Gardner

[1] Gardner may have been the daughter of James Gardiner (d.1768), a butcher living at the Seagate[4] in Irvine, and Janet Caldwell.

[5] When James Gardiner died in 1768, his eldest daughter inherited half of his property; already a widow according to Strawhorn, her dead husband, a shipmaster, being one Alexander Armour.

[8] Gardner joined the Buchanites, who numbering only around forty-six at this time, were expelled from Irvine in May 1784 after the sect had seceded from the Relief Church.

[8] However, Burns' sister, Mrs Begg stated that the poet was for a time fond of Jean Gardner.

[10] Joseph Train states that "Burns frequently visited her in the society both at New Cample and Auchen Gibbert.

[2] However, this may simply be an exaggeration based on Andrew Innes's actual testimony given half a century after the events took place.

[8] Burns was recorded as having held a surprisingly dim view of the Buchanites and wrote:- "[A]bout two years ago, a Mrs Buchan from Glasgow came among them, & began to spread some fanatical notions of religion among them, [...] till in spring last the Populace rose & mobbed the old leader Buchan & put her out of the town; on which all her followers voluntarily quit the place likewise, & with such precipitation, that many of them never shut their doors behind them [...] Their tenets are a strange jumble of enthusiastic jargon; among others, she pretends to give them the Holy Ghost by breathing on them, which she does with postures & practices that are scandalously indecent.