Anderson, David, mechanic, of Aberdeen, pub.



Abbot, Richard (b. 1818), of Burton, Westmorland, son of a contractor on the Lancaster Canal, educated at a dame school, worked as a shepherd and railway construction worker, later a quarry manager, pub. The Pen, the Press, and the Sword, with Other Poems and Balsams for Wounded Hearts (Darlington, 1879); War!: A Descriptive Poem on Passing Events (Bishop Auckland, 1868), War, Canto III: Raby, Keverstone, Staindrop, &c.; The Railway Jubilee; Ode to Ingelborough, and Other Select Poems and Songs (London and Darlington, 1876); The Wanderer, in Special Trains of Grave Thoughts (Darlington: William Dresser, 1901). Ref: Reilly (2000), 4.Ablitt, Nat (fl. c. 1850), one of seven sons of Jacob Ablitt of Kesgrave, Suffolk, ‘one day was to school and one day was to keep the sheep’; pub. History, Poems and Writings of Nat Ablitt (Ipswich, c. 1850). Ref: Cranbrook, 99, 153.Ackroyd, John (1819-76), of Greenclough, Alderscholes, Thornton, Yorkshire, weavers’ son, powerloom weaver at Bradford, Sunday school teacher; pub. Poems, ed. William Cudworth (Thornton, 1886). Holroyd prints and illustrates his non-dialect lyric ‘The Streamlet’, and includes ‘Kirkstall Abbey’ and two other poems. Ref: Holroyd, 7, 36, 87, 193; Reilly (2000), 5.? Acquroff, Helen (1833-87), a blind woman, temperance advocate, was born in Edinburgh; pub. two small volumes of poetry; verses included ‘Polly Hopkins’, ‘Sabbath School Song’, ‘The Swiss Girl’, ‘When We Were Bairns Thegither’, and ‘The Reformed Drunkard to His Wife’. Ref: Edwards, 11; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Adam, J. R. (b. c. 1801, ‘The Gartnaval Minstrel’), of Colinsee, Paisley, bleacher, soldier, printer, institutionalised in Glasgow general lunatic asylum with depression, helped produce an asylum weekly periodical and wrote poems for it, later self-pub. The Gartnaval Minstrel: consisting of Original Pieces in Rhyme, both comic & sentimental (‘With notes & a brief Biographical Sketch of the author. Composed, printed and published by J. R. Adam, 62, York Street, Glasgow, 1845’). The copy listed in Charles Cox’s catalogue has a presentation inscription to William Prichard, who is referenced in the text. Ref: Brown, I, 343-6; Charles Cox, Catalogue 68 (2015), item 2. [S]Adam, John, of Dundee, mill worker and ‘wandering minstrel’ (ballad seller). Ref: Edwards, 3, 219-21. [S]Adams, Jane or Jean (1704-1765), of Carsdyke near Greenock, shipmaster’s granddaughter, mariner’s daughter, governess and maid, teacher, later hawker, died in workhouse; pub. Miscellany Poems (1734). Ref: Harp R, xxii-xxvi; ODNB; Miller, 137-40; Lonsdale (1989), 141-5; Todd (1987); Fullard, 157, 547; Davis & Joyce, item 16; Bill Overton, N&Q, Dec 2004. [F] [S]Adams, Jane (c. 1788-1864), father died when she was young; as a girl she kept cows, and received no formal education; in The British Controversialist and Literary Magazine, which notes her death on 24 July 1864, she is referred to as ‘a self-taught Scottish poetess of fair talent.’ Pub. Artless Lays (Old Aberdeen, 1846; 2nd edn, Aberdeen, 1849); poems include ‘On the Death of C. H., A Young Woman’, ‘The Spittal Churchyard’, ‘The Braemar Poacher’, ‘To Miss W., On Her Birthday’. The prefatory poem to her book, describing her childhood poverty and disfiguring smallpox at the age of seven, is the most interesting of the volume. Ref: inf. Florence Boos; The British Controversialist and Literary Magazine (1864), p. 239 (via Google Books). [F] [S]Adamson, Robert (b. 1832) of Muirkirk, near Dunfermline, Fife, scant education, weaver, then engine-keeper in the ironworks; pub. Lays of Leisure Hours, a collection of miscellaneous poems and sketches. With Introductory note, by Rev. A. Wallace, D.D., Glasgow (Dunfermline: A. Romanes, 1879). Ref: Edwards, 1: 226-28; Murdoch, 274-7; Reilly (2000), 6; inf. Bob Heyes. [S]Adcock, Anna, of Rutland, born ‘among the wild and most sequestered scenes of nature’ and ‘denied a liberal education’; Bate, John Clare (2003), p. 105, describes her as an ‘impoverished schoolmistress’; pub. Cottage Poems (1808). Ref: Jackson (1993), 3-4; Macdonald Shaw, 91-4; Clare, Letters, 333-4. [F]? Addison, Richard (fl. 1833), of Raindale-Heads near Pickering, North Yorkshire, ‘The Moorish Bard’, author of Carmina excepta; or, Gleanings from the Writings of Richard Addison of Raindale, The Moorish Bard (Hull: J. Hutchinson, 1833); subscription list reflects much local and regional interest. Poems are on a wide range of themes, and include epigrams, two acrostics, a poem on ‘The Miseries of Law’, several pieces on love and love lost including ‘The Lover’s Alphabet’, and others on local events, including include ‘A Peep into Staithes, 1807’, ‘The Old Nail at Kettleness, 1807’, ‘Verses occasioned by an accident at Staithes’ and an ‘Epistle to ___________ Esq.’ (‘Dear Sir, I have received the wig’). There is a poignant and lengthy poem about poverty, ‘Advice to Poor Folks who live above their Income’, and a ‘Memorial of Thanks from Messrs ____ and ____ to M____ H____ of Pickering for the privilege of shooting’. ‘The frontispiece shows the author inside his cottage, a dog at his feet, and kettle boiling on the fire. He sits with a pen in his hand apparently thinking what to write. A table, a bed and various household utensils complete the picture.’ Ref: unidentified book catalogue; online sales description.Adley, John, pitman, of Newbottle, Durham fl. 1818, pub. The Coal Trade: A Descriptive Poem (Newcastle upon Tyne: J. Marshall, 1818). Ref Harker (1999), 103-5.Aggett, Thomas Henry (b. 1863), ‘The Railway Poet of the West’, ‘Autolycus’, railway porter of Teignmouth; pub. Demon Hunter, A Legend of Torquay (1889); Vagabond Verses, Through the Combes and Vales of Delectable Devon, By Autolycus (?1894; Teignmouth, 1904). Ref: Wright, 2-4.Agnew, Nellie Jane (b. 1868), later Mrs Allan McDonald, of Glasgow, mother died when Nellie was ten, attended village school, artist father encouraged her as a painter, pub. poems in the Herald, Scotsman, Mail, People’s Journal and other newspapers, wrote prose sketches e.g. ‘Angling in the Highlands’. Ref: Bisset, 305-13; Edwards, 13, 103 (in the index in vol. 16, Edwards lists her as ‘Agnew, Nellie Johnson’). [F] [S]Aird, Andrew, of Paisley, joiner, pub. Hope-Temple, or Unpagan’d-Pantheon, a Humorous Poetical Tale (1815). Ref: Brown, I, 223-25. [S]Aird, David Mitchell (fl. 1843-72), of Paisley, shawl-clipper, compositor with Alex Gardner (who published many of the Paisley poets and poetry anthologies), then in London, then with Galignani in Paris; poems in Brown. Ref: Brown, II, 34-37. [S]Airth, James (1804-70), of Arbroath, baker, stationmaster, tollkeeper, farmer, pub. Maud’s Dream, and Various Minor Poems (1848). Ref: Edwards, 6, 60-69; Reid, Bards, 1-2. [S]Aitkin, William (1814-69), of Ashton-under-Lyne, cotton-piecer dismissed for involvement in the Ten-Hours Movement, schoolmaster, local Chartist leader, in prison c. 1840-, visited USA; suicide; pub. poems in the Chartist Circular; English Chartist Circular; McDouall’s Chartist Journal. Ref Schwab 183. [C]Aitkin, William (b. 1851), ‘Inspector Aitkin’, of Sorn, Ayrshire, shoemaker’s apprentice, railwayman, pub. Rhymes and Readings (Glasgow, 1880); Lays of the Line (Edinburgh and Glasgow, 1883); Echoes from the Iron Road and Other Poems (Glasgow and Edinburgh: John Menzies, 1893). Ref: Edwards, 2, 161-6; Murdoch, 418-22; Vicinus (1969), 341; Leonard, 319-22; Reilly (1994), 7. [S]Akroyd, Joseph, of Thornton, Bradford, weaver, ‘a poor but apparently pious man’ whose ‘habitation is the busy weaver’s cot, and his study, the industrious loom’. Pub. Original poems, sacred, natural and moral (1832), described as being free verse of a particularly ‘feeble character’. Despite Newsham’s Olympian dismissal, his writing describes his impoverished situation in valuable detail though the verse is weak. Ref: Newsam 154-5.Aldridge, T. L. (fl. 1850s-60s), of Oxford, pub. [with G. Curtis, qv] Poem dedicated to the working men of England; by two of their order, second enlarged edition [cover title Golden moments] (London and Oxford, 1861). Ref: Reilly (2000), 7-8.Alexander, James (b. 1858), of Edinburgh, father died when he was young, pub. in newspapers from age 17, worked as a ticket-writer in Glasgow. Ref: Edwards, 7, 224-7. [S] Alexander, William (1805-75), of Paisley, drawboy and weaver, later a schoolmaster, pub. posthumous collection of work in 1881. Ref: Brown, I, 384-88. [S]Allan, David (b. 1857), of Carstairs, Lanarkshire, railway signalman, pub. poems in People’s Journal and elsewhere. Ref: Edwards, 6, 166-70. [S]Allan, David Skea (b. 1840), of Eday, Orkney, tailor from a poor family, later acquired higher education and became an important civic figure in Glasgow. Ref: Edwards, 12, 65-74. [S]Allan, John (b. 1850), of Bathgate, engineer at Bathgate Chemical Works, pub. poems in the West Lothian Courier, poems in Bisset. Ref: Edwards, 4, 136-8; Bisset, 237-41. [S]Allan, Peter (fl. 1854), of Creiff, shoemaker poet, pub. The Exile King, and other poems (Edinburgh, 1854). Ref COPAC. [S]Allan, Robert (1774-1841), Scottish weaver poet of Kilbarchan; first appeared in a collection of Scottish poets in 1820, called The Harp of Renfrewshire; published his own volume by subscription in 1836; The Pocket Songster (1833, 1836); Evening hours: Poems and songs (Glasgow: David Robertson, 1836); Selected Songs (1855). Ref: ODNB; Wilson, I, 510-14; Johnson, item 11. [S]? Allan, William (1784-?1804), of Arbroath, wheelwright’s son, apprentice solicitor but died at 19. Ref: Reid, Bards, 6-7. [S]? Allan, William (1837-1903), of Dundee, engineer, blockade runner in the American Civil War, engineering manager of Sunderland, MP for Gateshead, pub. six vols of poetry: inc. Heather-Bells (1875), Rose and Thistle (1878), Northern Lights (1889), A Book of Poems, Democratic Chants, and Songs, in English and Scottish (1891); and a technical volume, The Shipowners' and Engineers' Guide to the Marine Engine (1880). Ref: ODNB; Edwards, 1, 281-90; Murdoch, 309-13; Reid, Bards, 2-6. [S]? Allan, William (b. 1844), of Footdee, Aberdeen, bookbinder, poems in Edwards. Ref: Edwards, 6 (1883), 342-4. [S]Allison, Elizabeth (1824-80), lamed in youth, began business as a dressmaker in her teens, kept house for herself and her sisters, before later being confined for twelve years to bed. Her verses include ‘To the Departed Winter’, ‘The World is Good’, ‘Long Ago’, ‘Her Bright Boy’s Cap’, ‘To the Wintry Winds’, and ‘Death at the Palace’. Ref: Edwards, 7, 145-51; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Allison, James (b. 1844), of Glasgow, son of a widowed millworker, storekeeper, poems in Edwards. Ref: Edwards, 3, 373-6. [S]Ambrose, William (1813-73), of Bangor, apprentice draper in Liverpool, London shopworker, later an independent minister, poet and litterateur; competed succesfully in many eisteddfodau from an early age; a number of pubs. in Welsh. Ref DWB. [W]Anderson, Alexander (‘Surfaceman’, 1845-1909), of Kirkconnel, Dumfriesshire, son of a quarryman, train driver and poet, self-taught in six languages, described by Vicinus as ‘the first navvy poet’, pub. A Song of Labour and Other Poems (Kirkconnel, Dumfriesshire, 1873, London, 1883); The Two Angels and Other Poems, with an introductory sketch by George Gilfillan (London and Edinburgh, 1874); Songs of the Rail (London and Edinburgh, 1878 [2 edns], 3rd edition 1881); Ballads and Sonnets (London, 1879); Later Poems of Alexander Anderson “Surfaceman”, ed. with a biographical sketch by Alexander Brown (Glasgow and Dalbeattie: Fraser, Asher & Co, 1912). Ref: LC 6, 241-68; ODNB; Edwards, 1, 157-68; Miller, 294-300; Borland, 220-32 (includes a fine portrait photograph of the poet); Murdoch, 401-6; Wilson, II, 501-5; Vicinus (1969), 4, 342; Maidment (1987), 209 [image], 275-7; LION; Miles, X, xviii; Reilly (2000), 12; Susan Ross, ‘The Poetry of Alexander Anderson, “Surfaceman”, 1845-1909’, PhD dissertation, University of Salford, 2011. [S] [LC 6]? Anderson, Basil Ramsay (1861-88), of Shetland, brother to Peter Anderson (qv); his poems were posthumously pub. as Broken Lights: Poems and Reminiscences of the late Basil Ramsay Anderson, ed. Jessie M. E. Saxby with a glossary of Shetland terms by Gilbert Goudie (Edinburgh and Lerwick, 1888). His editor was a celbrated Shetlandic folklorist, novelist and poet. Ref: Edwards, 6, 402. [S]Anderson, David, mechanic, of Aberdeen, pub. The Scottish Village: A Rural Poem (Aberdeen, 1808); The Martial Achievements of Sir William Wallace: An Historical Play (Aberdeen, 1821); Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (Aberdeen, 1826, two edns); King Robert Bruce, or the Battle of Bannockburn: An Historical Play by the Author of The Scottish Village (1833). Ref: CBEL3, 224. [S]Anderson, Edward (1736-1843), son of a small-scale pre-enclosure farmer; after a rudimentary education worked as a shepherd, then at the age of about 15 joined the Lisbon Trading Company as an ordinary seaman, eventually rising to be a ship’s master. He is described by one nineteenth-century source as a ‘master mariner’; his career began at Scarborough, according to the poem. Pub. Poems, a description of a shepherd (Workington, 1792); The Sailor: A Poem: Description of his going to sea, and through various scenes of life ... with observations on the town of Liverpool (Leeds: Anderson, 1792), which went through many editions in the north east and Yorkshire in the nineteenth century and was reprinted by local historians in Hull in 1986. Grainge extracts some lines that ‘answer the double purpose of a biographic sketch and present a specimen of his poetical talent’; they begin: ‘Though I but little education had, /The muses often charmed me when a lad: / Brought up a shepherd, though a farmer’s son, / My clothing then it mostly was home-spun’. The lines continue with a picture of sturdy self-reliance and simple food (‘On Yorkshire Wolds we mostly barley eat’). Ref: Grainge, I, 302-3 (also a press cutting headed ‘Edward Anderson’s Poems’, reproduced at the back of the British Library reprint of Grainge I, presumably because it was tucked into the BL copy); Burnett et al (1984), no. 15; Johnson, item 15; Shattock (1999), 223-4; inf. Stephen Harrison; Google Books and WorldCat online book catalogue; (visited 18 June 2014).Anderson, George W. (b. 1856), of Muir of Rhynie, soldier poet. Ref: Edwards, 14, 17-30. [S]Anderson, James, Northumbrian miner, worked at Elswick colliery, won prizes for dialect songs in 1870, pub. The ‘Newcastle Chronicle’ Prize Song, and Sundry other pieces, respectfully dedicated to the miners of Durham and Northumberland. By James Anderson, one of their number (Newcastle upon Tyne: J.M. Carr, 1870). Ref: Allan, 519; MBP3, item 86.Anderson, Jessie Ann or Jessie Annie (‘Patience’, b. 1861) of Ellon, Aberdeenshire, self-taught mason’s daughter, unable to attend school due to spinal injury; Edwards records that she pub. poems in newspapers; Gifford and Macmillan list a prolific series of later vols, those up to 1908 pub. by Milne & Stephen, Aberdeen: Across the Snow (1894); Songs in Season (1901); Songs of Hope and Courage (1902); An Old-world Sorrow and other sonnets (1903); Legends and Ballads of Women (1904); Lyrics of Childhood (1905); A Handful of Heather (1906); The Book of the Wonder Ways (1907); Flower Voices (1908); Dorothy’s Dream of the Months (London: Horace Cox, 1909); Breaths from the Four Winds (Aberdeen: Milne & Stephen, 1911); This is Nonsense: Verses Light and Satirical (Aberdeen: Aberdeen Press & Journal, 1926); A Singer’s Year (Aberdeen: Aberdeen Press & Journal, 1928). Ref: Edwards, 8, 77-83; Gifford and Macmillan, 679. [F] [S]Anderson, John (1820-?1862 or 1890), of Musselburgh, son of a soldier, of minimal education, apprenticed to a leather merchant; pub. In memory of John Anderson and Mary Christine Anderson (Edinburgh, 1863) [his sister Mary Christine had died in 1842 aged 16]; The weal and woe of Caledonia [poems], with an Introduction by Fergus Ferguson (Glasgow: Scottish Temperance League, and London); Edwards gives his death date as 1890, Reilly as 1862. Ref: Edwards, 7, 308-14 and 16, [lix]; Reilly (2000), 12. [S]? Anderson, John, ‘Alpha Beta’, (b. 1879), of Dumfries, clothier and great-great grandson of a clothier, pub. poems in the Dumfries and Galloway Standard and other papers; Wayfaring Songs (Glasgow and Dalbeattie: Fraser, Angus & Co, [post-1912]). Ref: Miller, 314-15. [S] [OP]? Anderson, Joseph, pub. The Artless Muse; or attempts in verse, on different subjects (Peterhead, 1818), includes poem on Shenstone. Ref: Johnson, item 16. [S]Anderson, Lizzie D. (fl. 1895), born at the farm of Cairnrobin, about five miles south of Aberdeen; her family moved to become tenants in the parish of New Machar, and later to Thainstone, Kintore, where she continued to live with her brother, the tenant; in later years she suffered ill health; pub. poems in the Aberdeen Free Press and other newspapers; poems include ‘There’s Mair Things Caw’d Doun Than the Brig Oer the Tay’, ‘Autumn’, ‘The Home of My Childhood’, and ‘The Dying Girl and the Flowers’. Ref: Edwards, 8, 89-95; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Anderson, Matthew (b. 1864), of Waterside, Dalmellington, Ayrshire, farmboy, coalminer, soldier and special constable; pub. Poems of a Policeman (Paisley, Edinburgh and London, 1898). Ref: Reilly (1994), 14; MBP3, item 88. [S]Anderson, Peter (b. 1864), of Shetland, brother to Basil Ramsay Anderson (qv), draper of Edinburgh and Montrose. Ref: Edwards, 15, 94-6. [S]Anderson, Robert (1770-1833), pattern-drawer and calico printer of Carlisle. Anderson received some education at the Quaker school of Carlisle—surely helping to instill in him a veneration of equality – but had to turn to hard labour at the age of ten to assist his ‘poor father’.?He was apprenticed as a calico printer – using any spare money to obtain copies of Addison, Pope, Fielding and Smollet – and later as a pattern drawer.?During the five years he spent in London, he was exploited terribly, and was ‘confined to a wretched garret’ for several months until a sister came to his aid.?The mock pastoral Scottish-style songs Anderson heard on visiting Vauxhall Gardens simultaneously disgusted him and roused his poetic sensibilities. ~ Anderson’s earliest poem, Lucy Gray of Allendale, was inspired by a tale he heard from a Northumbrian rustic, about a village beauty—‘fairer than any flow’r that blows’—who died at seventeen, and was thereafter followed by her lover.?He was granted free admission to the gardens after the song was performed to ‘great applause’.?The story also seemingly informed Wordsworth’s own ‘Lucy Gray’.?Anderson published his first collection, Poems on various Subjects, in 1798, which included ‘The Slave’, conveying his indignation at the slave trade: ‘Torn from every dear connection, / Forc’d across the yielding wave, / The Negro, stung by keen reflection, / May exclaim, Man's but a slave!’