Clementina Grant was born in Edinburgh in 1803. She lived most of her early life in southern England where her father was a canon of Chichester Cathedral in Sussex. Despite this Episcopal Church background, the Grants also had family connections with the more dominant Presbyterian Church. When Clementina was 22 she returned to Scotland to look after the household of her uncle, who was the minister of Monkton in Ayrshire. There she came into contact with Thomas Burns, who was serving as minister at nearby Ballantrae. According to Burns’ biographer ‘it was love at first sight.’The couple was married in 1830 and Thomas succeeded Clementina’s uncle in the Monkton manse, one of the best-paid ministerial posts in Scotland.
During their years in Monkton Clementina gave birth to five children and Thomas built a new 800-seat church. They were comfortable, prosperous and very happy. This made it all the harder for the family when Thomas joined the dissidents who formed the breakaway Free Church of Scotland in 1843. His decision meant giving up his post at Monkton and the comfortable manse and substantial income that went with it. He later boasted with pride of the four-square support he had received from his wife. Even while the crucial Disruption meeting was going on in Edinburgh, Clementina was already packing up the household ready to leave their home for an uncertain future.
This adventurous spirit made Clementina an ideal pioneer. She was just as ready to set sail for New Zealand in 1847 as she had been to leave Monkton four years earlier. No wonder she was the love of her husband’s life. He was both besotted with and devoted to her. It is remembered that when she was out at some social function in Dunedin he would pace about at home waiting for her to return. This love story humanises the Reverend Thomas Burns in a way that nothing else about him does. It also provides one of the few personality traits he shared with his famous uncle, Robert Burns, a man who loved women, and (despite multiple infidelities) his own long-suffering wife above all the others.
In Otago, Clementina Burns was a notable figure purely by being the Minister’s wife. In fact she was also a strong personality in her own right and widely esteemed by members of his congregation. Thomas was apparently absolutely useless on the domestic front and totally dependent on his wife and children for all practical matters at home. It is recorded that he once stood up to preach at First Church with a bright yellow handkerchief poking out of his breast pocket. All eyes turned to Clementina since everyone knew that she was responsible for laying out his clothes and therefore must have been guilty of this affront to Calvinist sensibilities.
Clementina survived her husband by seven years. After his death in 1871 she returned for a time to Scotland. She died in Dunedin in 1878, aged 74.
Mrs Clementina Burns (née Grant)