Abstract
Joshua Harold Burn was born on 6 March 1892 in Barnard Castle, County Durham . He was fond of his birth place and was greatly interested in the history of the ancient town which had grown up around the castle, built by Bernard de Baliol (or Balliol) in the 12th century . Burn lived there until he went to Cambridge in 1909. He was the only child of John George Burn (1857-1932) and Mary Josephine Howson (1859-1937), who came fro m the Wycliffe family. Burn knew little about his father’s ancestry. However, he remembered his grandfather, Joshua Burn, vividly: ‘He must have been about 5 feet 10 or 11 inches. He was always upright in carriage and wore a black frock coat and trousers with a tall hat. He was an active member of the Wesleyan Church and for many years was a local preacher. At that time the villages surrounding Barnard Castle constituted a circuit and every chapel was visited every Sunday either by the Superintendent or the Second Minister or by a local preacher.’