?It was not until 1805 that Anderson published his best-known work, Ballads in the Cumberland Dialect, a selection taken from verse and prose featured in a local newspaper, delineating the manners and customs of his native land.?Caine (2004) writes: ‘since he drew his materials from real life, Anderson was much feared for his personal attacks; he had a keen eye for the ludicrous, and pictured with fidelity the ale-drinking, guzzling, and cock-fighting side of the character of the Cumbrian farm labourer’. ~ Following the death of his father in 1807, Anderson went to work in Belfast via a pilgrimage to the grave of Robert Burns, which affected him greatly, as did the ‘distressing scenes’ of poverty in the countryside outside Belfast.?In his memoir, he wrote, ‘it is much to be lamented that no provision whatever is held out by the British government to the poor of Ireland’.?The two-volume edition of Anderson’s Poetical Works appeared in 1820, at a time when his local reputation drew subscriptions from Wordsworth and Southey. ~ In his twilight years Anderson’s life became marred by bouts of intemperance and acute poverty, and he was haunted by the prospect of ending his life in St Mary’s workhouse.?He died in Carlisle on 26 September 1833. Pub. Poems on Various Subjects (London: J. Mitchell, 1798); Ballads in the Cumbrian dialect (Carlisle, 1805, London, 1881); Poetical Works of Robert Anderson: to which is prefixed the life of the author, written by himself, 2 vols. (Carlisle: B. Scott, 1820; subscribers include Wordsworth and Southey); Anderson’s Cumberland Ballads and Songs. A Centenary Edition, ed. Revd T. Ellwood (Ulverston: W. Holmes, 1904); Selections from the Cumberland Ballads of Robert Anderson, ed. George Crowther (Ulverston: W. Holmes, 1907). Ref: Robert Anderson, the Cumberland Bard. A Centenary Celebration Souvenir (Carlisle, 1933); ODNB; Keith Gregson ‘The Cumberland Bard: Anniversary Reflections’, Folk Music Journal 4 (1983), 33-66; W. Kemeza ‘Robert Anderson, “The Slave” (1798)’ (1999) []; ODNB; Miles, X, v; Allan, 167-8; Ashraf (1975), 117-18; Burnett et al (1984), no. 16a; Cafarelli, 83-4; Johnson, items 17-22, 64, 573, 743, 795; Basker, 528-9; Sutton, 14 (manuscripts of poems and letters); ; Mike Huggins, ‘Popular Culture and Sporting Life in the Rural Margins of Late Eighteenth-Century England: The World of Robert Anderson, “The Cumberland Bard”’, Eighteenth-Century Studies, 4, no. 2 (Winter 2012), 189-205. [LC 3] [—Iain Rowley]Anderson, Thomas (1810-88), of Fordyce, Banffshire, herdboy, shoemaker, printer, pub. Poems and Songs (Aberdeen, 1844). Ref: Edwards, 14, 160-6. [S]Anderson, William (1793-1885), of Paisley, weaver and later bookseller, pub. the New Paisley Repository (1835). Ref: Brown, I, 276-78. [S]Anderson, William (1802-67), of Aberdeen, weaver, policeman. Ref: Edwards, 2, 234-9. [S]Andrew, John, ‘Werdna’, (1801-71), of Ayr, weaver, bookbinder, upholsterer, shopman. Ref: Edwards, 4, 290-5. [S]Andrews, John (d. 1869), of Paisley, lead drawer and dealer in weaving utensils, shawl manufacturer, temperance campaigner and poet. Ref: Brown, I, 418-22. [S]Angus, William Cargill (b. 1870), of Arbroath, Angus, apprentice tinsmith, soldier, served seven years in the Black Watch, pub. Under the shadow: songs of labour and of love (Arbroath, 1896). Ref: Edwards, 15, 122-6; Reid, Bards, 14-16; Reilly (1994), 15. [S]? Aram, Eugene (1704-59), son of the gardener and poet Peter Aram (qv), a poet as well as a philologist, and famously a murderer whose sensational story inspired much writing including Thomas Hood’s poem ‘The Dream of Eugene Aram’ and Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s novel Eugene Aram (1832). Newsam and Grainge briefly sample his poetry. Ref Newsam 65-8; Grainge I, 163.Aram, Peter (1667-1735), fisherman’s son of Clifton, Notts., later Sir John Ingilby’s steward and gardener at Ripley Castle, naturalist and poet, author of Studley Park, ‘a well-informed, eloquently turned contribution to the tradition of local descriptive poetry’ (ODNB), published in Thomas Gent, The Antient and Modern History of the Loyal Town of Ripon (York, 1733), and a prose Practical Treatise of Flowers, unpublished in his lifetime. Father of the notorious and unfortunate Eugene Aram (qv). Ref: LC 1, 255-74; Grainge, I, 138-9; ODNB; Frank Felsenstein (ed), Peter Aram, ‘A Practical Treatise of Flowers’, Proc. Leeds Phil. & Lit. Soc., XX, part i (Leeds, 1985), which includes a biography. (F). [LC 1]? Archer, William (b. 1843), ‘Sagittarius’, of Carnoustie, served 10 years as an apprentice seaman, then a senior customs officer. Ref: Edwards, 4, 105-9; Reid, Bards, 20-22. [S] Archibald, James (1817-87), of Paisley, weaver, lived in Tannahill’s former house, wrote poems in praise of Tannahill. Ref: Brown, II, 72-76. [S]Armstrong, Andrew James (b. 1848), Scottish poet, orphan, errand boy, cabinet-maker, pub. Ingleside Musings and Tales Told in Rhyme (Dalbeattie, 1890). Ref: Reilly (1994), 17; Edwards, 5, 253-7. [S]Armstrong, A.W., Irish sailor, pub. O’Neil’s Farewell. A Poem (North Shields: W. Orange, 1816), a criminal narrative by the convict’s friend. Ref: Johnson, item 25; Johnson 46, item 262. [I]Armstrong, Tommy (1848-1920), of Tanfield, County Durham, pitman poet, pub. numerous broadsheet poems and songs; modern collected editions include Tommy Armstrong Sings, introduced by Tom Gilfellon (Newcastle upon Tyne: Frank Graham, 1971); Pollisses and Candymen, ed by Ross Forbes (Consett: Tommy Armstrong Memorial Trust, 1987); Ray Tilley, Tommy Armstrong: The Pitman Poet (Newcastle upon Tyne: Summerhill Books, 2010). His verses and songs are still sung on the folk circuit, for example ‘Trimdon Grange Explosion’, sung by Maureen Craik on the multi-contributer CD Tommy Armstrong of Tyneside (Topic 1965, 1977), and in his own arrangement by Martin Carthy (The Definitive Collection, CD, Topic, 2002). Ref: ODNB; ; sources as cited.Armstrong, William (‘Willie’ Armstrong, b. 1804), of Newcastle upon Tyne, shoemaker’s son, painter, author of ‘Lizzie Mudie’s Ghost’ and other popular songs, pub. in miscellanies, 1823-42. Ref: Allan, 215-21.Arneil, William (b. 1856), of Paisley, tanner, at age 15 wrote poem to Tannahill pub. in Paisley Herald, wrote poems on current political events. Ref: Brown, II, 458-68. [S]? Arnott, John (fl. 1846), of Somers Town, Chartist leader and popular Chartist poet ‘of the circle round Northern Star’ (Shwab). Ref: Kovalev, 116-17; Scheckner, 329; Shwab 183. ODNB notes a John Arnott (contemp. with this entry), who fathered a first baronet of the same name. The father, of Greenfield, Auchtermuchty, d. 1878. [C]Ash, Charles Bowker (1781-1864), of Adbaston, Staffs., farmer’s son, walker, actor, pub. Adbaston: A Poem?(London: G & S Robinson, 1814; BL 11658.ee.5);?The Hermit of Hawkestone?(Bath, 1816); A Layman’s Epistle to a Certain Nobleman?(London: Rodwell and Martin, 1824; BL 11643.bbb.18);?Poetical Works?(London, 1831). Ref: Poole & Markland, 138-41.As(h)ton, Robert (fl. 1725-27), shoemaker poet, pub. A Congratulatory Poem to the Reverend Daen [sic] Swift (Dublin, 1725); Poem in honor of the Loyal Society of Journeymen Shoe-makers. On the Feast of St. Crispin (Dublin, 1725, 1726); A Satyr on the Journey-Man Taylors (Dublin, 1725); A poem on the birthday of Her late Majesty Queen Anne, of ever glorious memory, dedicated to Reverend Dean Swift (Dublin, 1726-7). He also wrote a play, ‘The battle of Aughrim: or, the fall of Monsieur St. Ruth. A tragedy’ (ESTC, ECCO). Ref: Christmas, 69; ESTC; O’Donoghue, 15. [I]Askham, John (1825-94) of Wellingborough, Northants., shoemaker, later librarian of the Literary Institute, Wellingborough, member of the school board, school attendance officer and sanitary inspector, 1874, pub. Sonnets on the Months, and Other Poems (Northampton, 1863, BL 11644.ee.61), includes a sonnet ‘To John Clare’ and subscription list headed by Earl Spencer; Descriptive Poems, Miscellaneous Pieces, and Miscellaneous Sonnets (1866), Judith and other Poems, and a Centenary of Sonnets (London and Northampton, 1868), Poems and Sonnets, Descriptive, Miscellaneous, and Special (London: F. Warne, Northampton: Taylor & Son, 1875), Irenia; or the City of the Dead [in verse] (1878, BL 11643.h.26(3), Sketches in Prose and Verse (Northampton: S.S. Campion, ‘Mercury Office’, and Wellingborough: Thos. Collins, ‘News’ Office, 1893). Website (‘Poet’s plaque’): . Ref: ODNB; Burnett et al (1984), no. 25; Hold, 25-29; Reilly (1994), 21; Reilly (2000), 17; MBP3, items 134-6.? Atherstone, Edwin or Edward (1788-1872), thirteenth son of a dyer; made income from lecturing and publication; eventually earned a civil-list pension; music teacher, elocution and philosophy lecturer, painting dealer and collector. Pub. The Last Days of Herculaneum (1821), A Midsummer Day’s Dream (1824); The Sea-Kings in England (1830 [novel]); The Handwriting on the Wall (1858 [romance]); Israel in Egypt: a poem (London, 1861), The Fall of Nineveh: a Poem, 2nd edn, 2 vols (London, 1868). Ref: ODNB; NCBEL III, 363; James 172; Cross 83; Reilly (2000), 17; LION; Sutton, 24 (numerous letters); there are a number of electronic editions online, and further biographical information. [—Cole Crawford]Atkin, John, self-taught carpenter and joiner of North Muskham, Nottinghamshire, correspondent of John Clare, pub. Jonah Tink, a poem (Newark, 1823). Ref: Johnson, item 35; Jarndyce, item 1264.? Atkinson, Jane (‘Jenny Wren’, 1836-76; married name Jane Shackleton)? farmer’s daughter and printer’s wife of Keighley, Yorkshire, kept a school, pub. Facts and Fancies in Verse and Prose (London and Keighley, 1864 and later editions; posthumous 1879 edition has added materials). In her preface she writes, ‘My husband is a printer and I persuaded him, and in the days of my early bridehood, while persuasion was an easy matter, to gather my stray scribblings together, and reprint them in the form of a book, which would be my very own production, and would be the realisation of the dreams and hopes of my girlhood’. She continued to write after the birth of her twin daughters, and her short stories were popular; she was a successful and locally very well-known writer. Forshaw prints the senitmental ‘Little Annie’. Ref: Forshaw, 160-1; Reilly (2000), 18. [F]Bachelor or Batchelor, Thomas (1775-1838), self taught farmworker, of Bedford, agriculturalist and poet, author of Village Scenes: The Progress of Agriculture, and Other Poems (London: Vernor and Hood, 1804); A General View of the Agriculture of the County of Bedford (1808). Ref: LC 4, 71-84; ODNB; Barrell and Bull, 370-1; Sambrook, 1360; Barrell, 32 and 75; Jarndyce, item 1272. [LC 4]Bailey, Mary (fl. 1826), of Kingston Place, Nottingham, lace runner (embroiderer), author of Poems Humorous and Sentimental (1826). ~ Her volume begins with a humble disclaimer for her ‘very deficient’ verses, and a note to the critics is self-deprecating: ‘Should they find fault, which is, alas! too common,/ They’d only set their wit against a woman!’ Verses such as, ‘To a Lady who visited the author when she was in great distress’ expresses gratitude to one who dared to leave ‘her comfortable hearth,/And sought my humble roof’, facing ‘damp and darkness’ and ‘keen affliction’s hand’, to help her feed her children. Bailey worked but did not earn enough to feed her family: ‘The day and evening hard I work’d, / In sickness, and in pain, / In hopes for my dear little babes, / Some fire and bread to gain’. (6). We know from the poem that her work was not done until the ‘clock went eight,’ but that she came home ‘pennyless.’ The nature of her work is revealed in ‘Petition to the British Fair,’ (11): ‘O view the ball-room, where beauty beams round, / And shines with such elegant grace, / And think you in no ways indebted to us,— / the runners of nottingham lace’. This capitalisation is echoed throughout the poem, which could be a mantra or song, particularly in light of her later protest (12) that: ‘How pleasant’s the task, whenever we’re ask’d, / To work hard to beautify you; /Then I’m sure you will own, with candour unmask’d, / Good food and good clothing’s our due; / But the price is so low, that sad to relate; / We cannot these blessings obtain’. Bailey’s poems are rich with local interest and biographical details, such as the lines addressed to her twins and to a lady who upset Bailey by saying she should pray for her child to die, thus ending her poverty. The sickly child does recover, we learn (20), and is possibly ‘Ellinor,’ who ‘slept all the way.’ In a letter thanking her brother and sister for ‘your pudding, your ham, and your wine’ she follows the mention of Ellinor with: ‘If more of my baby you wish me to tell, / I’m glad to inform you, she’s now pretty well.’ A poem about twins comes later, so she may have had four or more children, thus igniting the gossips who say she bred her way into poverty, and who ‘spoils each joy,’ (26). So ends the small volume of mainly two-page poems that speak of a mother’s love and a struggle to live on the wages of the Nottingham Lace-making industry. Ref copy in the Local Studies Collection, Nottingham Central Library. [—Dawn Whatman] [F]? Bailey, Thomas, (1785-1856), Nottingham tradesman, ‘rhyming shopkeeper’, pub. The carnival of death. A poem in two cantos (London: Longman, 1822), dedication indicates a pacifist poem; What is Life and other Poems (London: Baldwin Cradock, 1820), preface hails an ‘an age of poetical soldiers, sailors, cobblers, labourers, etc.’ Ref: Powell, item 104. Ref: ODNB, Johnson, items 40-1, Crossan, 37; Johnson 46, nos. 264-5; Sutton, 28 (numerous letters); inf. Greg Crossan.? Baird, Henry (1829-1881), (‘Nathan Hogg’), of Starcross, Devon, solicitor’s clerk (‘Law feeds the lawyer, but it starves his clerk’), later a bookseller and reporter on the Plymouth Mail and Western Times, pub. Letters in the Devonshire Dialect (Exeter, 1847; 2nd edn. 1850); Poetical Letters tu es Brither Jan, and a witch story in the Devonshire dialect (third edn, Exeter, 1858); The Song of Solomon in the Devonshire Dialect. From the authorised English version (London, 1860). Ref: Wright, 16-19.? Bakewell, Thomas (1761-1835), weaver, mad-doctor and poet, pub. The Moorland Bard, or Poetical Recollections of a weaver, in the moorlands of Staffordshire (Hanley: Allbut, 1807), also wrote a domestic guide in cases of insanity. Ref: ODNB; Poole & Markland, 113-14; Johnson, item 44, NCSTC; Jackson (1985).Baker, Thomas, thatcher of Wickham Market, pub. A Poem for the Winter Season (Ipswich, 1759). Ref: Cranbrook, 249.Balfour, Alexander (1767-1829), of Monikie, Forfarshire, weaver, schoolmaster, later a merchant and manufacturer, pub. Contemplation and Other Poems (1820), Characters Omitted in Crabbe’s Parish Register (1825). Ref: ODNB; Reid, Bards, 23-6; Wilson, I, 434-41; Powell, item 105; Sutton, 34 (manuscript of a poem, letters, legal documents). [S]Balfour, Charles (b. 1819), of Carnoustie, farmer’s boy, factory worker, soldier, stationmaster. Ref: Edwards, 3 (1881), 406-10; Reid, Bards, 26-7. [S]? Ballantine, James (1808-77), of West Port, Edinburgh, merchant’s son, housepainter’s apprentice, maker of stain-glass windows, pub. poems in Whistlebinkie, and vols. Gaberlunzie’s Wallet (1843); Miller of Deanhaugh (1845); Lilias Lee, and Other Poems (Edinburgh and Buxton, 1871); A Visit to Buxton: A Metrical Description (Buxton, 1873). He also published Life of David Roberts, R.A. (1866), an eulogy to his eponymous teacher, the inspiration for his success in reviving the art of Scottish ecclesiastical stained glass. Ref: ODNB; Edwards, 3, 25-32; Wilson, II, 298-303; Douglas, 309, Miles, X, xviii, Reilly (2000), 25; Sutton, 35 (numerous letters). [S]Ballantyne, James (1860-1887), of Crindledyke, Cambusthen, trap-door boy in a coal mine from age 12, broke his spine in an accident. Ref: Bisset, 277-82; Edwards, 11, 113-18 and 12 (1889), x. [S]Ballantyne, Margaret, of Paisley, daughter of a weaver (who d. in 1863); she pub. poems in local press. Ref: Brown, II, 382-83; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Baltharpe, John, seaman, pub. The Straights Voyage, or St David’s, Poem, being a description of the most remarkable passages that happened in her first expedition against the Turks of Argeir, Sir John Harman, Commander, Rere-Admiral of His Majesty’s Fleet, beginning May 1669, ending April 1671, by John Baltharpe, belonging to the foresaid ship (London: E.C. for T. Vere, 1671); reprint edited by J. S. Bromley (Oxford: Basil Blackwell for the Luttrel Society, 1959). Ref COPAC; Charles Napier Robinson, The British Tar in Fact and Fiction (New York and London: Harper and Brothers, 1909), 74, 173, 203. [OP]Bamford, Samuel (1788-1872), of Middleton, Lancashire, radical weaver, member of the ‘Sun Inn’ group of Manchester poets, pub. The Weaver Boy; or Miscellaneous Poetry (Manchester 1819); Hours in the Bowers. Poems (Manchester, 1834); Homely rhymes, poems and reminiscences (1843, rev. and enlarged edn London and