Ayrshire Through The Ages
1739 David Dale is born in Stewarton. He finds great success in the cotton industry, and founds two model communities at Catrine and New Lanark.
1786 Robert Burns’n Poems, Chiefly in the Scottishh Dialectect is publishedd by Kilmarnock printer and bookseller John Wilson. It is the first collection of his work.
Historical highlights from the region n
1803 The first edition of the Ayr Advertiser is published by John Wilson and his brother Peter on 5 August. In 2020 the newspaper prints the headline “Turnberry hotelier tests positive for coronavirus” when President Trump announces that he has caught Covid-19.
1815 Edgar Allan Poe travels to Irvine to live with his foster father John Allan’s family for a short period.
1851 Kays of Scotland is founded in East Ayrshire, and still makes curling stones today.
1887 John Boyd Dunlop develops a practical pneumatic tyre.
1881 Alexander Fleming is born at Lochfield Farm near Darvel. His discovery of penicillin in 1928 revolutionises medicine.
1922 The Kilbirnie War Memorial gateway is unveiled, and names 159 locals killed during the First World War.
1942 Saltcoats-born airman Kenneth Campbell is posthumously awarded a Victoria Cross for piloting a torpedo bomber in a successful attack on a German battleship in Brest Harbour, Brittany.