KILMARNOCK, municipal and police burgh, manufacturing town and parish, Ayrshire, Scotland, on Kilmarnock Water, a tributary of the Irvine, 24 m. S.W. of Glasgow by the L.M.S. rail way. Pop. (1931) 38,099. The town possesses an institute with a good museum ; a corn exchange with a tower; an art gallery; an observatory, and an academy and a technical school. The grounds of Kilmarnock House, presented to the town in 1893, have been laid out as a public park, and the house itself was given to the town by Lord Howard de Walden in 1921. In Kay Park, pur chased from the duke of Portland, stands the Burns Memorial, consisting of two storeys and a tower, and containing a museum in which have been placed many important mss. of the poet and the McKie library of Burns's books. The marble statue of the poet, by W. G. Stevenson, stands on a terrace on the southern face. A Reformers' monument was unveiled in Kay Park in 1885. Dean Castle, to the north of the town, which was burnt down in 1735, was restored in 1915. Kilmarnock rose into importance in the 17th century by its production of striped woollen "Kilmarnock cowls" (Scotch bonnets), and afterwards acquired a great name for its carpets. Woollen spinning is carried on, tweeds, shawls, lace cur
tains, cottons and winceys are produced ; and there are extensive manufactures of shoes, china and earthenware, tanneries, and en gineering and machinery works. The iron industry is prominent, the town being situated in the midst of a rich mineral region. Here, too, are workshops of the L.M.S. railway company. Kilmarnock is famous for its dairy produce, and every October holds one of the largest cheese-shows in Scotland. The neighbourhood abounds in coal, and freestone is quarried. The burgh is governed by a provost and council. Alexander Smith, the poet (183o-1867), whose father was a lace-pattern designer, and Sir James Shaw lord mayor of London in 1806, to whom a statue was erected in the town in 1848, were natives of Kilmarnock. It dates from the 15th century, and in 1591 was made a burgh of barony under the Boyds, the ruling house of the district. The last Boyd who bore the title of Lord Kilmarnock was beheaded on Tower Hill, London, in 1746, for his share in the Jacobite rising. The first edition of Robert Burns's poems was published here in 1786.