Manchester, 1864); Passages in the Life of a Radical (1860), two vols; Account of the Arrest and Imprisonment of Samuel Bamford (1817), Walks in South Lancashire (1844), and Tawk o'seawth Lankeshur (1850). Ref: LC 5, 123-38; ODNB; NCSTC; Harland, 220-8, 289-91, 353-5, 411-13, 479-80, 485-8; Vicinus (1973), 741; Vicinus (1974), 149; Burnett et al (1984), 17-18, 356 (nos. 38-90, 792; Maidment (1987), 232-42; Hollingworth (1977), 151; Zlotnick, 179-80; Johnson, item 46; Reilly (2000), 27; Sales (2002), 94-7; Sutton, 36 (manuscript of a glossary of local dialect and numerous letters). [LC 5]Banks, George Linnaeus (1821-81), of Birmingham, cabinet casemaker, salesman, editor; married to Isabella Varley Banks (qv), another poet, novelist and member of the ‘Sun Inn’ group. Pub. in magazines and a volume titled Daisies in the Grass (1865). Also edited the following: Harrogate Advertiser, Birmingham Mercury, Dublin Daily Express, Durham Chronicle, Sussex Mercury, and Windsor Royal Standard. Ref: ODNB; Sutton, 37 (several manuscripts of poems and stories; numerous letters); Poole, 236-41.Banks of Bancks, John (1709-1751), of Sonning, Berkshire, weaver, poet and miscellaneous writer, pub. The Weaver's Miscellany (1730, in imitation of Duck) and Miscellaneous Works in Verse and Prose (1738), and various nonfictions. Ref: LC 1, 181-230; ODNB; R?stvig, 155-7; Klaus (1985), 15-16; Goodridge (1990), 19-20; Christmas, 21, 96-106. [LC 1]Bannard, James, ‘A poor man from Buxton, who made a living selling his verses’; wr. ‘Derbyshire Hills’ (‘At length my wandering feet have brought / Me on this Derby Hill’), printed in L.F.W. Jewitt, The Ballads and Songs of Derbyshire. (London: Bemrose and Lothian; Derby: Bemrose and Sons, 1867), 243-6. Ref: Jewitt as cited; inf. Dawn Whatman.? Bannerman, Anne (1765-1829), ‘crooked poetess’ of Edinburgh, daughter of a ‘running stationer’, a person who sold ballads in the street; destitute in the 1790s following the death of her mother and brother; contributed to the ‘Poetical Register’; friend of Robert Anderson. Elfenbein suggests she may be a gay poet of labouring-class origins and gives birth date as ‘1780?’; endured poverty, became a governess to the Beresford family in Exeter; pub. Poems by Anne Bannerman (Edinburgh: Mundell & Sons, 1800); Tales of Superstition and Chivalry (London: Vernor & Hood, 1802); revised subscription edn of Poems (1807). Ref: Meyenberg, 200; Backscheider, 403; Backscheider & Ingrassia, 868; Gifford & Macmillan, 679; Andrew Elfenbein, ‘Lesbianism and Romantic Genius’, English Literary History (ELH), 63, no. 4 (1996), 929-57; Sutton, 37 (letters); inf. about her father from Wikipedia entry. [F] [S]? Banton, John, of Rutland, poet of humble origins; pub. The Village Wreath (1822), Excursions of Fancy (1824); subscribers to the latter include John Clare. Ref: Crossan, 37; Powell, items 106-7; inf. Greg Crossan and Bob Heyes.? Barber, Mary (c. 1685-1755/7), of Dublin, English woollen draper’s wife, supported and encouraged by Swift. In 1734, she was arrested ‘for possession of manuscript copies of some of Swift’s political poems attacking Walpole's administration’ (ODNB); she was also accused of (and never cleared for) forging Swift’s signature on a letter about her to Queen Caroline. She contributed to numerous magazines and anthologies including: Tunbrigialia, or, Tunbridge Miscellanies, for the Year 1730 (anonymously), Gentleman's Magazine (1737) and Poems by Eminent Ladies (1755). Pub. Poems on several occasions (London, for C. Rivington, 1734; over 900 subscribers; included six posthumous and previously unpublished poems by Constantia Grierson [qv]). Ref: ODNB; Rowton, 117-18; O’Donoghue, 18; Lonsdale (1989), 118-29; Fullard, 296-300, 548-9; Burmester, item 357 and 107 (image); Christmas, 115; Carpenter, 194; Backscheider, 404; Backscheider & Ingrassia, 868-9; Christopher Fanning, ‘The Voices of the Dependent Poet: The Case of Mary Barber’, Women’s Writing, 8, no. 1 (2001), 81-97; Sutton, 38 (letters). [I] [F]Barclay, Andrew, of Dundee, stone mason, later and at the time of his death a city missionary, pub. Sacred Poems (1842). Ref: Reid, Bards, 30. [S]Barham, George, shepherd, pub. The Christian’s Last Hope; Or, Pathetic Pieces on Departed Friends (London, 1866). Ref: Reilly (2000), 28.? Barker, John Thomas (b. 1844), of Bramley, near Leeds, in commerce from fifteen, sometimes wrote in dialect; pub. The Midsummer Day’s Dream (London and Leeds, 1869). Ref: Reilly (2000), 28; England 35.Barker, Robert (b. 1729), of Wigan, apprenticed to a Liverpool shipwright at 14, later a ship’s carpenter, pub. The Unfortunate Shipwright, Or Cruel Captain. Being a Faithful Narrative of the Unparallel’d Sufferings of Robert Barker, Late Carpenter on Board the Thetis Snow, of Bristol, in a Voyage to the Coast of Guinea and Antigua (London: Printed for, and Sold by the author, nd; editions of 1758, 1759, 1762 and 1795 identified). Ref undated edition of principal work via Google Books.? Barlow, John, of Cheadle, Cheshire, pub. Homely Rhymes and Sayings, Humbly Dedicated to the Working Classes of England, the Colliers in Particular (Cheadle, ?1879). Ref: Reilly (2000), 29.Barlow, Thomas (1826-1904), of Radcliffe, Lancs., ‘The Bard of Longdendale’, calico printer, later ‘one of the first working-man magistrates of Glossop’, pub. A pic-nic at Woodhead: Scenes around Castleton, and other poems (Manchester and London, 1867), Poems (London, 1894). Ref: Reilly (1994), 30-1, Reilly (2000), 29.? Barmby, John Goodwin or Goodwyn (1820-81), of Yoxford, Suffolk, ‘comprehensively educated autodidact, a Chartist agitator, writer of poems and pamphlets, socialist and feminist’ (Klaus), Owenist, Unitarian minister, pub. The Poetry of spring: a poem (London, 1860); The return of the swallow, and other poems (London, 1864). Ref: ODNB; Ashraf (1975), 228-30; Maidment (1987), 213; Klaus (1985), 37-40, 42 (discussing his utopian writings); Cranbrook, 128-9, 158-9; Reilly (2000), 29; Andrews, 87; Schwab 184. [C]Barnard, Andrew (b. 1860), of Grangemouth, son of the mineworker poet Francis Barnard (qv), worked with his father, disabled in an accident, later a weaver, joiner and musician, then engine-keeper, pub. poems in newspapers. Ref: Bisset, 271-6; Edwards, 13, 132-5. [S]Barnard, Francis (b. 1834), of Woodend, Armadale, mineworker poet, father of Andrew Barnard (qv), pub. Sparks from a miner’s lamp: being poems and songs (Airdrie, 1875), Chirps frae the engine lum; ghaist o' Gartmorn, and other poems (Bathgate, 1889). Ref: Edwards, 10, 290; Bisset, 191-202; COPAC lists copies in Aberdeen University Library. [S]? Barnes, William (1801-1886), sixth child of a Dorset farmer in reduced circumstances, major regional, rural and dialect poet sometimes associated with the ‘peasant poet’ tradition, teacher and philologist, ordained at Salisbury Cathedral in 1847. Publications: Poems in the Dorset Dialect (1844, 5 edns by 1866); Poems, Partly of Rural Life (in National English) (1846); Hwomely Rhymes: a Second Collection of Dorset Poems in 1850, Third Collection of Poems in Dorset Dialect (1863), and Poems of Rural Life in Common English (1868). There are several useful selections of Barnes in print, and a scholarly edition from Oxford is in progress. Ref: ODNB; Sutton, 40 (manuscripts of prose and poetry; numerous letters); useful recent sources include T. L. Burton, William Barnes’s Dialect Poems: A Pronunciation Guide (Adelaide, Australia and Provo, Utah: Chaucer Studio Press, 2010); Sue Edney, ‘William Barnes’s Place and Dialects of Connection’, in Class and the Canon: Constructing Labouring-Class Poetry and Poetics, 1780-1900, ed. Kirstie Blair and Mina Gorji (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 191-210; T. L. Burton and K. K. Ruthven (eds), The Complete Poems of William Barnes, Volume I: Poems in the Broad Form of the Dorset Dialect (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).Barnet, James (b. 1825), printer, emigrated to America, lived in Chicago, returned to Scotland to live in Kingsmuir, Forfar. Ref: Reid, Bards, 30-1. [S]Baron, John (b. 1823), of Blackburn, handloom weaver then factory operative, published a collection of poems jointly with the printer James Walkden, Flowers of Many Hues, in 1847. Ref: Hull, 85-100.Baron, John Thomas (‘Jack O’Ann’s’, b. 1856), of Blackburn, shopworker, iron turner and fitter, prolific dialect poet, brother to William Baron (his nephew Joseph Baron was also a dialect poet—see Hull, 386-404—but is not a ‘labouring class’ poet). Ref: Hull, 362-86, Maidment (1987), 351-2.Baron, William (‘Bill o’ Jacks’, 1865-1927), of Blackpool then Blackburn, factory worker, dialect ‘poet of the people’, pub. Bits o’ Broad Lancashire (Blackburn and Manchester, 1888). Ref: Hull, 429-39; Maidment (1987), 269-70, 351-2; Hollingworth (1977), 151.? Barr, G. James (1781-1860), of Tarbolton, South Ayrshire, weaver and composer, worked for a Glasgow publisher, set poems by his friend Robert Tannahill to music and composed the tune that inspired ‘Waltzing Matilda’. Ref. Knox; inf. Bridget Keegan; Wikipedia; a letter from Tannahill to Barr of 6 Jan 1811 is reproduced on the ‘Robert Tannahill Commemoration Website’ [S]? Barr, John (b. 1812), of Paisley, manufacturer’s son, mechanical engineer, emigrated to New Zealand in 1852, pub. Poems and Songs, Descriptive and Lyrical (Edinburgh, 1861). Ref: Brown, I, 427-29; Edwards, 12, 284-90. [S]Barrass, Alexander (1856- 1929), of Blackhall Mill, County Durham, coal miner, tells us in the preface to his first volume that he left school at nine and ‘never saw a grammar’ until he was nineteen. Pub. The Derwent Valley, and Other Poems (Newcastle upon Tyne: J.M. Carr, 1887), and The Pitman’s Social Neet (Consett: J. Dent, 1897); also wrote for the Newcastle Chronicle. Barrass’s first volume is equally divided between an elegant and learned topographical poem inspired by ‘an earnest love’, and which the author describes as a five year project of ‘self-improvement as much as self-amusement’, concerned with ‘the useful as much as the ornamental’; and some occasional and other verses, all largely in standard English. The second volume is quite different; the main text is a neglected dialect classic, a coalminer’s social poem in the tradition of Edward Chicken’s The Collier’s Wedding (1730), Thomas Wilson’s The Pitman’s Pay (1826), and Matthew Tate’s ‘Pit Life in 1893-4’ (pub. in Tate’s Songs, Poems and Ballads, 1898), all qqv. The ‘Social Neet’ is set in a pub in Stanley, and is the occasion for a sequence of songs and recitations from different speakers, as well as being a poetical device for gathering them in a sociable poetical portmanteau, like Robert Bloomfield’s late collection May Day with the Muses (1822). Each contribution contrives to relate to one of the main roles in pit work, from ‘The Driver’ to ‘The Deppity’ (these are carefully listed on his Wikipedia page). Barrass suffered a mental breakdown in the mid-1890s, and was institutionalised in Sedgfield Asylum, where he would remain for his last 35 years. The 1897 volume was evidently put into print by friends and admirers including the local Member of Parliament who contributed its brief introduction, he describes it as ‘the last endeavour of the genius of poor Barrass’, so whatever mental disaster had overcome him was evidently already regarded as having put him beyond rescue. In the preface to his first volume Barrass thanks two fellow local poets, Joshua Lax for books, and John Rowell Waller (qv) for encouraging his poetical efforts; the third canto of The Derwent Valley is dedicated to his partner, ‘Lizzie’. A hand-corrected and signed copy held by the present contributor [JG] is inscribed to a G. R. Hedley, dated 9 May 1888. Barrass’s first printer/publisher, J. M. Carr of Newcastle upon Tyne, also published the Elswick mineworker James Anderson’s (qv) volume. Ref Reilly (1994), 31; Wikipedia; Bridget Keegan and John Goodridge, ‘Modes and Methods in Three Nineteenth-Century Mineworker Poets’, Philological Quarterly, 92: 2 (2013), 225-50.Barrie, James (b. 1753-1829), shepherd, journeyman wright, ‘The Earl of Buchan’s own poet-laureate’ (Sir Walter Scott), pub. Poems for the Use of Children (1808); Poems on Various Subjects (Kelso, 1817); Riverside Poems (1821). Ref: Crockett, 97-8; Johnson, item 53. [S]Bartlett, Frederick R. (fl. 1886), ‘a working man of the Black Country, living at Bilston, Staffordshire’, pub. Flashes from Forge & Foundry: A Volume of Poems (Bilston, Staffs., 1886). Bartlett claimed his volume to be ‘Under the Distinguished Patronage of the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, Premier; and H. H. Fowler, esq, M.P.’ Ref: LC 6, 339-42; Poole & Markland, 462; Reilly (1994), 32. [LC 6]? Basse, or Bas, William, (c. 1583–1653?), of ?Northamptonshire, retainer to Lord Wenham of Thame Park; may have attended Oxford; wrote an ‘Elegy on Mr. William Shakespeare’ and ‘The Angler’s Song’ included in Walton’s Compleat Angler; also pub. Sword and Buckler, or, The Serving-Mans Defence (1602); Three Pastoral Elegies of Anander, Anetor, and Muridella (1602); posthumously pub. Poetical Works of William Basse (1893). Ref: ODNB; Radcliffe; Hold, 29-31. [OP]? Bealey, Richard Rome (1828-87), of Rochdale, master bleacher, draper, businessman, dialect and temperance poet, lived in Manchester and Nottingham, pub. After-business jottings: Poems (London and Manchester, 1864, 2nd edition ?1867); Field Flowers and City Chimes: Poems (London and Manchester, 1866); Old Hall Rhymes (London and Manchester, 1868); Poems (c. 1870); Later-life Jottings in Verse and Prose (Manchester and London, 1884). Ref: Harland, 260-2, 295-7, 303-9, 321, 332-3, 385-90, 392, 394-5, 425-6, 449-51, 480-1; Hollingworth (1977), 151, Vicinus (1969), 30; Reilly (1994); 35, Reilly (2000), 34.Beattie, George (1786-1823), of St Cyrus, Kincardineshire, son of a crofter and fisherman, trained to be a mechanic, author of ‘John o’ Arnha’, pub. John o Arnaha’. To which is added the Murderit Mynstrell and other poems (Montrose, 1818). Ref: ODNB; Reid, Bards, 35-40; Wilson, II, 87-90; George Beattie, of Montrose, a poet, a humourist, and a man of genius (1863). [S]Beattie, William (c. 1756-1801), flax-dresser of Aberdeen; pub. Fruits of Time Parings: being a collection of original poems, Scotch and Englishl; composed to fill up a few of the author’s blank hours—and respectfully offered to the public (Aberdeen: W. Rettie, 1801). Ref: Johnson, item 61. [S]Begg, Peter (1819-85), of Dundee, shoemaker, a founder of the Dundee Literary Institute, and in 1865 founded the movment (and later drafted the bill) that led to the Scottish Libraries Act. Ref: Edwards, 4, 209-12; Reid, Bards, 46-7. [S]Beggs, Thomas (1789-1847), of Glenwherry, Co. Antrim, sailor, weaver, bleacher, pub. Miscellaneous Pieces in Verse, (1819); Rathin: a descriptive poem (Belfast, 1820); The Rhyming Pedagogue (1821); The Momento, a Choice Variety of Original Poems (1828); The Minstrel’s Offering (1834), The Second Part of the Minstrel’s Offering (1836); Nights in a Garrett [prose work] (1830). Ref: ; O’Donoghue, 24; Hewitt; Johnson 46, no. 82; Kate Newman (Dictionary of Ulster Biography, [I]? Bell, Dugald, head gardener’s son, secretary and president of the Vale of Leven Mechanics’ Institute. Ref: Macleod, 74-80. [S]Bell, John, ‘self taught, without any regular education’, pub. Cartland-Craigs: a poem (Edinburgh: C. Stewart, for William Blackwood, J. Annan, and W, Robertson, Lanark, 1816) viii, 79, [3]. Ref: , 27 November 2001. [S]Bell, Thomas (1766-1824), of Ceres, Fife, of humble birth; ‘Ballad’ and ‘Song’ in Edwards. Ref: Edwards, 2, 55-7. [S]Bell, William ‘Billy’ (1862-1941), roadman and poet, of Redesdale, Northumberland, poems collected in [William Bell,] Susanne Ellingham and John Handle, Billy Bell, Redesdale Roadman, Border Bard: His Life, Times and Poetry (Seaton Burn: Northern Heritage, 2013), ‘a large selection of poems and a biography of Billy Bell’. In 1885 Bell was employed by his local council to maintain an eight-mile stretch of road from Carter bar to Rochester. Bell lived nearly all his life in a cottage in Byrness; filled many exercise books with poems, writing 360 in all on nature, the landscape, rural life and people; including three on the annual Bellingham Show and poems on fishing, his sciatica, and two from 1905 on the coming of the motor car. His poems often ‘join a sequence of thoughts after day’s working on road maintenance’ (folk musician Johnny Handle, who rediscovered the poems in the 1980s), and Bell had a particular gift for dialect poetry, often comic in tone. From about 1904 his poems were often published in the ‘Original Poetry’ spot in the local newspaper, the Hexham Courant. Ref: ‘Northern Heritage’ catalogue, 2014; Tony Henderson, ‘North’s rural poet is on the road to recognition at last’, Newcastle Journal, 27 March 2013, J2, 24 (includes a photograph of Bell. [OP]? Belson, Mary (later Mary Elliott, 1794?-1870), Quaker, Looking-glass Maker and children’s writer, pub. The Mice and their Pic Nic... (London: Private, 1810), and many other works for children, using poetry as an educational medium. Ref: Jackson (1985); Jackson (1993), 116-19; Marjorie Moon, The Children's Books of Mary (Belson) Elliott: A Bibliography (Winchester, Hampshire : St. Paul's bibliographies, 1987); Philip D. Jordan, ‘The Juvenilia of Mary Belson Elliott: A List with Notes’, Bulletin of the New York Public Library, 39 (1935). 