Scotland’s national poet Robert Burns has been recognised by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) for his work as a land surveyor.

The title Honorary Chartered Surveyor was awarded to the poet at the Governing Council dinner yesterday in Edinburgh.

It is the only posthumous membership ever to be granted by the Institution.

Minister for Local Government and Planning Derek MacKay received the award on behalf of the Scottish people.

It will now go to the National Trust for Scotland’s Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Alloway.

Minister Mackay said: "It is a pleasure to receive this award in honour of Robert Burns. While his contribution to Scotland and Scottish culture is widely recognised, his work as a surveyor is less well known.

"Like Burns, the work of the surveying profession is a vital part of modern Scottish life, and it has been a pleasure to hear more about the work of the profession, and its association with the Bard."


The Bard may be recognised for his poetry and song, but Robert Burns was a tenant farmer by birth and background.

In fact, the only professional training Burns ever received was as a land surveyor.

He was sent as a young boy to the Ayrshire village of Kirkoswald where studied land surveying and geometry.

The Writer's Museum in Edinburgh houses four links of a surveying chain which was used by the poet while working as an Excise Officer in Dumfries.

Other evidence of Robert Burns’s work as a surveyor exists, including two links from another of the poet’s surveying chains held by East Ayrshire Council Museum Service.

The surveying chain’s handle is held in the collection of the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Alloway.

Professor Nigel Leask, Regius Professor of English Language and Literature at University of Glasgow, said: "As a 17 year old son of an Ayrshire tenant farmer, Robert Burns was trained in 'Mensuration, Surveying, Dialling etc' at Kirkoswald, and read widely in the contemporary literature on the subject.

"He would have been required to draw field plans and estate maps, and be familiar with surveying tools. In the era of agricultural improvement, this was expected of an ambitious 'improving' farmer, his training was absolutely standard for the period."

RICS Director for Scotland, Sarah Speirs, said: "In awarding The Bard honorary membership, The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors wished to acknowledge Burns’ professional training as a land surveyor and where better that in Scotland, in front of a global audience to acknowledge yet another talent to this most talented of Scotsmen."

(IT)