Died August 07, 1997
John Strawhorn was a local Ayrshire historian, who eventually gained an international reputation and who became a member of the Advisory Committee of Yale University's Boswell Publications.
Strawhorn began his career in 1940, working as a research officer at Glasgow University helping to prepare the Third Statistical Account of Scotland's Ayrshire volume. He became known and respected in wider circles for his 1959 Ayrshire at the Time of Burns, and he was elected President of Ayrshire Archaeological and Natural History Society.
In 1982 he retired as Assistant Head of Ayr Academy and spent the rest of his life immersing himself even more in the history of the county of Ayr, which he so loved.
Strawhorn lived for the greater part of his adult life in Mauchline, the village so closely associated with the poet Robert Burns, and located just a few miles north of Auchinleck.