869-81; inf Dawn Whatman. [F]? Benger, Elizabeth Ogilvy (bap. 1775-1827), of Wells, Somerset, daughter of a navy purser who ‘read open books in shop windows, returning each day when the page had been turned’, pub. The Female Geniad; a Poem (London, 1791), which mentions Mary Collier, Mary Deverell, Constantia Grierson and Ann Yearsley (qqv; the latter misnamed Kearsley), as well as other women writers; ‘A Poem, Occasioned by the Abolition of the Slave Trade’ in Poems on the Abolition of the Slave Trade by James Montgomery, James Graham and E. Benger (London, 1809), 101-41; also wrote novels and biographies. Ref: ODNB; Jackson (1993), 25-6; Basker, 620-2; inf Dawn Whatman. [F]Bennet, John (fl. 1774-96, d. 1803), shoemaker of Woodstock, Oxford. ~ Bennet worked as a Journeyman shoemaker and succeeded his father as parish clerk at Woodstock. He also ostensibly inherited his father’s musical penchant, declaring in the preface to his poems: ‘Witness my early acquaintance with the pious strains of Sternhold and Hopkins, under that melodious psalmodist my honoured Father’ (Ditchfield 1907). Bennet received guidance in improving his rhymes from Oxford Professor of Poetry Thomas Warton – the curate of the town and customer in Bennet’s shop – and under his patronage accumulated an extensive list of subscribers for Poems on Several Occasions (1774). ~ Although Southey (1831, 122) asserts, ‘There is nothing in his poems which deserves to be extracted for its own sake’, Ditchfield (1907) argues that despite Bennet’s plain modesty concerning his poetical faculties, his verses – which are largely marked by simple rhymes and rustic themes – are ‘not without merit or humour’. As for Bennet’s character, ‘The Monthly Review’ (July-Dec 1774, 483) notes: ‘Unlike the raft of the Crispinian fraternity, he seems to have a sense of virtue and religion; to spiritualise his profession’. Bennet states that the motive for publishing the poems was to allow him to ‘rear an infant offspring and to drive away all anxious solicitude from the breast of a most amiable wife.’ ~ Bennet concludes his first volume with the humorous lines: ‘So may our cobler rise by friendly aid, / Be happy and successful in his trade; / His awl and pen with readiness be found, / To make or keep our understandings sound.’ ~ In 1796, Bennet published Redemption – dedicated to Dr. Mavor of Woodstock – which Ditchfield (1907) considers ‘a noble poem, far exceeding in merit his first essay’. Bennet died in Woodstock in 1803. Pub. Poems on Several Occassions (1774) Printed for the author, and sold by T. Evans...; J. Southern ...; by Messr. Prince, Fletcher, and Parker ..., in Oxford; and by the author, in Woodstock (full text available on Google Book Search); Redemption, a Poem (1796) In two books. Woodstock, Banbury, London. Ref: LC 2, 273-96; NCBEL II; ESTC; Critical Review, 37, 473; Southey, 122-4; Winks, 297-9; Christmas, 18, 210-12, 215-20; P. H. Ditchfield, The Parish Clerk (London: Methuen, 1907), available at []. [LC 2] [—Iain Rowley]Bennet, William (b. 1802), of Glencairn, Dumfriesshire, of humble parents, apprenticed as a mechanic, contributed poems to the Dumfries Courier, became editor of the Glasgow Free Press, pub. first vol of poetry at eighteen (1820), second was Songs of Solitude, third The Chief of Glenorchy, also prose works. Ref: Wilson, II, 248-50. [S]Bennett, Robert (b. 1855), of Linlithgow, West Lothian, son of a pattern designer, draper, wrote in the Glasgow Weekly Herald and Sunday School, pub. Poems and Prose (Glasgow, 1888). Ref: Edwards, 12, 27-32; Reilly (1994), 42. [S]? Bennoch, Francis (1812-90), of Drumlanrig, Dumfriesshire, farmer’s son, later a prosperous London silk merchant, ‘a poet of wider reputation’ (Miller, 277); pub. three vols, The Storm, and other Poems (1849); Sir Ralph de Rayne (1872), and Poems, Lyrics, Songs and Sonnets (1877). Ref: Edwards, 6, 381 and 16, [lix]; Miller, 277-8. [S]Bentley, Elizabeth (1767-1839), of Norwich, daughter of a journeyman cordwainer, no formal education but taught to read and write by her fatherpub. poems in the Norwich Chronicle, and these vols: Genuine Poetical Compositions on various Subjects (Norwich, 1791, BL 993.c.43(4)), An Ode on the glorious Victory over the French... (Norwich 1805? BL 10601.a.28(3)), Poems, being the genuine compositions of Elizabeth Bentley, of Norwich (Norwich, 1821, BL 11642.bb.43), Miscellaneous Poems; being the Genuine Compositions... Third Volume (Norwich, 1835). Her first vol. had 2,000 subscribers and was well reviewed in the Gentleman’s Magazine, and enabled her to open a small school. Also received support from the Royal Literary Fund. Ref: LC 3, 193-202; ODNB; Landry, 209-16; Meyenberg, 201; Kord, 259; Rizzo, 243; Johnson, items 68-70, 932; Jackson (1993), 26; Sutton, 54 (letters). [LC 3] [F]? Bernstein, Marion (1846-1906), of Jewish-Scottish origins, lame and invalided as a child, earned an uncertain living as a music teacher in Glasgow, though at least once she was forced to seek help for indigence, might arguably be described as lower-middle class or middle class, pub. Mirren’s Musings and Other Poems (Glasgow: McGeachy, 1876); wrote remarkable comic and feminist poems for the Glasgow Weekly Mail, incl. ‘Mirren’s Autobiography,’ in tetrameter rhymed couplets. Ref: Edwards 1, 44-47; Boos (1995), 68, Leonard, 296-305; Reilly (2000), 39; Boos (2008), 337-47; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]‘Berry, Lizzie’ (=Elizabeth Kemp, née Marshall, 1847-1919), of Great Bowden, Leicestershire, of poor parents, lived in Otley, pub. Poems (Rugby, 1877/79, two volumes, sixty seven poems in the first, sixty-eight in the second), Day dreams: a collection of miscellaneous poems (Otley, 1893), Heart sketches: original miscellaneous & devotional poems (Otley, 1886), with a portrait of the author. She also privately published two volumes, The Tramp?and?The Wayside Inn, and kept a scrapbook with an additional 319 poems, carefully arranged, possibly another intended volume. Ref: ODNB, Reilly (1994), 44, Reilly (2000), 39. [F]Bethune, Alexander (1804-43), Fifeshire labourer, brother of John Bethune (qv), worked ‘digging clayey soil’, began his career with his brother as a weaver and suffered the collapse of the Scottish weaving market, pub. Tales and Sketches of the Scottish Peasantry (1838); The Scottish Peasant’s Fireside: A Series of Tales and Sketches Illustrating the Character of the Peasantry of Scotland (1843); Memoirs of Alexander Bethune: Embracing Selections from his Correspondence and Literary Remains (1845); Tales of the Scottish Peasantry, with a Biography of the Authors by John Ingram [with his brother] (Glasgow and London, 1884). The Bethune brothers are mentioned in Alton Locke. Ref: ODNB; Wilson, II, 265-7; Shanks, 146-53; Burnett et al (1984), no. 62; Maidment (1987), 138, LION; Sutton, 58 (letters). [S]Bethune, John (1810 or 1812 to 1839), of Abdie, Newburgh, Fifeshire, quarry and roadworker, younger brother of Alexander Bethune (qv), began his career as a weaver and was apparently quite skilful before suffering the collapse of the Scottish weaving market; contributed verses to newspapers, pub. Poems by the late John Bethune: With a Sketch of the Author’s Life by his Brother (Edinburgh, 1840). Ref: ODNB/DNB; Edwards, 1, 94-98; Wilson, II, 330-4, Cross, 153, Maidment (1987), 138-41, Shanks, 146-53, LION. [S]Beveridge, Mitchell Kilgour (b. 1831), of Dunfermline, emigrated to Australia in 1839, bushman, pub. Gatherings Among the Gum-trees (1863). Ref: Edwards, 12, 258-63. [S]Bewley, John, apprentice shoemaker at Crookdale, Wigtown, Cumberland, pub. Bewley’s day dreams: a series of poetical pieces (Mealsgate, 1891). Ref: Reilly (1994), 45.Billington, William (1827-84), ‘The Blackburn Poet’, born at Samlesbury, Lancashire, doffer (=worker involved in removing the full [cotton] bobbins or spindles, OED), ‘stripper and grinder’, then dandy-loom weaver, later a publican ~ ‘The Blackburn Poet’ was born at Samlesbury in the Ribble valley, Lancashire. At the time of his birth, William’s parents were unemployed handloom weavers, and found themselves working as road navvies. Following his father’s passing in 1832, William’s mother, Ann, had to support four of seven surviving children – two of whom were invalids – through handloom weaving, with sleep being a luxury. In the 1883 ‘Dedicatory Sonnet. To my two brothers, Joseph and James Billington’, William would refer back to when ‘a mother’s / Lone life was darkened, bravely battling for / Her orphaned children’s welfare… grim want… grown familiar’. ~ During the evenings that Billington assisted his mother, she would sing for him songs and satires composed by her brother, Robert Bolton. This influence, alongside the example of Richard Dugdale, ‘The Bard of Ribblesdale’ (qv) – whom he befriended in his youth – certainly helped bring out the poet in Billington. Having learnt to read and write at Catholic Sunday Schools, Billington lodged in his memory an abundance of lines from major English poets such as Chaucer and Wordsworth (Manchester Guardian. 19 June 1886). ~ Upon relocating to Blackburn around age 12, Billington spent his days in the factory and his nights at the Mechanics Institute - of which he was a founder member. An ‘insatiable autodidact’, he later taught grammar at a school in exchange for mathematics lessons, tendered his counsel to trade unions, toured the North and Midlands to disseminate his poems, regularly lectured on and debated political and religious matters – his initial reputation was that of a ‘public denier and assailant of… religious belief’ (Abram, 1894) — established a Mutual Improvement Society, and ran a beer-house on Bradshaw Street from 1875 — it was dubbed ‘Poet’s Corner’, on account of it functioning as a forum for Blackburn’s sizeable circle of dialect poets. ~ Many of the poems that would constitute Sheen and Shade: Lyrical Poems (1861) and Lancashire Songs, with other poems and sketches (1883) were featured in The Blackburn Evening Standard and The Blackburn Times. In the dedication to Thomas Clough in Sheen and Shade, Billington refers to the collection as ‘the scattered offspring of my vagrant muse… a motley, but not immoral group’. In the notes to ‘A Lancashire Garland’, Billington writes: ‘Why do I rhyme? Ask the wind why it blows. / Why do I rhyme? Ask the stars why they shine. / Ask the rain why it falls and the stream why it flows, / Ask the rich why they’re proud and the poor why they pine!’ ~ A staunch defender of the working-classes – deploring ‘men who mortgage / Their souls to serve Mammon, the god of the age!’ – Billington’s most widely celebrated poem is ‘Th’ Surat Weyver’, which was written during the Cotton Famine and sold 14,000 copies as a broadsheet. The embitterment is inescapable: ‘We’n left no stooan unturn’d, nod one, / Sin’t’ trade becoom so flat, / Bud new they’n browt us too id, mon, / They’n med us weyve Surat!’ ~ In his latter years, Billington produced an extensive series of essays for the Blackburn Standard on local authors, trade unionists and countryside. He succumbed to bronchitis and lung inflammation on 3 January 1884 (Hepburn 2002). With regard to tributes, in the poem ‘To the Memory of William Billington’, George Hull refers to him as ‘a master-mind’ and writes: ‘The Singer has departed; and no more / Is heard the voice, o strong and clear and sweet, / Cheering the crowds in factory and in street’. John Walker, in ‘Ode: On the Death of William Billington’, affirms: ‘Thou wert a part of me / As I of thee, / As “all are parts of one stupendous whole”’. Pub. Sheen and Shade: Lyrical Poems (Blackburn, 1861); Lancashire Songs, with other poems and sketches (1883). Ref: ODNB; Hull, 113-32; Vicinus (1974), 141, 167; Hollingworth (1977), 151-2; Maidment (1987), 15, 160, 170; Reilly (1994), 47; Reilly (2000), 41; Hepburn. [—Iain Rowley]? Binns, George (1815-47), of Sunderland, one if 15 children, son of a Quaker draper, Chartist agitator, poet, bookseller, pub. ‘Chartist Mother’s Song’ in The Northern Liberator, 1 February 1840; The Doom of Toil (1841), composed whilst the author was jailed for sedition. After working in the family business, Binns opened a bookshop in 1837 with his fellow Chartist James Williams; both imprisoned in 1940 and Binns emigrated to New Zealand in 1942. One of Binns’s poems is entitled ‘To the Magistrate Who Committeed Me to Prison under the Darlington Cattle Act for Addressing a Chartist meeting’ (Kovalev, 65). He also defended himself spiritedly when political enemies attempted to use his Chartist history against him in new Zealand. Ref: ODNB [‘Binns family’]; Kovalev, 65-69; Scheckner, 119-23, 313, 330, 343; Schwab 185; ‘Brief Lives of the Chartists’ page, (March 2015). [C]Bird, James (1788-1839), Suffolk farmer’s son, apprenticed to miller, later a stationer, pub. The Vale of Slaughden, a Poem. In Five Cantos (Halesworth, 1819), a poem favourably compared to Bloomfield; The White Hats (1819), a mock heroic attack on radical Reformers; also wrote an imitation of Byron’s Don Juan, in his Poetical Memoirs. The Exile, a Tale (London: Baldwin, Cradock, 1824), as well as many other collections, including Machin, or the discovery of Madeira. A Poem. In Four Cantos (London: John Warren, 1821); Cosmo, Duke of Tuscany, a Tragedy, in Five Acts (London: Rodwell and Martin, 1822); Dunwich: a tale of the splendid city (London 1828); Framlingham: a narrative of the castle (London, 1831); The emigrant’s tale...and miscellaneous poems (London, 1833); Francis Abbot, the recluse of Niagara (London, 1837). Ref: LC 4, 235-56; ODNB; Johnson, items 74-81; Jarndyce, item 1284; Johnson 46, no. 266; Sutton, 59 (letters); inf. Bridget Keegan. [LC 4]Birkett Card, Mary (1774-1817), poet of humble origins, daughter of a candlemaker, devout Quaker and abolitionist, pub. A Poem on the African Slave Trade. Addressed to her Own Sex (1792, online, see ref below); [anon] Lines to the Memory of Our Late Endeared and Juatly Valued Friend, Joseph Williams (Dublin, 1807). Ref: Basker, 442-4; O’Donoghue, 27 [listed as Mary Birkett]. Links: . [F]? Birrell, Mary, of Dundee, semi-educated, pub. The Rifle Volunteers, and other poems (Dundee, 1861, 2nd edn Dundee, 1871), The Sanctuary (Dundee), poems on patriotic themes. Ref: Reilly (2000), 42; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]? Bisset, Alexander M. (b. 1869), of Perth, insurance agent, pub. Spring Blossoms: Poems and Songs (Bathgate, 1890). Ref: Bisset, 314-21; COPAC; Charles Cox, Catalogue 51 (2005), item 44. [S]Black, John (b. 1847), of East Handaxwood, Midlothian, moorland farmer’s son, engineering worker. Ref: Edwards, 2, 179-81. [S]Black, William (1825-87), of Calton, Glasgow, weaver, temperance agitator, orangeman, poems in Edwards. Ref: Edwards, 12, 102-4. [S]Blackah, Thomas (1828-95), of Greenhow Hill, Yorkshire, ‘the leadminer’s poet’, a lead miner from the age of nine, minimally educated but attended nightschool for two years at age 24; pub. Songs and Poems, written in the Nidderdale Dialect (Pateley Bridge: T. Thorpe, 1867); poems collected in Dialect Poems and Prose, with a short biography by Harald John Lexow Bruff, first edition (York, 1937). Blackah was a key figure in his small community, known for ‘expressing his sentiments in scathing sayings and epigrams’, as he sat in the ‘shop’ he had set up in his front room, retailing poems, stationary and homemade knitwear, and ‘knitting, while his friends and cronies would drop in for a crack’ (Bruff, quoted in LC6). For some years he wrote and published, under the pseudunym ‘Nattie Nydds’, a dialect almanack, T’ Nidderdale Olminac (but note that Moorman says he only contributed to it). A prose journal of his 1857 voyage to America is available online, listed below. Ref: LC 6, 65-72; Holroyd, 131-2 (who gives his birth date as April 6th 1827); Andrews, 241-2; Moorman, xxx, xxxiv, 51-3; Maidment (1987), 227, 229-30; England 21, 28; Smith, Dales, 13-17; inf. Bob Heyes; Bridget Keegan, ‘“Incessant toil and hands innumerable”: Mining and Poetry in the Northeast of England’, Victoriographies, 1 (2011), 177-201. Links: ; ; .