Duncan McNaught LL.D., J.P., was born in Alexandria, Dunbartonshire in 1845. He was the parochial school teacher at Kilmaurs in East Ayrshire from 1867 and served at the school for over fifty years, having served as assistant from 1865. He founded the Kilmarnock Conservative Association, jointly founded the Robert Burns World Federation, acted as the editor of the "Burns Chronicle" and was the president of what became the Robert Burns World Federation.

Kilmaurs is a village in East Ayrshire, Scotland which lies just outside of the largest settlement in East Ayrshire, Kilmarnock. It lies on the Carmel Water, 21 miles southwest of Glasgow. Population recorded for the village in the 2001 Census recorded 2,601 people resided in the village It was in the Civil Parish of Kilmaurs.