A Home at (Long) Last – More Shame on the Town

On June 8th, just six weeks before the statue was due to be erected, a letter to the Paisley Express noted that the Burns statue committee “…are to be congratulated…” on having found a site for the statue. This fact was by now an open secret, although the formal application for the site was not made until the following day. Ironically the site (in the Fountain Gardens, far from the other major statues in the town centre) was granted by the representatives of the late owner, Thomas Coats, whose own statue is located (yes you’ve guessed it!) on Dunn Square.
The 8th June letter goes on to voice concern over the isolation of the park, suggesting that “Possibly there may be many who will not be too favourable to the Fountain Gardens, and this feeling will be largely due to the fact that the gardens are not such a popular resort as they might be.”


Location of Statues erected around the end of the nineteenth century, showing the isolation of the Burns Statue:

1 Alexander Wilson (the first public statue in the town)
2 Robert Tannahill
3 George Clark
4+5 Thomas and Peter Coats
6 Robert Burns
7 Queen Victoria
8 “Loves Young Jealousies” (Sir William Dunn)

Sadly, at the meeting on June 9th, the final insult was delivered to the donors when councillor Clark, the man who had done more than any other to prevent the erection of the statue in the centre of Dunn Square, moved the motion to accept the application for the Fountain Gardens.
The lateness of these arrangements meant that they committee were, as the council intended, placed in a “take it or leave it” situation: it was already, in reality, much too late to make arrangements in time for the centenary of the poet’s death.
So it finally came to pass that an enterprise that started out with such high hopes and pride in the bosoms of so  many of the people of the area, finally saw the product of their labours ignominiously consigned to an out of the way corner on the fringes of the town.
Still the voices of dissent continued. On the very day that the site was approved a letter to the “Express” voiced an objection saying “ ….that objection – a vital one – is the comparative seclusion of the proposed site, away from the crowded thoroughfares of the town…”.

There was no doubt about the views of the townspeople. An editorial in the paper on the same day stated “…we believe that the majority still go with us in our selection of the centre of the Dunn Square.”