[LC 6]Blackburn, Ernest (b. 1848), of Collingbourne Ducis, Wiltshire, farm carter from age 11, whose brief autobiography includes some doggerel verses about leaving for London (‘In 1866 I left my Humble Home’), pub. from a manuscript by his grandson in 1987. Ref : Ernest Blackmore, ‘A Voice from the Wessex Chorus’, The Countryman, 92, no. 4 (Winter 1987), 144-8.Blackburn, John James (1836-72), of London, lived most of his life in Scotland, hosier, glover and shirtmaker, pub. poems in newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 14, 62-6. [S]Blacket, Joseph (1786-1810), of Tunstall, Richmond, Yorks., shoemaker poet, son of a Yorkshire day labourer, sent to London and ‘placed with his brother’ at age eleven to be a ladies’ shoemaker, saw Kemble perform Richard III at Drury Lane and ‘henceforth Shakspere became his idol’ (Newsam); also read Eusebius (Edmund Rack, [qv]) as a youth, was satirized by Byron, and supported by patrons William Marchant and Samuel Jackson Pratt, who compared him to Robert Bloomfield (qv). Bloomfield himself wrote warmly and wittily to this ‘brother in leather’ on receiving his poetry volume from James Lackington in 1809: ‘“The Conflagration” is so truly full of fire that it allmost burns ones fingers to read it. Saragossa is a noble poem. You have got the right pig by the ear, go on; but choose your own themes, and let the master-tint of your mind have full play. I fear from your own hints in the work that you are not healthy. this makes the last page the more afflicting. I have much to say but will now only tender my hearty good wishes and congratulations. And am sincerely your friend and Brother in Leather’. Bloomfield’s fears were well-founded, as Blacket died of consumption the next year. Pub. Specimens of the Poetry of Joseph Blacket, with an account of his Life and some introductory observations (private edition and limited circulation, London, 1809); The Times, an Ode (1809); The Remains of Joseph Blacket, ed. with a memoir by Samuel Jackson Pratt (London: Sherwood, Neely and Jones, 1811). Ref: ODNB; Newsam 106-8; Winks, 308-13 (image on 309); Burnett et al (1984), no. 68; Cross, 130-3; Rizzo, 243; Goodridge (1999), item 8; Vincent, 204; Sutton, 61 (letters, including one that provides a short sketch of his life); Bloomfield Circle, letter 241 and notes.Blacklock, Thomas (1721-91), blind poet (and ‘a pioneer of blind education in the British Isles’, ODNB), son of a bricklayer, loss his sight to smallpox in infancy. Supported by Hume (in 1754, Hume transferred his Faculty of Advocates library salary to Blacklock) and Joseph Spence (who wrote a short account of Blacklock's life). Pub Poems on Several Occasions (Glasgow, 1746); Advice to the Ladies, A Satyr (n. pub. [?Edinburgh], 1754); A Collection of Original Poems, By the Rev. Mr Blacklock and other Scotch Gentlemen (1760-2, two vols). Ref: Joseph Spence, An Account of the Life, Character and Poems of Mr. Blacklock, Student of Philosophy, in the University of Edinburgh (London: R. & J. Dodsley, 1754); LC 2, 49-50; ODNB; Radcliffe; Miller, 113-25, 211; Wilson, I, 198-201; Christmas, 75; Sutton, 64 (letter); Croft & Beattie, I, 18 (items 51-2). [S] [LC 2]Blackwell, John (‘Alun’, 1797-1840), apprenticed to a shoemaker, poet, educated at Jesus College, Oxford (paid for by subscription fund of local gentry and clergymen), won a prize at the eisteddfod at Denbeigh in 1928 for an elegy for Bishop Heber, pub. Several posthumous collections in Welsh including Ceinion Alun [“Gems of Alun”] (1851, ed. Griffith Edwards, includes some letters) and some verse edited by Isaac Foulkes (1879) and collected by Owen M. Edwards in the series Cyfres y Fil [“The Thousand Series,” OCLW] (1909). OCLW notes “no volume of his poems was published during his lifetime”; popular lyrical (showing English influence) poems include ‘Doli’ [“Doll” or “Dolly”], 'C?n Gwraig y Pysgotwr' [“Song of a Woman and the Fisherman”] and ‘Abaty Tintern’ [Tintern Abbey] Ref: ODNB, OCLW. <; <; [W] [—Katie Osborn]Blair, Alexander (b. c. 1838), of Aberdeen, was paralysed and never able to walk, ‘but crept about, as he himself puts it “like a little doggie”’ (Reid); very limited schooling and no grammatical learning, apprenticed in the tailor trade, eventually having his own tailor business in Arbroath; pub. in the Arbroath Guide. Ref: Reid, Bards, 48-9. [S]Blair, John (1818-89), of Stirling, type-foundry worker, pub. Masonic songs, oddfellow songs, and other rhymes (1888). Ref: Edwards, 13, 146-51. [S]? Blake, Nicholas (d. 1850s), of Marley, County Meath, farmer ruined by the famine of 1846-7, poems pub. ‘many years after his death’ in the Drogheda Argus; he had moved to London with the MS of a novel, ‘The Absentee’, unpub. Ref O’Donoghue, 29. [I]? Blake, William (1757-1827), London-born major poet, artist and radical thinker, of humble origins, trained as a printmaker. Blake’s first vol., Poetical Sketches (1783), was presented as the work of an ‘untutored youth’, and Blake was proud of the independence he gained by being ‘untaught’. Ref: ODNB; ; Richardson, 249, 254; Goodridge (1999), item 10; Sutton, 66 (drawings, manuscripts, letters and miscellaneous materials).? Blamire, Susannah (1747-94), ‘The Muse of Cumberland’, yeoman farmer’s daughter, Cumberland poet and musician. Ref: ODNB; Radcliffe; Rowton, 237-39; Lonsdale (1989), 278-94; Fullard, 550; Backscheider, 404; Backscheider & Ingrassia, 869-70; Sutton, 67 (poem MS). [F]Blandford, Edward James, musician, hairdresser, ultra-radical and poet. Ref: Worrall, 146-63.Bleakley, William, of Ballinaskeagh, weaver and loom maker, also cart-builder and furniture maker; pub. Moral and Religious Poems (1840); includes an ‘Author’s Account’. Ref. Hewitt. [I]Bloomfield, George (1757-1831), brother of Robert Bloomfield (qv), supplied Capel Lofft with biographical material about his brother; he also was a poet, and some of his verses are supplied in the apparatus to Bloomfield Circle. Ref: LC 4, 99-104; DNB (under Robert Bloomfield); Hobsbawm and Scott, 97; Cranbrook, 68, 164-65; Meyenberg, 201; Bloomfield Circle. [LC 4]Bloomfield, Isaac, brother of Robert Bloomfield (qv), wrote songs. Ref: Bloomfield Circle.Bloomfield, Nathaniel (1759-after 1822), tailor, brother of Robert Bloomfield (qv), pub. An essay on war, in blank verse; Honington Green a ballad; the culprit an elegy; and other poems on various subjects (London: Thos. Hurst and Vernor and Hood, 1803, printed by P. Gedge, Bury, two edns), with a preface by Capel Lofft; ‘Honington Green’ reprinted in The Suffolk Garland (Ipswich and London, 1818) and elsewhere. Ref: LC 4, 47-70; Cranbrook, 70, 165; Johnson, item 100; Jarndyce, items 1287-8; C. R. Johnson, cat. 49 (2006), item 55; Bloomfield Circle. [LC 4]Bloomfield, Robert (1766-1823), of Honington, Suffolk, ‘farmer’s boy’, ladies’ shoemaker, Aeolian harp-maker, successful and significant poet, pub. The Farmer’s Boy (1800), Rural Tales, Ballads and Songs (1802), Good Tidings; or News from the Farm (1804), Wild Flowers; or Pastoral and Local Poetry (1806), The History of Little Davy’s New Hat (1815), May-Day with the Muses (1822), The Banks of the Wye (1823); Hazelwood Hall: A Village Drama (1823); Remains of Robert Bloomfield (1824), two vols; Selected Poems, ed. John Goodridge and John Lucas, rev. and enlarged edn (Nottingham: Trent Editions, 2007). ~ Ref LC 4, 21-8; ODNB; Bloomfield Circle; William Wickett and Nicholas Duval, The Farmer’s Boy, the Story of a Suffolk Poet, Robert Bloomfield, His Life and Poems 1766-1823 (Lavenham: Terence Dalton, 1971); Jonathan Lawson, Robert Bloomfield (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1980); Simon White, John Goodridge and Bridget Keegan (eds), Robert Bloomfield: Lyric, Class, and the Romantic Canon (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2006); Simon White, Robert Bloomfield, Romanticism and the Poetry of Community (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007); John Goodridge and Bridget Keegan (eds), Robert Bloomfield: The Inestimable Blessing of Letters, online essay collection, Romantic Circles Praxis series (2011). ~ See also The Robert Bloomfield Society Newsletter (ongoing, pub. twice a year by the Bloomfield Society, founded in 2000); Southey, 163; Craik, II, 208-19; Miles, I, 151-72 & X, 257; Blunden, 117-31; Unwin, ch. 5, 87-109; Winks, 99-116; Klaus (1985), 6-9, 15, 20; Shiach, 60-1; Maidment (1983), 87; Hobsbawm and Scott, 96; Cafarelli, 85-6; Rizzo, 243; Phillips, 216; Richardson, 247-50; Powell, items 118-24; Meyenberg, 202-3; Johnson, items 486, 754, 840; Jarndyce, items 1289-1302; Hold, 9-10; Keegan (2008), 10-36; Sutton, 74 (numerous mss and letters). [LC 4]Blyth, David (1810-37), of Dundee, merchant seaman, posthumously pub. The Pirate Ship and other poems (1879), ed by ‘B.M.’, a relative (Reid discusses the ‘Blyth family’ in his headnote; this book contains memoirs and materials relating to several of them who wrote poetry, including Thomas Blyth, [qv], and 30 poems by his sister, Isabella [qv]). Ref: Edwards, 1, 344-5; Reid, Bards, 49-51. [S]? Blyth, Isabella, of Dundee: see note on her brother David Blyth (qv); Mrs. Blyth-Martin, as she later was, contributed 30 poems to her brother’s posthumous Pirate Ship collection, and a great deal of money to a memorial hall for her brother, suggesting that, at least as a married woman, she was wealthy. Ref: Reid, Bards, 52. [F] [S]Blyth, Thomas (b. c. 1818, d. 1874), of Dundee, flax spinner, died at Newport-on-Tay, ‘a wit, and a genial spirit’ (Reid). Ref: Reid, Bards, 51. [S]Blythe, John Dean (1842-69), of Ashton-under-Lyne, cotton-mill factory hand, clerk, radical, killed in a gun accident, pub. A Sketch in the life, and a selection from the writings of John Dean Blythe (Manchester, 1870). Ref: ODNB, Reilly (2000), 46.? Bolton, William (b. 1861), of Brindle, Lancashire son of a handloom-weaver, educated at Ampleforth and became a salesman, pub. poems in newspapers. Ref: Hull, 417-23.Bolton, William, Corporal, 1st Middlesex Engineers Volunteers, pub. Foliage and blossom (Croydon, 1879). Ref: Reilly (2000), 47.? Bond, Richard, fl. 1769, bookseller, pub. Poems Divine and Moral (Gloucester, ?1769). Ref: Gents. Mag., 39 (1769), 158; BL 11602.ff.14(3).Bonwick, James (b. 1817), of London, son of a carpenter, emigrated to Australia, pub. autobiography, An Octogenarian’s Reminiscences (1902), incl. 21 pp. of poems. ref Burnett et al (1984), no. 33. [OP]Borland, Alexander (1773-1828), of Paisley, handloom weaver, acquaintance of Tannahill, joined Lanarkshire militia, pub. poems in Brown. Ref: Brown, I, 84-85. [S]Borland, Alexander (1793-1858), of Paisley, weaver and pattern-designer, shawl-manufacturer, coal merchant, dyer and banker, jailed for six weeks for intercepting his partner’s letters, author of ‘The Brown Cleuk on’ in Brown. Ref: Brown, I, 273-75; Leonard, 195-96. [S]? Bostock, Susan (1862-1948), of Northampton, daughter of an early Northampton shoe-manufacturer, poet, artist and musician, pub. poems in Northampton and County Independent, Northampton County Magazine, and three vols, Spring Notes and Other Poems (1912; The Call of the Uplands (1913), The World of Heart’s Delight (1930); poems include ‘A Yorkshire Mill Girl’. Ref: Hold, 35-36. [F] [OP] Boucher, Ben (1769-1851), born at Horsley Heath, ‘The Dudley Poet and Rhymist’, collier poet of Dudley, Worcs; ‘the greater part of his singular and irregular life was spent in Dudley, at certain favourite public house haunts, where his talents were appreciated, and his songs admired and read by the curious’ (Clark). Ref: The Curiosities of Dudley and the Black Country, from 1800 to 1860, compiled and ed. Charles Francis G. Clark (1881), 214-16 (includes poems and an image); Poole & Markland, 115-18; Notes & Queries, 219 (1974), 61.? Bourne, Hugh (1772-1852), of Bemersley, Staffs., wheelwright, hymn-writer and Primitive Methodist pioneer/founder and preacher; pub. hymns and ‘The Creation, Fall and Redemption of Man’ (Methodist Magazine, 1822). Ref: ODNB; Poole & Markland, 472-3.Bourne, Isabella (fl. 1857/8), of Acton, referred to in a poem called ‘Cherub and the Poetess’ (in William Floyd’s (qv) Lays of Lapstone); pub. Lays of Labour’s Leisure Hours (London: Judd and Glass, 1858), which includes a 56 page novelette. The preface describes the continued importance of poetry to working people, and indicates that Bourne is a ‘servant of humble pretensions’. Ref: Davis & Joyce, xii and 30; inf. Bridget Keegan. [F]Bouskill, Thomas (b. 1779), of Paisley (born in Nottingham), stocking weaver, never pub. in his lifetime but wrote for himself; poems in Brown. Ref: Brown, I, 129-33. [S]Boustead, Christopher Murray, roadman of Keswick, pub. Rustic verse and dialect rhymes (Keswick, 1892). Ref: LC 6, 355-62; Reilly (1994), 56. [LC 6]Bower, Fred, of Boston, MA, stonemason in Britain and America, a ‘tramping’ artisan, a socialist involved in labour politics, and a poet; pub. Rolling Stonemason. An Autobiography (London: Jonathan cape, 1936). Ref. Burnett et al (1984), no. 78. [OP]Bowie, Agnes H. of Bannockburn, builder’s daughter. Ref: Edwards, 12, 152-61. [F] [S]? Bowker, James, (‘A Lancashire Lad’), author of dialect protest poem, ‘Hard Toimes, or the Weaver Speaks to his Wife’, pub. 1862. Ref: Harland, 512-14, 546-7; Vicinus (1970), 334-7.? Bowness, William (1809-67), of Kendal, Westmorland, self-taught artist, pub. Rustic studies in the Westmorland dialect, with other scraps from the sketch-book of an artist (London and Kendal, 1868). Ref: ODNB; Reilly (2000), 51.? Boyd, Elizabeth (fl. 1727-45), ‘Louisa’, ‘from the lowest condition of Fortune’, pub. Variety: A Poem... by Louisa (1727) and other poems and prose works including a miscellany of riddles and poems, a novel and a ballad-opera, specific titles: The Humorous Miscellany, or, Riddles for the Beaux; Verses most Humbly Inscrib'd to his Majesty King George IId on his Birth-Day (1730); The Happy North-Briton (1737); and Glory to the Highest, a Thanksgiving Poem on the Late Victory at Dettingen (1743. Admiral Haddock, or, The Progress of Spain (1739 or 1740, praises defeat of Spanish Armada). Ref: ODNB; Lonsdale (1989), 134-35; Fullard, 550; Backscheider & Ingrassia, 870. [F]Boyd, George (b. 1848), of Kilmarnoch, house painter. Ref: Edwards, 12,131-4. [S]Boyle, Francis, of Gransha (b. c. 1730), weaver (Hewitt also identifies him as a blacksmith from the poems), wrote the poem ‘Bonny Weaver’ (1811); ‘The Wife o’ Clinkin’ Town’; Miscellaneous Poems (1811). Ref Hewitt. [I]? Boyle, James (fl. 1842), referred to as a cork-cutter and poet in Alexander Wilson’s (qv) ‘The Poet’s Corner’.Boyle, James Thompson (b. 1849), of Friockheim then Arbroath, millwright, soldier. Ref: Edwards, 14, 166-70; Reid, Bards, 61-2. [S]? Boyle, Margaret (b. 1862), of Irish parentage, b. in Cincinnati, Ohio, blind from birth and educated in the Asylum for the Blind in Cincinnati; poems pub. in ‘various American periodicals’. Ref O’Donoghue, 35. [F] [I] Brack, Jessie Wanlass, of Longformacus, Lammermoor, domestic servant. Ref: Edwards, 12, 169-72. [F] [S]Bradbury, Stephen Henry (‘Quallon’, b. 1828), of Nottingham, poor parents, glove maker, Sunday school reader, journalist, pub. Lyrical Fancies (London, 1866). Ref: Reilly (2000), 52.Bradford, John Sion (1706-85), of Betws Tir Iarll, Glamorgan, weaver and fuller, poet and antiquarian, part of a circle of literary men in the district, studied bardic tradition, instructor of Edward Williams (‘Iolo Morganwg’, qv) who ‘claimed him as an heir to the druidic and bardic system which...had persisted over the centuries in Tir Iarll’ and insisted ‘that it was in Bradford's manuscripts he had found much of the material which was later shown to be of his own invention’. Ref: ODNB, OCLW. [W] [—Katie Osborn]? Bradley, Daniel (b. 1852), of Derry, educated at Catholic schools, moved to Glasgow in 1872 to work at an engineering firm; pub. Musings in Exile, poems (Glasgow, 1894); also pub. in United Ireland, Derry Journal, Donegal Indicator, People's Journal (Dundee), Glasgow Weekly Mail. Ref O’Donoghue, 37. [I] [S]Bradley, William Joseph (b. 1857), of Bridgeton, Glasgow, worked in iron foundry, lost an arm, then worked as timekeeper, pub. poems in newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 8, 63-5. [S]Bramwich, John Henry (1804-46), of Leicester, Chartist and stockinger; born in Shoreditch, brought up by his mother, ribbon-weaver, worked in a Leicester factory from the age of nine, enlisted and served for 16 years including ten in the West Indies before returning to Leicester as a framework knitter; contributed 14 hymns to the Shakespearean Chartist Hymn Book. Ref: Newitt, 3-7; Kovalev, 118-19; Scheckner, 124-5, 330; Schwab 186. [C]Brant, Alfred C. (b. c. 1852), of Louth Lincolnshire, secularist and socialist poet, compositor by trade. During the 1890s, he contributed articles to the Wyvern on a range of topics including ‘White Slaves in Leicester,’ and a description of 1897 May Day demonstration. Under the acronym ‘A.C.B.,’ he wrote an autobiographical poem which tells the reader of his secularism, socialism and his joy at working at the Leicester Co-operative Printing Society. He also wrote a sonnet in dedication to Ramsay MacDonald (A Rhymester’s Recollections, ?1903) and a poem welcoming delegates to the 1911 Labour Party conference in Leicester. He was a member of F. J. Gould’s ethical guild. Ref: inf. contributor. [—Ned Newitt]Brechin, George (b. 1829), of Ellon, Aberdeenshire, housepainter, poems in Edwards. Ref: Edwards, 3, 414-16. [S]Breckenridge, John (1790-1840), handloom weaver of Parkhead, Glasgow, wrote ‘The Humours of Gleska Fair’. Ref: Glasgow Poets, 203-08; Murdoch, 96-103. [S]Bremner, David (1813-78), of Aberchirder, Aberdeenshire, baker’s son, herdboy, baker, merchant. Ref: Edwards, 11, 303-10. [S]? Brereton, Jane (‘Melissa’, 1685-1740), b. at Mold, Flints., married Thomas Brereton in 1711 and lived with him in London for a time; in 1722, having squandered the considerable fortune he had, they separated and he drowned, leaving Jane destitute; pub: verses in The Gentleman’s Magazine; Poems on Several Occasions (posthumous; 1744). Also included in Gramich & Brennan. Ref: OCLW; Gramich & Brennan, 55-57, 394. [W] [F] [—Katie Osborn]Bridie, John (b. c. 1833), of Dundee, painter, pub. in newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 15, 338-14. [S]Brierley, Ben (‘Ab o’ th’Yate’, 1825-96), of Failsworth, Manchester, handloom weaver of velvet, later a journalist, dialect poet, city councillor; pub. Goosegrave Penny Readings (c. 1865); Home Memories and Recollections of a Life (Manchester, 1886), his autobiography; Spring Blossoms and autumn leaves [poems] (Manchester, 1893); edited Ben Brierley’s Journal. Ref: LC 5, 331-3; LC 6, 363-72; ODNB; NRA (Manchester); Harland, 447-8, 552-4; Maidment (1987), 360-2, 364-6; Vicinus (1970), 349n5; Vicinus (1973), 753-6; Burnett et al (1984), no. 85; Hollingworth (1977), 152; Vincent, 111-13, 182; Ashton & Roberts, ch. 8, 97-121; Zlotnick, 195-7; Reilly (1994), 64. [LC 5] [LC 6].Brierley, Thomas (1820-1900), of Alkrington, Middleton, Lancashire, silk weaver, author of ‘Th’ Silk-Weaver’s Fust Bearin’-Home’, pub. Nonsense and tom-foolery, and seriousness and solemnity (Manchester and London, 1870), Original pieces, for either recitation or fireside reading (Manchester and London, 1872), Short poems, with pepper and salt in (Manchester and London, [?1892]), The countrified pieces of Thomas Brierley (Oldham, 1894). Ref: Harland, 338-9, 402-3, 430-1, 454-5, 471-2; Reilly (1994), 64; Reilly (2000), 56-7.Brimble, William (fl. 1762-5), carpenter, pub. Poems attempted on various occasions (1765). Ref: LC 2, 123-40; Christmas, 210-15. [LC 2]Britton, Frances (fl. 1828), poor woman, pub. Short and true sketches on the conflicts of life and other subjects (London: Printed for the author, 1828), poetry ‘about poverty & England’; she ‘wrote bitterly of her poverty and her arrest as a vagabond.’ Ref Davis and Joyce, xi-xii, 36. [F] [—Dawn Whatman]Brock, William (1793-1855), tenant farmer of Eastertoun, Armadale, author of ‘Frost in the Mornin’, printed in Bisset. Ref: Bisset, 77-8. [S]? Brooke, Charlotte, (1740-93), born in Rantavan, county Cavan, cared for her father, novelist and playwright Henry Brooke, but was left poor on his death in 1783; tried to make a living through her writing but, despite critical success, remained in poverty. Pub. a novel, Emma; or the Foundling Wood (1803), and Reliques of Irish Poetry (1789). Her poetry ranges in style from heroic, Augustan styles, odes and elegies, to ballads or songs. Her most popular Fenian Poem is possibly ‘The Chase,’ published in choice Irish songs, Bolg an Tsolair; or, Gaelic Magazine (Belfast: Northern Star Office, 1795). Refs: O’Donoghue, 40-1; Gaelic Magazine as cited; [—Dawn Whatman] [I][F] Brown, Alexander (1775-1834), ‘Berwickshire Sandie’, apprentice mason, side-schoolmaster, pub. Poems, mostly in the Scottish dialect (1801). Ref: Crockett, 110-13. [S]Brown, Alexander (1801-81), of Burngrange, Perthshire, calico printer / block printer (father of William Brown [qv]), pub. Poems Secular and Sacred (1872). Ref: Brown, I, 340-42. [S]Brown, Alexander (b. 1823), of Penicuik, near Edinburgh, sailor, spent time in US and Canada. Ref: Edwards, 4, 176-80; Reid, Bards, 65-6. [S]Brown, Alexander (b. 1837), of Auchtertool, Fifeshire, cattle herder, cabinet maker, pub. in People’s Friend, People’s Journal, local press. Ref: Edwards, 1, 151-6; Murdoch, 302-9. [S]? Brown, Archibald (b. 1850), son of piermaster, apprenticed and served as a journeyman blacksmith, later emigrated to Queensland and became a schoolteacher; poems in Macleod. Ref: Macleod, 178-81. [S]Brown, David (1826-86), of Paisley, weaver, later keeper of the West End Reading Room, pub. Minstrelsy of My Youth (Paisley, 1845). Ref: Brown, II, 226-8; Leonard, 184-5. [S]Brown, ‘Sergeant’ David, of Horndean, soldier and later pedlar in the borders, wrote rhyming epistles and poems of ‘inferior merit’. Ref: Crockett, 293. [S]Brown, Elizabeth (b. c. 1809), ‘cottage girl, of Woodend Northamptonshire’, who wrote poems ‘to chase away a dreary hour in my secluded cottage’; pub. Original Poetry (1839, 1841, 1842); described by Hold (who includes only a McGonagallesque coronation poem) as ‘Northamptonshire’s female McGonagall’; more interesting poems include ‘On a poor Irishman calling at the cottage’, numerous elegies, and a number of poems on benevolence and charity. Ref: Hold, 43-44; inf. Bob Heyes; Google Books (full view of 1841 edition). [F]Brown, Fred (b. 1893), Huddersfield textile worker and dialect poet, pub. The Muse Went Weaving (Ilkley: Yorkshire Dialect Society, 1964). Ref K E Smith, The Dialect Muse (Wetherby: Ruined Cottage Pubns., 1979), 23-4, 27-30; Smith, West, 41-7 [OP]Brown, Henry (Henry ‘Mechanic’ Brown, fl. 1830-35), carpenter, artisan, pub. The Mechanic's Saturday Night, A Poem In The‘vulgar’ Tongue; Humbly Addressed To The Rt. Hon. Sir Robert Peel. By A Mechanic (London: Printed for the author, 1830); Sunday: A poem in three cantos (1835). Ref: LC 5, 1-10; Ashraf (1978), I, 24. [LC 5]Brown, Henry (fl. 1860), of Northfleet, cement worker, pub. A Voice of Warning, by Henry Brown, a Working Man, Who was Blind for six months through an accident at the Cement Works, in the Parish of Northfleet, in the County of Kent. Composed and written by himself (1860). Ref: COPAC.Brown, Hugh (1800-85), muslin weaver, of Newmilns, Ayrshire, later schoolmaster in Galston, Lanark, and a printer’s reader in Glasgow, pub. The Covenanters: and Other Poems (Glasgow: John Symington and Co., 1838). Ref: Edwards, 3, 182-8 and 9, xv; Johnson, item 137. [S]Brown, Isaac, Muslin manufacturer, of Paisley, author of Renfrewshire Characters and Scenery: a poem (Paisley, 1824), with memoir and notes. Ref: inf. Bob Heyes. [S]? Brown, J. J. (b. 1859), of Kilsyth, chemist, pub. at age 17 Visionary Rhymes, or the Tuneings of a Youthful harp (1876), brother of Simon Brown (qv). Ref: Edwards, 1, 341-2. [S]Brown, James (b. 1836), of Fieldhead, Avondale, Lanarkshire, herd boy, warehouseman, postal worker, pub. Linda, and other poems (London, 1871). Ref: Edwards, 5, 230-7; Reilly (2000), 61. [S]? Brown, James B. (b. 1832), of Galashiels, woollen manufacturer. Ref: Edwards, 7, 33-42. [S]Brown, James Pennycook (b. 1862), of Brechin, farmer’s son, compositor on the Aberdeen Journal, pub. Poetical Ephemeras (1831), emigrated to Canada. Ref: Reid, Bards, 66-8; Walker. [S]Brown, John (1812-90), ‘The Horncastle Laureate’, born in Horncastle Workhouse, Lincs., apprenticed to a cabinet-maker, ran away to sea as a cabin boy, travelled to Russia, later a housepainter in London, pub. The lay of the clock and other poems (Horncastle, 1861), Literae laureate: or, a selection from the poetical writings in Lincolnshire language, ed. by J. Conway (Horncastle, 1890). Ref: Reilly (1994), 68.Brown, John (b. 1822), of Alexandria, Vale of Leven, Dumbartonshire, pattern-maker in Glasgow and Manchester, pub. Song Drifts (Glasgow, 1874, 1883), Poems and songs (Glasgow, 1883); Wayside songs, with other verse (Glasgow, 1883); Wayside songs, with other lyrics (Glasgow, 1887). Ref: Edwards, 2, 131-4; Murdoch, 266-9; Macleod, 115-1; Reilly (1994), 68; Reilly (2000), 61. [S]Brown, Simon (b. 1853), of Kilsyth, Stirlingshire, hatter, brother of J.J. Brown (qv), wrote articles for the Hatter’s Gazette; pub The Lord’s Day: An Essay, Attempted in Verse (1883). Ref: Edwards, 7, 288-91. [S]Brown, Thomas, of Cellerdyke, Anstruther, Fife, pub. Musings of a workman on the pains and praise of man’s great substitute (Anstruther and Edinburgh, 1861). Ref: Reilly (2000), 62. [S]? Brown, William (b. 1836), of Paisley, son of Alexander Brown (1801-81, [qv]), block printer, photographer, poems in Brown. Ref: Brown, II, 309-14. [S]? Brown, William (1791-1864), of Dundee, flax-spinner, laird’s son, businessman, retired from business in 1856 and pub. non-verse Reminiscenses of Flax Spinning and anonymously his Poems (1863). Ref: Reid, Bards, 68-9. [S]? Browne, Frances (1816–1879), of Stranorlar, Co. Donegal, ‘The Blind Poetess of Ulster’, educated at home, pub. The Star of Atteghei: The Vision of Schwartz (1844); Lyrics and Miscellaneous Poems (1848); also ‘Songs of our Land,’ for the Irish Penny Journal, and many poems over her initials in the Athenaeum, 1840-41; awarded a modest Civil List pension. Ref: ODNB; O’Donoghue, 43 (as Frances Brown); ABC, 356-8; Patrick Bonar, The Life and Works of Frances Browne (Ballybofey: Bonar Publishing, 2007, ); inf. Dawn Whatman. [I] [F]Browne, Moses (1704-87), self-taught son of a pen-cutter, Church of England clergyman, pub. The Throne of Justice (1721); The Richmond Beauties (1722); Piscatory Eclogues (1729); Poems on Various Subjects (1739); plays; sermons. Ref: ODNB; Radcliffe; R?stvig, II, 153; CBEL II, 312.? Browne, Thomas (b. 1787), of Queen’s County, miller, later a journalist and the ‘leading spirit on the Comet newspaper; later emigrated to USA and ran a successful milling business in Cincinnati; wrote or co-wrote [anon] The Parson’s Horn Book (1831), which reprinted material from the Comet; his contributions sometimes in verse. Ref O’Donoghue, 44. [I]Bruce, David (b. 1860), of Cupar, Fife, tailor, postman. Ref: Edwards, 6 (1883), 274-9. [S]? Bruce, George (b. 1825), of St. Andrews, orphan, apprentice joiner, engineer, journalist, and town councillor, pub. The first canto of a poem, entitled, Destiny (Cupar-Fife, 1865), Destiny, and other poems (St Andrews, 1876), The two spirits: a poem (St Andrews, 1872), Poems and Songs (Dundee, 1886). Ref: Edwards, 1, 217-21; Reilly (1994), 71; Reilly (2000), 64. [S]Bruce, Michael (1746-1767), Scottish son of weaver; ‘boy genius’ who died of consumption at age of 20; verse reissued several times; pub. ‘Ode to the Cuckoo’, ‘Lochleven’ (1766), and ‘Ode to Spring’ (1767, self-elegy); posthumous Poems on Several Occasions, by Michael Bruce (1770). Ref: LC 2, 263-4; ODNB; Radcliffe; Wilson, I, 294-306; Crawford, nos. 59-60; Douglas, 57-8, 290-1. [LC 2] [S]Brufton, H. P., (1872-1947), of Sheffield, ‘T’ Owd Hammer’, who followed his father as a ‘little master’ (a local term for self-employed makers of knives and other fine metal goods for which Sheffield was famous) in the Crookes area of Sheffield, wrote mainly dialect poems, pub. Sheffield Dialect Poems (1932); Sheffield Dialect and other poems (1937). Other poems broadcast and pub. in magazines and newpapers. two poems at Sheffield Voices, the Sheffield University website dedicated to dialect writers: . Ref: Lovelock, p. 48; England 20; inf. Yann Lovelock. [OP]Bryan, Mary, née Langdon, later Bedingfield (1780-1838), pub. Sonnets and Metrical Tales (Bristol: Printed and sold at the City Printing-Office, 1815). Ref: LC 4, 105-24; Curran. [LC 4] [F]Bryant, John Frederick (1753-91), tobacco pipemaker, of London and Bristol. ~ Bryant was born in Market Street, St. James’s, Westminster, but following his father’s fruitless venture as a journeyman house painter, spent much of his childhood in Sunbury with his grandparents, and later Bristol, when his father returned to the family trade of tobacco pipe manufacturing.?At the age of nine, after one year of basic schooling by an old woman that taught him to read, Bryant was called upon to pack pipes for exportation. Owing to his bashfulness and partial deafness, Bryant considered himself ‘ill fit to be in company with other boys’, who apparently dismissed him as ‘little better than an idiot’.?Bryant sought consolation in reading, engrossing himself in the scriptures, and later an account of the Heathen Gods, in which he would learn by heart quotations from Pope’s Homer and Dryden’s Virgil.?He developed a craving for the wonderful, ‘preferring by far the stories of giants, fairies, magicians, or heroes performing impossibilities, to any history or narrative that wore the face of truth’. ~ Stirred also by a passion for music – accentuated by way of the recovery of his hearing – Bryant was creating verses by age ten, and his father – who occasionally played violin at Bristol’s genteel assembly rooms – would take pleasure in reading curious fragments to his acquaintances.?However, Bryant’s taste for reading and music conflicted with his duties to the family business; he was permitted to read only on Sundays, though he affirmed that his mind was ‘ever among books’. ~ Bryant experienced ‘grief beyond measure’ when he left to stay with his beloved grandparents for none days, only to return to discover that his pregnant mother had died.?Following abortive careers as a sailor and as a labourer in London, Bryant married and adopted the path of an itinerant pipe-seller, which proved quite favourable to his poetic pursuits.?Indeed, upon returning from walking as far as Swansea, Bryant sang several songs on board a boat crossing the Severn, which were heard by Solicitor-General Archibald MacDonald.?It was Macdonald who presented him to the literary societies of Bristol and London, set him up as a stationer, bookbinder and printseller in London, and facilitated the publication of Verses by John Frederick Bryant in 1787. ~ Bryant’s poetry is characterised more by geniality and fraternity than radical criticism, surely conducive to the harmonious relations he maintained with his patrons.?Contrary to the sentiments of the anonymous editor – who seemingly equates the ‘growth of a poetical spirit’ with the advancement towards ‘high’ literary culture – Tim Burke (2002) argues, ‘his voice is most at ease in the tavern songs and ribald ballads that dominate the first half of his volume of Verses’.?An autobiographical account of Bryant’s life was prefixed to the volume. ~ That Bryant achieved a degree of success in his trade is indicated by his obituary in The Times.?He died of consumption in March 1791 at his London home in a fashionable building on the Strand. Pub: Verses by Bryant, late tobacco-pipe maker at Bristol (1787), with an autobiographical sketch. ~ Ref: LC 3, 117-30; Southey, 135-62, 199-202; Letters of Anna Seward Written Between the Years 1784 and 1807, 6 vols (Edinburgh, 1811); Unwin, 84-6; Klaus (1985), 6-7; Shiach, 59; Rizzo, 243; Christmas, 210-12, 223-7; NCBEL II; Lonsdale (1984), 726, 853n; BL 1162.k.13; BL G.19035; Heinzelmann, 115-17. [LC 3] [—Iain Rowley]Buchanan, Andrew, of Cowie Bank, Stirlingshire, grocer. Ref: Edwards, 11, 355-9. [S]Buchanan, David (1811-93), of Hillhead, Dumbartonshire, handloom weaver, and manufacturer, pub. Man and the years, and other poems, ed. by William Freeland (Glasgow, 1895). Ref: Reilly (1994), 72. [S]Buchanan, David Wills (b. 1844), of Dundee, Free Church precentor, farmworker, van-driver, shipyard storekeeper, collector for Dundee Burial Society, religious poet. Ref: Edwards, 6, 328-33; Reid 69-71. [S]Buchanan, Francis (b. 1825), of Perth, draper, moved to Sheffield, later incapacitated by an accident, pub. The Crusader and Other Poems and Lyrics (1848), and Sparks from Sheffield smoke: a series of local and other poems (Sheffield, 1882). Ref: Edwards 11, 133-39; Andrews, 122-23; Reilly (1994), 72. [S]? Burgess, Alexander (1807-85), ‘Poute’, ‘The Fife Paganini’, of Lalathan, largely self-taught dancing teacher, fiddler and poet, pub. The Book of Nettercaps: Or Poutery, Poetry and Prose, and in the People’s Journal, his verses ‘characterised by a grotesque orthography that was as suggestive of latent, lurking fun as the ideas were thoroughly original and humorous to the degree of burlesque’ (Edwards). Ref: Edwards, 1, 271-4 and 9, xxii-xxiii. [S]Burgess, Joseph (1853-1934), factory operative, of Oldham, later Failsworth, Manchester, worked in mills from age eight, later a journalist, pub. “In memory of my wife”: a volume of amatory and elegiac verse (London, Manchester and Oldham, 1875); Pictures of social life: being select poems, by “The Droylsden Bard” (Manchester and London, 1869); A Potential Poet? His Autobiography and verse (Ilford, 1927). Ref: Burnett et al (1984), nos. 108-9; Maidment (1987), 91-3; Reilly (2000), 71.Burland, John Hugh (1819-85), handloom weaver, largely self-taught, Chartist, member of Barnsley Mechanics’ Institute, businessman, school warden, pub. John Hugh Barland to John Close and the grand cluster of poets: (a satire) (?1868) and an autobiography, John Hugh Burland By Himself (Barnsley: Barnsley Chronicle, 1902), pp. 8. Ref: Burnett et al (1984), no. 110; Reilly (2000), 71. [C]? Burlend, Edward, of Swillington, then at Barwick-in-Elmet, West Riding, pub. Village rhymes: or, poems on various subjects, frequently appertaining to incidents in village life, new enlarged edn (Leeds, 1869). Ref: Reilly (2000), 71.Burness, John (b. 1771), of Glanbervie, Kincardine, self-taught farmer’s son, soldier, baker, author of ‘Thrummie Cap’, pub. Plays, Poems and Metrical Tales (Montrose, 1819); claimed to have met and to be related to Robert Burns. Ref: Reid, Bards, 72-9. [S]Burnett, William Hall (b. 1840), of Blackburn, of poor parents, largely self-taught journalist and poet, pub. a poem, The Polytechnic, when aged 17, and many prose works. Ref: Hull, 314-19.Burns, David, joiner, pub. Scottish Echoes from New Zealand (Edinburgh, 1883). Ref: Edwards, 14, 387-91. [S]Burns, Peter of Kilwarlin. (b. 1800), muslin weaver and freemason, pub. Poems on Various Subjects (1835). Ref. Hewitt. [I]Burns, Robert (1759-96), major Scottish poet: for his relationship to the labouring-class tradition see especially Tim Burke’s introductory essay and bibliography in LC 3, further revised in his edition of Burns and in his essay ‘Labour, Education and Genius’ in Fickle Man: Robert Burns in the 21st Century, ed. Johnny Rodger and Gerard Carruthers (Highland, Scotland: Sandstone Press, 2009), 13-24. and Nigel Leask, ‘Was Burns a Labouring-Class Poet?’, in Class and the Canon: Constructing Labouring-Class Poetry and Poetics, 1780-1900, ed. Kirstie Blair and Mina Gorji (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 16-33. For some examples of the widespread tradition of labouring-class and other poets honouring Burns in verse see ‘Odes on Burns by Local Bards’, in Knox, 328-44. Ref: LC, 3, 103-16; ODNB; ; Radcliffe; Miller, 144-55; Wilson, I, 349-73; Tinker, 104-11; Crawford, passim; Rizzo, 242; Cafarelli, 81-3; Richardson, 250-2; Powell, item 135; Jarndyce, items 1325-30; Christmas, 32-35; Sutton, 139 (numerous manuscripts, letters). [S] [LC 3]Burns, Thomas (b. 1848), of Eckford, Roxburghshire, self-taught farm-worker, later a police officer in Newcastle upon Tyne and a school board officer, pub. Chimes from Nature, Introduction by James Graham Potter (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1887). Ref: Edwards, 11, 302-6; Reilly (1994), 77. [S]Burns, William (b. 1825), of Clackmannan, sailor, wood carver. Ref: Edwards, 8 (1885), 340-44. [S]Burnside, Thomas (1822-79), of Paisley, weaver, shopkeeper, didn’t start writing until aged 40, pub. posthumously Lays from the Loom (Paisley, 1889). Ref: Brown, II, 170-73; Leonard, 311-18. [S]Burr, James, ‘Quilquox’ (b. 1863), of Tarves, shoemaker. Ref: Edwards, 10, 204-8. [S]? Bursnell, Sarah, blind woman, broadside balladeer, author of a ‘Lamentation of Sarah Bursnell, Composed by Herself, a Blind Woman’. Ref: Hepburn, I, 40; II, 481. [F]Butler, Ann (b. 1829), of Abystree, Llawhaden, Pembroke, humble family, Sunday school educated, pub. A Selection of Sacred Poems, ed. by G. S[mith] (London, 1878). Ref: Reilly (2000), 74. [W] [F]Butterworth, James (‘Paul Bobbin’, 1771-1837), of Ashton under Lyne, poet and local historian, son of two handloom weavers, weaver, Sunday School teacher, later a postmaster, bookseller and stationer; pub. A Dish of Hodge Podge, or, A Collection of Poems by Paul Bobbin, Esq. (1800); Rocher Vale (1804). Ref: ODNB.Byrne, Mary, of Ballyguile, Co. Wickow, daughter of a labouring man, blind from birth, whose ‘genius’ was discovered when she was twelve years old. Her poem The Blind Poem, written by a GIRL, BORN BLIND, and now in her Eighteenth Year (Dublin: 1789), pp. 24, was published after a parishioner at her church ‘accidentally heard’ her reciting poetry and suggested that publishing these works might alleviate some of the girl’s debts. The text is marked ‘Price 3s. 3d., or such greater price as the affluent choose to bestow on poverty’, and the poem is ‘dedicated to the world’, with two lines from Gray, ‘Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid /Some heart, once pregnant with celestial fire’. Elsewhere she defensively emphasises her disability: ‘And let the Scorners keep this truth in mind, / That she who writes is unimprov’d and blind’ (p. 7), and ‘The Grammar Criticks who in closets pore, / May find some Lines too long – some wanting more, / May find the Persons chang’d without a rule, / And then pronounce the Poetess a Fool’ (p. 8). She also uses her blindness metaphorically to assert her gratitude to God: ‘Who hast in mercy been kind to me, / Knowing my heart and its Propensity: / To veil in darkness my exterior Sight, / Yet shew’st thy wonders by internal Light’ (p. 7). The ‘parishioner’ who writes the preface explains that the ‘short, sudden, and frequent Transitions from one [subject] to another,’ happen because, ‘Had the whole of her works been printed, they would have made a large and an expensive Volume.’ Ref O’Donoghue, 52; inf. Dawn Whatman. [F] [I]Bywater, Abel (b. 1795), of Sheffield, awl-blade maker, pub. two Yorkshire dialect poems in the England anthology, ‘Sheffield Cutler’s Song’ and ‘Owd Pinder’; between 1830 and 1834 pub. a number of prose ‘conversations’ entitled The Sheffield Dialect: Be a Sheevild Chap; other prose works include The Wheelswarf Chronicle (1832), and for twenty years from 1836 The Shevvield Chap’s Annual, the first of many West Riding publications of this sort (see also e.g. John Hartley’s (qv), The Halifax Clock and Thomas Blackah’s (qv) ‘Nattie Nydds’ pubns.) Ref England, [5], 30-1 and 59-60; Moorman, xxix-xxxi, 22-4. Cadenhead, William (b. 1819), of Aberdeen, worked in a factory from age 9, pub. The Prophecy (1839), Flights of Fancy and lays of Bon-accord (1853). Ref: Edwards, 1, 347-50. [S]Cairns, Arthur (b. 1840), of Dundee, spinner, powerloom tenter, weaver (weaving foreman), worked in India in a jute factory. Ref: Edwards, 6, 96-101; Reid, Bards, 81-2. [S]? Calder, Robert MacLean (1841-95), of Duns, Berwickshire, draper, emigrated to America, returning in 1882 to work in shoe-trimming and embroidery trade, pub. A Berwickshire bard: the songs and poems of Robert MacLean Calder, ed. by W. S. Crockett (Paisley and London, 1897). Ref: Edwards, 12, 42-9 and 16, [lix], who gives a death date of 1896; Crockett, 254-60; Reilly (1994), 81. [S]Calder, William, pub. Poems, Moral and Miscellaneous, with a Few Songs. By a Journeyman Mechanic (Edinburgh, 1863). Ref: COPAC. [S]Cameron, Archibald (d. 1887), of Edinburgh, builder’s clerk in London, disabled by rheumatism, admitted to workhouse, ‘died in Dartmouth infirmary after three years as an inmate’ (Reilly), pub. An invalid’s pastime: musings in the infirmary ward (London, 1878). Ref: Edwards, 15, 239-43; Reilly (2000), 80. [S]Cameron, John (d. 1850), of Dundee, bagpipe-maker and player, piper to the Dundee Highland Society, later mentally deranged, and took his own life. Ref: Reid, Bards, 85. [S]Cameron, William C. (1822-89), of Dumbarton-castle, son of a sergeant and schoolmaster, stable boy, shoemaker, foreman in Glasgow, bankrupt businessman, employed in Menzies, Glasgow, pub. Light, shade and toil: poems, with an Introductory note by W.C. Smith (Glasgow and London, 1875). [This may be the same ‘W.C. Cameron’ who Brown says was ‘a fireman in Backhall Factory—a coarse fellow’, and pub. Mall Jamieson’s Ghost, or The Elder’s Dream, founded on fact, with other Poems (Paisley, 1844), especially if Brown’s ‘fireman’ (repeated by Leonard) were a typo for ‘foreman’, since Macleod says William C. Cameron was a foreman in a large shoemaking establishment for 13 years.] Ref: Edwards, 3 (1881), 274-8 and 12 (1889), xxii; Murdoch, 217-21; Macleod, 157-59; Brown, I, 436; Leonard, 180; Reilly (2000), 80. [S]Campbell, Archibald (b. 1855), of Dumbarton, painter, ‘the poet-laureate of football players’. Ref: Macleod, 206-12; Edwards, 14, 66-69. [S]Campbell, Mrs C. (b. 1844), of Alexandria, Vale of Leven, cooper’s daughter, married a master brass founder; composed poems from age 13; poems in Macleod. Ref: Macleod, 187-92. [F] [S]Campbell, Duncan (fl. 1798), of Scottish origin, private soldier stationed at Cork, pub. A New Gaelic Song-Book (Cork, 1798). Ref O’Donoghue, 55. [I] [S]Campbell, Duncan (fl. 1825), cotton spinner, pub. Miscellaneous Poems and Songs (Carlisle: George Irwin, 1825), his only publication, copy in Bodleian Library. Ref: inf. Bob Heyes.Campbell, Elizabeth Duncan (1804-78), ‘The Lochee Poetess’, of Lochee, b. at Quarryhead, by the ruins of Castle Vane, Edzell, fifth of eight children of a ploughman, mother died when she was three; began work as a cowtender and whin gatherer aged seven, received one quarter session of schooling; in service as a maid at various farms, taken by one of her employers for two years to France; after returning to Scotland she married William Campbell, a flax dresser; since she had learned to work the handloom, for two years after marriage she filled pirns to four weavers. She and her husband and their children lived in Brechin and Arbroath. He suffered an accident which permanently disabled him and led to his death, and all four of their sons died, two in accidents. (Wilson locates her in Tannadice, Forfarshire, a ‘poetess in humble life...entirely self-taught’.) She published small collections of her verses to enhance their earnings; for example, Poems (Arbroath: printed by the author, 1972); Poems by Elizabeth Campbell, 3rd series (Arbroath, 1865), including ‘Cora’s House’, ‘A Prison Cell’, ‘The Criminal’s Death-Bell’, ‘Winter’ and ‘The Bereaved Mother.’; pubs. incl. Burns’ centenary: an ode, and other poems (Arbroath, 1862), Poems (four series, Arbroath, 1862, 1863, 1865 and 1867), Songs of My Pilgrimage, with an introduction by George Gilfillan, and autobiographical sketch and photograph (Edinburgh: A. Elliot, 1875), her fullest collection. Gilfillan's introduction describes her reading: Scott’s novels, some history, very little literature. Some of her notable poems are ‘The Fairy King’s Wedding’, ‘The White Lily’, ‘Willie Bill’s Burn’, ‘Nelly’, ‘Struck by Lightning’, ‘The Spanish Rock’, ‘My Infant Day and My Hair Grown Grey’, ‘My Tramp to See the Queen’, ‘Threescore and Ten’, ‘First Love’, ‘The Graves on My Sons’, ‘The Shadows on the Wall’, ‘Ossian’s Grave’, and ‘The Death of Willie, My Second Son.’ Ref: Edwards, 1, 135-38; Reid, Bards, 86-90; Wilson, II, 514-15, Boos (1998), Reilly (2000), 81; Boos (2008), 120-45, includes photograph and autobiography; inf. Florence Boos. Link: wcwp [F] [S]Campbell, George (bap. 1761-1817), of Kilmarnock, shoemaker poet, ordained minister of the Secession church of Stockbridge, Midlothian, 1794, pub. Poems on Several Occasions (Kilmarnock, 1787). Ref: LC 3, 131-2; ODNB, ESTC. [S] [LC 3]Campbell, James, of Ballymure (1758-1818), weaver, born near Larne, Co. Antrim, member of the Samuel Thomson circle. The Posthumous Works of James Campbell of Ballymure (Belfast, 1820; Ballymena/Ballyclare, 1870) was published to raise money for his widow and children. According to Hewitt, ‘Campbell was the most socially outspoken, the most class-conscious, of weaver bards. He composed an ‘Inscription for the Tombstone of Thomas Paine’…which had 171 octosyllabic lines—implying a huge headstone—expounding his views on preist-craft and extolling the virtue of social justice. Ref O’Donoghue, 55; Hewitt, p. 53; Jennifer Orr, ‘Constructing the Ulster Labouring-Class Poet: The Case of Samuel Thomson’, in Class and the Canon: Constructing Labouring-Class Poetry and Poetics, 1780-1900, ed. Kirstie Blair and Mina Gorji (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 34-54; inf. Bridget Keegan. [I]Campbell, John, ‘Will Harrow’ (1808-92), of Kinclaven, Perthshire, agricultural labourer, Chartist. Ref: Edwards, 3, 164-7. [S] [C]Campbell, John (b. 1846), of Kilburnie, Ayrshire, compositor. Ref: Edwards, 6, 200-5. [S]Campbell, John, of Oban, Argyllshire, worked in a Glasgow warehouse, later postmaster at Ledaig, often wrote in Gaelic, pub. Yggdrassill and other poems (London, 1898). Ref: Edwards, 6, 35-48; Reilly (1994), 83. [S]Campbell, John (b. c. 1900s), of Annathill, New Monkland, miner, Christian poet. Ref: Knox, 278-9. [S] [OP]Campbell, Samuel Scott (b. 1826), of Abercorn, Linlithgowshire, son of a shoemaker and a weaver, self-taught shoemaker, published poems in the newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 15, 266-71. [S]Campbell, Thomas (b. 1837), of Alton, Loudon, Ayrshire, herder, weaver, musician, vocalist, travelling salesman. Ref: Edwards 1, 25-6. [S] Campbell, Thomas (fl. 1884), of Lisnagarvey, Lisburn, County Down, millworker, pub. Lays from Lisnagarvey (Belfast, 1884); wrote to local press over signature of ‘Pat McBlashmole’. Ref: O’Donoghue, 55; Reilly (1994), 84. [I]Candler, Ann (1740-1814), of Yoxford, Suffolk, daughter of a glover who learned to read and write by imitating her father, pub. Poetical Attempts...with a short narrative of her life, by Ann Candler, a Suffolk Cottager (Ipswich and London, 1803); ‘Stanzas addressed to the inhabitants of Yoxford, in 1787’ included in The Suffolk Garland (Ipswich and London, 1818). Ref: LC 4, 1-20; ODNB; Jackson (1993), 49-50; Kord, 259-60; Cranbrook, 53, 173; C. R. Johnson, cat. 49 (2006), item 55. [LC 4] [F]Canning, Dan (b. 1851), of Glasgow, printer, singer. Ref: Edwards, 3, 363-4. [S]Cannings, Thomas, (fl. 1800), private soldier in the 61st Regiment, pub. ‘The Unfortunate Lovers’, Hibernian Magazine (1790), collected in Detached Pieces in Verse (Cork, 1800). Ref O’Donoghue, 57. [I]Capern, Edward (1819-94), ‘The Rural Postman of Bideford’, of Tiverton, Devon, baker’s son, worked in a lace-factory, then as a letter-carrier, later lectured in the Midlands, author of Poems (2nd edn 1856, 3rd edn, London, 1859); The Devonshire melodist: a collection of original songs by Edward Capern, rural postman, Bideford, Devon, transcribed for the voice and pianoforte, under the author's direction, by T. Murby (London: Boosey & Sons, [1861]); Wayside Warbles (London, 1865; 2nd edn, London and Birmingham 1870); Sungleams and shadows (London and Birmingham, 1881); The Postman’s Poems [Selections] (Bristol: Bellman Press, 1939). Ref: LC 5, 289-300; ODNB; William Ormond, Recollections of Edward Capern (Bristol, [1860?]); W. Ormond, An Hour with Edward Capern. An Address (Bristol: Taylor, undated pamphlet, c. 1860s.); Maidment (1987), 137, 147-9; Miles, X, xiv; Wright, 71-3; Reilly (1994), 85; Reilly (2000), 83; Ilfra Goldberg, Edward Capern: The Postman-Poet (Cambridge: Vanguard Press, 2009). [LC 5]Capitein [or Captain], Jacobus Elisa Johannes (1717-1747), former slave educated at Lyden, wrote a Latin dissertation, ‘Is Slavery Contrary to Christian Liberty’, which included a long poem. Ref: Basker, 84-6.Carey, Mr, first name unknown (fl. 1815), an Armagh stone-mason, referred to as a poet in the Newry Magazine, I (1815), 138. Poems include an epitaph on a ‘clergyman inordinately fond of oysters’: ‘Behold the spot where A[verell] lies, / Amid these lonely cloisters! / Michael! if he will not rise / At the last trump, cry “Oysters!”’. Ref O’Donoghue, 57. [I]Carleton, William (1794-1869), of Tyrone peasant stock, ‘hedge-school’ educated, successful novelist, protestant convert, received Civil List pension, numerous novel publications and political/religious disputes, wrote ballad of Sir Turlough, also pub two posthumous volumes: Farm Legends (New York: Harper, 1876) and Farm Ballads (London, Routledge, 1889); his son, William Carleton jun., became a leading Australian poet. Ref: ODNB; O’Donoghue, 59; Taylor, 311-16, 389; Sutton, 169 (manuscripts, letters). [I]Carmichael, Daniel (b. 1826), of Alloa, Clackmannanshire, son of stonemason, engineer on Clydeside and Merseyside, pub. Cosietattle, and other poems (Liverpool, 1888), Rhyming lilts and Doric lays (1880). Ref: Edwards, 9, 88-96; Murdoch, 201-6; Reilly (1994), 85. [S]Carmichael, Peter (b. 1807), of Kirkfieldbank, Clydeside, kinsman of banished Jacobites, apprenticed shoemaker, later station-master at Douglas, Lanarkshire, pub. Clydesdale poems (Hamilton and Glasgow, 1884). Ref: Edwards, 4, 230-33; Reilly (1994), 86 (misdating birth date as 1897). [S]? Carmichael, Rebekah, later Hay (fl. 1790-1806), orphaned young, left destitute as a widow; Burns subscribed to her Poems by Miss Carmichael (Edinburgh: printed by the author and sold by Peter Hill, 1790), full text on Google Books. Ref: Lonsdale (1989), 445-7; Johnson 46, no. 161. [F] [S]Carnegie, David (1826-91), of Arbroath, Forfarshire, bookseller’s messenger, handloom then powerloom weaver, pub. Lays and lyrics from the factory (Arbroath, 1861, 1879). Ref: Edwards, 1, 189-91 and 16, [lix]; Reid, Bards, 106-7 (gives death date of 1890); Reilly (2000), 83. [S]Carnie, Ethel (1886-1962), of Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, cotton worker, poet and novelist, ‘the early twentieth-century’s best-known working-class woman poet’ (Boos); pub. Rhymes of the Factory (1907 and 1908), Songs of a Factory Girl (1911), Voices of Womanhood (1914), ten novels including [Ethel Carnie Holdsworth], This Slavery, ed. Nicola Wilson (Nottingham: Trent Editions, 2010), plus short stories and articles. Ref: Boos (2008), 252-78, includes photographs of the author. Link: wcwp [F] [OP]Carr, James (b. 1825), boot and shoemaker of Ipswich, author of a poem on the Crimean veterans, Heroes Wreaths; or tributes to the brave (Ipswich, 1857). Ref: Cranbrook, 144, 173; Copsey (2002), 68.Carrick, John Donald (1788-1837), of Glasgow, of humble parents, worked variously in Glasgow and London, in an architect’s office, a pottery, and opened a china/stoneware establishment, later travelling agent and a journalist, wrote songs pub. in Whistle-Binkie, and a collection of Scottish anecdotes, The Laird of Logan (1835). Ref: ODNB; Glasgow Poets, 190-94; Powell, item 148; Wilson, II, 91-3; Sutton, 183 (manuscripts, letters). [S]Carroll, John, of Dublin, boot and shoemaker, pub. Circular of the poet shoemaker: being a few poems promiscuously selected from the volume preparing for publication (Dublin, 1860). Ref: O’Donoghue, 61; Reilly (2000), 86. [I]Carson, Joseph, of Kilpike, weaver, pub. Poems, Odes, Songs, and Satires (1831). Ref. Hewitt. [I]Carter, Thomas (b. 1792), of Colchester, tailor, author of The Tailor (1840); Memoirs of a Working Man (London, 1845), A Continuation of the Memoirs of a Working Man (London, c. 1850). Ref: Burnett et al (1984), nos. 131-2; Cross, 128, 151-2, Vincent, 35.? Carter, William, Lieutenant in the 40th Regiment of Foot, author of The Disbanded Subaltern, an Epistle (?1780), BL 11779.bb.47, Dobell 2800; A Genuine Detail of the Several Engagements...during the years 1775 and 1776 (1784). Ref: BL C.33.g.31.Carter, William, hairdresser of Manchester, pub. Rhythmical essays on the beard question (London, Liverpool and Manchester, 1868). Ref: Reilly (2000), 86.? Casey, Elizabeth Owens Blackburne (E. Owens Blackburne, 1845-84) of Slane, Co. Meath, lost her sight at age 11, regained it under skilled medical treatment, a successful novelist but latterly became almost destitute and took assistance from the Royal County Fund, died in Dublin in a burning accident. As well as her Irish novels and two vols. of Illustrious Irish Women, pub. Con O'Donnell and Other Legends and Poems for Recitation (London, 1890). Ref O’Donoghue, 62. [F] [I]Casey, John Keegan (‘Leo’, ‘Kilkeevan’, 1846-70) of Mount Dalton, near Mullingar, Co. Westmeath, peasant farmer’s son, mercantile clerk, popular radical journalist writing for The Nation, The Irishman, The Irish People and other periodicals, first poem appearing in The Nation when he was 16; imprisoned in 1867 for complicity in the Fenian rising and died aged 24. It ‘is said that 60,000 people attended his funeral’; a monument was raised in Glasnevin. Pub. A Wreath of Shamrocks (1866); The Rising of the Moon... (1869; reprinted, Glasgow); Reliques of J. K. Casey, collected and edited by ‘Owen Roe’ (Eugene Davis), and published by Richard Pigott (Dublin, 1878). Ref O’Donoghue, 63. [I]Castillo, John (1792-1845), journeyman stonemason, born in Rathfarnham, County Dublin, brought up at Lealham Bridge in Cleveland, died at Pickering, Yorkshire; of poor Catholic parentage, embraced Wesleyan Methodism and became a fiercely puritanical preacher, pub. ‘Awd Isaac’ (in Cleveland dialect, first pub. Northallerton, 1831); ‘T’ Leealholm Chap's Lucky Dream’; Awd Isaac, The Steeplechase, and Other Poems (Whitby, 1843); The Bard of the Dales: Or, Poems and Miscellaneous Pieces, partly in the Yorkshire Dialect (1850); Poems in the North Yorkshire Dialect, ‘by the late John Castillo, Journeyman Stonemason and Weslayen Revivalist, ed George Markham Tweddle (Stokesley: Tweddle, 1878). Ref: ODNB; Newsham, 217-18; O’Donoghue, 64; Moorman, xxxi-xxxii, 33-5; Ashraf, I, 33-4; Cowley, Cleveland. 