Isabella Burns, the youngest sister of the Poet

A mezzotint engraving of an oil painting by Robert Taylor of the poets' sister.   Isabella Burns was Robert Burns' youngest sister and also the youngest of the family, born when the poet was twelve years of age. She married John Begg, a local man from Mauchline. She had six sons and three daughters. After her husband's early death in 1813 following a fall from a horse, the family moved to East Lothian.   Isabella finally settled in Alloway, spending her last years in the village where her famous brother had been born. She met many of Burns' admirers and biographers and was a source of recollections about his childhood and early life.   This mezzotint, made from an earlier oil portrait by Robert Taylor was published in 1898 in the "Memorial Catalogue of the Burns Exhibition, 1896". This detailed the contents of the great exhibition of Burns material held in the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts in 1896 as part of the events which commemorated the centenary of the poet's death.