Anne Gunn
Scottish musician and inventor
Anne Gunn (née Young; 11 April 1756 – c. 1813) was a Scottish music teacher and the inventor of Musical Games, a set of board games designed to teach music theory to children. She was granted the first British patent for a board game, the only patent granted to a female inventor in 1801.
Early life and education
She was born in Haddington in East Lothian to David (d. 1758) and Janet Young (née Johnstone). David Young was appointed the first Doctor of the Haddington Grammar School with his duties designated as “Vocall & Instrumental Musick”. He later became rector of the grammar school. Anne was the youngest of 11 children. Her brother, Walter Young was also known to be a skilled musician and song collector, who consulted with Robert Burns. He was ordained as a Church of Scotland minister in 1769.
“Anne Gunn” enters the record as scottish musician and inventor. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Anne, Gunn and Scottish can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q111783802. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1756, 1813, 1801 and 1758.
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This entry incorporates text from “Anne Gunn” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.