10-11; Charles Cox, Catalogue 51 (2005), item 64. [I]? Cathcart, Robert (1817-70), of Paisley, shawl designer, pub. early pamphlet and Gloamin’ Hours (1868). Ref: Brown, II, 89-92. [S]Catcott, William, Somerset baker, son of a stocking-maker, pub. Morning Musings, Second Series, with a Memoir of the Author (Wells, 1870). Ref: inf. Bob Heyes.Catto, Edward (b. 1849), of Aberdeen, father died when he was two, sent to work at 8 as a half-timer, worked in the calendaring department of the Camperdown linen works, first poem ‘The Orphan Laddie’ pub. in the Weekly News; poems include ‘The Crippled Orphan Loon’. Ref: Edwards, 1, 144-6. [S]? Caulfeild, John, soldier, ‘late Cornet of the Queen’s Regiment of Dragoon Guards’; pub. The Manners of Paphos, or, Triumph of Love (Dublin; London: Edward and Charles Dilly, 1777); extracts of two approving letters from Thomas Blacklock (qv) appear before the poem, which was well received; sole publication. Ref: Dobell 2808; O’Donoghue, 64; BL 643.k.6(6); BL 161.l.21; BL 992.g.1(6); BL 12330.aaa.8(3); Croft & Beattie, I, 39 (item 116).Cavanagh, Michael (c. 1827-1900), of Cappoquin, Co. Waterford, cooper, Fenian, moved to USA in 1849, working as a cooper until in 1867 began contributing on Irish matters to the Emerald and the Celtic Monthly Magazine, New York and the Boston Pilot; fought in the Oivil War, then worked in the Treasury at Washington; secretary to Fenian John O'Mahony. Gaelic scholar, ‘and many of his poetical versions from the old tongue are well known’. Ref O’Donoghue, 65. [I]? Cave, Jane (b. c. 1754, d. 1813), b. in South Wales, daughter of an English exciseman stationed in Talgarth, also m. an exciseman, lived in Bristol, Winchester, Newport; pub. Poems on Various Subjects, Entertaining, Elegiac and Religious. With a few select poems, from other authors. By Miss Cave. Now Mrs. W___ (Winchester, 1783; Bristol, 1786 [with new poems added]; ‘second’ [in fact third] edition, Shrewsbury, 1789; further editions pub. by 1794). Title given here is as per the Shrewsbury third edition listed by Edwards, who notes the presence of a subscription list focused on Shrewsbury and Chester. There were considerable changes between editions of her work. Ref: Grundy, entry in Blain et al (1990), 190; Gramich & Brennan, 78-83, 396; Kord, 260; Christopher Edwards catalogue 55, item 31. [W] [F]? Chadwick, [Richard] Sheldon, son of Jeremiah Chadwick, city missionary of Manchester, Chartist poet, lived in London, author of a ‘Labourer’s Anthem’ printed in Red Republican, I (1850) 56, pub. Working and singing: poems, lyrics and songs on the life-march (London, 1895). Ref: James, 175; Ashraf (1975), 221-3; Reilly (1994), 89; Scheckner, 126-7; Schwab, 187. [C]? Chadwick, William Henry (1829-1908), of Manchester, Wesleyan preacher at age 14, temperance advocate who became a zealous Chartist; imprisoned in 1848 for Chartist agitation, wrote poems in prison, later an actor, phrenologist, mesmerist and touring seance-holder; helped found the agricultural workers’ union with Joseph Arch; pub. A Voice from Kirkdale Gaol: A Poem for the People (nd, c. 1849). Ref T. Palmer Newbould, Pages of the Life of Strife. Being Some Recollections of William Henry Chadwick. The Last of the Manchester Chartists (London, 1911); Schwab, 187; ? Chalmers, Robert (1779-1843), of Paisley, tobacconist and grocer, weather-forecaster, pub. poems and a pamphlet: Observations of the Weather in Scotland, showing what kind of Weather the various Winds produce, and what Winds are most likely to prevail in each Month of the year; also, a Garden Calendar adapted for Cottars and Others (1839). Ref: Brown, I, 142-45. [S]Chalmers, Robert (1862-96), of Aberdeen, ropemaker from age eight, pub. in newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 9, 326-30. [S]Chambers, James (1740-182?), of Soham, Cambridgeshire, ‘itinerant poet’, pedlar and net-maker, seller of verses and acrostics. According to fellow writer John Webb (qv), Chambers could read but could not write. He seems to have been a familiar figure in and around Suffolk. Pub. The poetical works of James Chambers, itinerant poet with the life of the author (Ipswich, 1820). Ref: LC 4, 139-58; Johnson, item 177; Cranbrook, 58, 174-5; John Webb, ‘Haverhill’, ll. 159-62 in Haverhill, A Descriptive Poem, and Other Poems (London: J. Nunn, 1810). [LC 4] ? Chandler, Mary (1687-1745), daughter of a dissenting minister, Malmesbury, Wilts., milliner, self-educated poet, pub. A Description of Bath: a poem (published anonymously as ‘a letter to a friend’, London, 1736); knew Mary Barber (qv). Ref: ODNB; Foxon, C107; Lonsdale (1989), 151-5; Fullard, 552; Burmester, 110; Rowton 125-6; Christmas, 31; Johnson 46, no. 162; Backscheider, 405; Backscheider & Ingrassia, 871. [F]Chandler, Reuben, ‘a working man of School House, 8 Pinfold Street, near New Street, Birmingham’, pub. Onward & Upward: Temperance Poetry, melodies, recitations, rhymes, and dialogues, with religious and moral musings, 2nd edn (London and Birmingham, 1862), The Temperance life-boat crew reciter and melodist, 2nd enlarged edn (London, Manchester and Birmingham, 1867). Ref: Reilly (2000), 90.Chapman, James (1835-88), of Upper Banchory, Kincardineshire, son of a blacksmith, farm worker, asylum attendant, later worked in a detective office and as a sanitary officer in Partick, pub. A legend of the isles, and other poems (Partick and Edinburgh, 1878), ‘Ecce homo’ and other poems (Partick, 1883), The Scots o’ lansyne, and other poems (Glasgow, 1888). Ref: Edwards, 2, 318-23; 12, xxii and 16, [lix]; Reid, Bards, 113-14; Murdoch, 296-302; Reilly (1994), 90; Reilly (2000), 91. [S]Chapman, Thomas (‘Joseph’, 1844-88), of Falla, Lanarkshire, self-educated, cowherd, ploughman, policeman, rose to Sergeant, pub. Contentment and other poems (Kelso, 1883). Ref: Edwards, 4, 69-72; Reilly (1994), 91. [S]Chapman, Thomas Learmonth (b. 1824), of Beancross, Falkirk, herder, tenant farmer, President of the Woodend Burns Club, pub. prose in local press, poems in Bisset. Ref: Bisset, 128-32. [S]Charlton, John, (‘Little John the Poet’, 1804 to c. 1883), of Blackburn, cobbler poet and singer, born in Lymm, Cheshire. Ref: Hull, 153-9.Chatt, George (d. 1890), of Hexham, Northumberland, agricultural labourer, soldier, edited West Cumberland Times, pub. Miscellaneous Poems (Hexham: Courant Office, 1866), ‘The productions of a farm labourer, in the few scattered hours of leisure snatched from a toilsome occupation’. Ref: Reilly (2000), 92; inf. Bob Heyes. ? Chatterton, Thomas (1752-70), of Bristol, major poet of humble origins, posthunous son of the writing master of St Mary Redcliffe Pile Street School, friend of James Thistlethwaite (qv), amateur antiquarian and ‘forger’ of medieval poems and manuscripts. An apprenticeship with a legal scrivener left him many hours to himself, and while he had always had an interest in antiquarianism and genealogy, this period is probably the time he took up his medieval writing in earnest. The ‘Rowley’ writings were the fruit of this leisure time [ODNB]. As Thomas Rowley, Chatterton wrote poems, plays, literary letters, biographies, architectural and antiquarian reports. His books of antiquities include ‘Battle of Hastynges I’ (1768), ‘Craishes Herauldry’ (1768), ‘The Tournament’ (1768), ‘The Bridge Narrative’ (a supposed thirteenth-century account pub. in Felix Farley's Bristol Journal); posthumously pub. Poems, Supposed to have beeen written by Thomas Rowley and others (1777); Miscellanies (1778); The Complete Works of Thomas Chatterton, A Bicentenary Edition, ed Donald S Taylor in association with Benjamin B. Hoover (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971), two vols. Immensely influential, especially on the Romantic poets and the Pre-Raphaelites. His supposed suicide in a London garret at the age of 17, on which an immense mythography has been based, is now seriously contested (see ODNB). Ref: LC 2, 353-62; ODNB; Radcliffe; Powell, item 152; Meyenberg, 207; Keegan (2008), 75-8; Sutton, 194 (numerous manuscripts and letters); E. H. W. Meyerstein, A Life of Thomas Chatterton (1930), the standard biography; Donald S. Taylor, Thomas Chatterton’s Art: Experiments in Imagined History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978; Nick Groom (ed), Thomas Chatterton and Romantic Culture (Houndmills: Macmillan, 1999); Nick Groom, The Forger’s Shadow (London: PIcador, 2002); Daniel Cook, Thmas Chatterton and Neglected Genius 1760-1830 (Houndmills: Palgrave, 2013). [LC 2]Cherry, Andrew (1762-1812), of Limerick, son of a printer and bookseller, went on the stage ‘while only a boy, and, after hard struggles, made a moderate fortune and some reputation by his acting’, m. the dau of the theatre manager Richard Knight and bacame a manager himself; died on tour with his company at Monmouth; well known as the writer of popular songs like ‘The Bay of Biscay’, ‘He was Famed for Deeds of Arms’, ‘The Dear Little Shamrock’ and ‘Tom Moody’; six of his song are in Hercules Ellis, Songs of Ireland, second series (1849) Also pub. or wrote for performance (unpub. work noted as such): Harlequin in the Stocks, pantomime (1793); The Outcasts, unpub. opera (1796); The Soldier's Daughter, comedy (1804); All for Fame, unpub. comic sketch (1805); The Village, unpub. comedy (1805); The Travellers, musical drama (1806); Thalia's Tears, unpub. poem (1806); Spanish Dollars, musical entertainment (1806); Peter the Great, operatic drama (1807) A Day in London, unpub. comedy (1807). Ref Walker’s Hibernian Magazine, April 1804 (portrait and biography); O’Donoghue, 66. [I]? Chetwood, William Rufus (William Chetwode, d. 1766), of Dublin, prompter at Drury Lane Theatre, London, for thirty years. Pub. or wrote for performance Kilkenny ; or. The Old Mans Wish, poem (Dublin, 1748); The Generous Freemason, ballad opera (1731); The Lover’s Opera, musical piece, (1729); The Stock Jobbers; or The Humours of Change Alley, comedy (1720); South Sea ; or, The Biter Bit, a farce (1720), and miscellaneous works including a A Tour Through Ireland (1746) and A General History of the Stage (London, 1749). Ref O’Donoghue, 67. [I]Chicken, Edward (1698-1746), of Newcastle upon Tyne, weaver’s son and weaver, later opened a school, pub. The Collier’s Wedding (Newcastle upon Tyne, 173?), Foxon C147, Lonsdale (1984), 216-18, 843n, reprinted 1829, variant text printed in David Wright (ed) The Penguin Book of Everyday Verse; No;...This is the Truth (1741, Foxon C148). Ref: LC 1, 53-72; ODNB; Allan, 5-7; Klaus (1985), 62-4; Welford, I, 546-9. [LC 1]Chippendale, Thomas (d. 1889), of Waddington near Clitheroe, orphaned and moved to Blackburn, weaver, insurance agent, moved to Nelson then Edinburgh. Ref: Hull, 355-61.Chisholm, Isabella (fl. 1865-82), travelling tinker, a principal source of poems, songs and incantations for Alexander Carmichael’s Carmina Gaelica collection (Edinburgh, 1900). Ref: Boos (2008), 116-20. [F] [S]Chisholm, Walter (1856-77), Berwickshire shepherd lad, leather warehouse porter, pub. in newspapers, and pub. Poems, by the late Walter Chisholm, ed. with a prefactory notice, by William Cairns (Edinburgh and Haddington, 1879). Ref: ODNB; Reilly (2000), 93; Edwards, 2, 62-7; Crockett, 198-204. [S]Christie, J. Knox, of Paisley, printer’s assistant from age eight or nine, postman, bookseller (in Brown as ‘J. R. Christie’), pub. Many moods in many measures: Poems in fifty varieties of verse (Glasgow, 1877). Ref: Edwards 1, 19-30; Brown, II, 415-17; Murdoch, 373-78; Reilly (2000), 95. [S]Christie, William (‘Stable Boy’), of Hexham, Northumberland, pub. Three leal and lowly laddies: Mauricewood pit disaster, Midlothian, September 1889 [poems ‘to the memory of three pony boys, by a stable boy’] (Manchester, 1889). Ref: Reilly (1994), 93 (Manchester Public Library).? Clancy, L. T., Chartist poet, author of a cycle of poems, ‘Scraps for the Radicals’, pub. in The Northern Star. Ref: Kovalev, 111; Scheckner, 128, 331; Schwab, 187. [C]Clapham, William, Yorkshireman ‘of humble birth’, pub. The first selection of the Yorkshire gems of poetry (Leeds, 1866). Ref: Reilly (2000), 96.Clare, John (‘The Northamptonshire Peasant’, 1793-1864), of Helpston, Northamptonshire, major poet, sometime gardener, limeburner, briefly in the militia; pub. Poems Descriptive of Rural Life (1820), The Village Minstrel (1821), The Shepherd’s Calendar (1827), The Rural Muse (1835). Ref: LC 4, 159-68; ODNB. The standard modern edition is the nine-volume Clarendon Press edition (1984-2003), ed Eric Robinson, David Powell and P.M.S. Dawson; there are also good selections available from Oxford, Penguin, Faber, Carcanet, Everyman, and several other imprints. The standard biography is Jonathan Bate, John Clare: A Biography (London: Picador, 2003); see also John Clare: By Himself, ed. Eric Robinson and David Powell (Manchester: Carcanet, 1996). ~ Major studies of Clare include: John Barrell, The Idea of Landscape and the Sense of Place, 1730-1840: An Approach to the Poetry of John Clare (London: Cambridge, University Press 1972); George Deacon, John Clare and the Folk Tradition (London: Sinclair Browne, 1983); Tim Chilcott, ‘a real world and doubting mind’: A Critical Study of the Poetry of John Clare (Hull: Hull University Press, 1985); Johanne Clare, John Clare and the Bounds of Circumstance (Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1987); Ronald Blythe, Talking About John Clare (Nottingham: Trent Books, 1999, revised and extended as At Helpston, Norwich: Black Dog Books, 2011); Paul Chirico, John Clare and the Imagination of the Reader (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007); Mina Gorji, John Clare and the Place of Poetry (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2009); Sarah Houghton-Walker, John Clare’s Religion (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009); John Goodridge, John Clare and Community (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, 2015); Stephanie Weiner, Clare’s Lyric: John Clare and Three Modern Poets (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). ~ Essay collections include: Hugh Haughton, Adam Phillips and Geoffrey Summerfield (eds), John Clare in Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); John Goodridge (ed), The Independent Spirit: John Clare and the Self-Taught Tradition (Helpston: The John Clare Society, 1994); John Goodridge and Simon K?vesi (eds), John Clare: New Approaches (Helpston: The John Clare Society, 2000); Simon K?vesi and Scott McEathron (eds), New Essays on John Clare: Poetry, Culture and Community (Cambridge University Press, 2015). ~ Selected creative responses to Clare include: Iain Sinclair, Edge of the Orison: In the Traces of John Clare’s ‘Journey Out of Essex’ (London: Hamish Hamilton, 2005), which has led to a forthcoming film by Andrew K?tting and Iain Sinclair, ‘By Our Selves’; Robert Hamberger, Heading North: John Clare’s Journey out of Essex (Pilton, Somerset: Flarestack Poetry, 2007); Carry Akroyd, ‘of natures powers & spells’: Landscape Change, John Clare and Me (Peterborough: Langford Press, 2009); Adam Foulds, The Quickening Maze (London: Jonathan Cape, 2009); Judith Allnatt, The Poet’s Wife (London: Transworld, 2010); Hugh Lupton, The Ballad of John Clare (Sawtry: Dedalus, 2010). ~ See also the ‘John Clare Info’, ‘John Clare Resources’ and ‘John Clare Blog’ websites and the publications JCSJ and JCSN; Unwin, 121-42; Ashraf (1975); 137-42; Shiach, 61-7; Cafarelli, 84-5; Phillips; Richardson, 251-8; Burnett et al (1984), nos. 152-153a; Goodridge (1999), item 19; Miles, III, 79; Hold, 47-52; Sales (2002); Keegan (2008), 148-71; Sutton, 203 (numerous manuscripts and letters). [LC 4]Clark, Charles Allen (‘Teddy Ashton’, 1863-1935), of Bolton, Lancashire, working-class parents, worked in cotton mill, journalist, edited popular Teddy Ashton’s Weekly, wrote communist fiction, founder of Lancashire Authors’ Association, pub. ‘Voices’ and other verses (London and Manchester, 1895). Ref: Reilly (1994), 95.? Clark [or Clarke], Ewan, author of Miscellany Poems (Whitehaven, 1779); The Rustic, a poem in four cantos (1805). Ref: CBEL II; inf. Brian Maidment, Johnson, item 18.Clark, Hugh, ‘Heone’ (b. 1832), of Ardrossan, Ayrshire, farmboy, shopman, pub. Poems for the Period (1881). Ref: Edwards, 6, 352-62. [S]? Clark, J., author of Bethlem a Poem. By a Patient (1744, Foxon C225, ?only copy in Guildhall Library, Dobell 301). Ref: Foxon, Dobell.Clark, James (d. 1868), ploughman, tenant farmer, of Glenfarquhar, the Mearns, poems pub. by (and along with those of) his son William Clark (qv), as Leisure Musings (1894). Ref: Reid, Bards, 119-20. [S]Clark, Robert (1811-47), of Paisley, weaver, emigrated to America, returned to Scotland, but sailed for America again and ship sunk, pub. Original Poetical Pieces, Chiefly Scottish (Paisley, 1836), Random Rhymes (1842). Ref: Brown, I, 452-54; Leonard, 182-3. [S]Clark, William (d. 1868), tenant farmer, of Glenfarquhar, the Mearns, pub. his poems along with those of his late father James Clark (qv), as Leisure Musings (1894). Ref: Reid, Bards, 120-1. [S]? Clavell, John (1601-1643), highwayman poet. After moving to Dublin in 1635, he enjoyed successful dual careers as physician and lawyer, despite doubtful qualifications. His commonplace book remains, containing some original, some copied verses—and letters and medical prescriptions. Pub. A Recantation of an ill led Life (1628). Ref: ODNB, Southey. [OP]Cleaver, Thomas, Night and Other Poems (1848). Ref: Maidment (1987), 124-6.Cleghorn, Jane (b. 1827), of Port Glasgow, orphaned daughter of a shipmaster who was wrecked on the coast of Wales when she was 4, received a scanty education, and earned her living since age ten; later left a widow with her aged mother and young child to provide for, and worked as a hairdresser; pub. poems in Glasgow and other newspapers; poems include ‘The Temple of Nature,’ ‘The Aged Widow to Her Wedding Ring,’ ‘Oor Ain Fireside,’ and ‘Woman’s Mission’. Ref: Edwards, 6, 366-70; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Cleland, Alexander (1863-85), son of a colliery workman, apprentice journeyman tailor, died at 22 in an enteric fever epidemic. Ref: Knox, 159-62. [S]? Clephan, James (1804-88), of Monkwearmouth Shore, son of a baker, apprentice printer and bookseller, editor of the Gateshead Observer (a paper of national reputation), pub. Hareshaw burn; Evening on Hexham “seal” and other poems (Stockton-on-Tees, 1861), The bishop’s raid, with other poems (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1864). Ref: ODNB, Allan, 43, Welford, I, 593-6, Reilly (2000), 97.? Clifton, Harry (1832-72), of Hoddeston, Herts., orphaned around age 12 to 15, educated in Cheshunt, apprenticed in a circus as rider and clown, later achieved music hall success as singer and lyricist/composer, wrote the broadside ballad, ‘Polly Perkins, of Paddington Green’ and was know for his ‘motto’ songs of advice (example: ‘Work, Boys, Work, and Be Contented’). Ref: Hepburn, II, 449-51. ? Close, John (1816-Feb. 15th 1891), ‘Poet Close’, of Gunnerside, Swaledale, Yorkshire, son of a butcher and lay preacher from Stephen, Westmoreland, assisted his father from 1826-46; then in 1846, he became a printer at Kirby Stephen and kept a bookstall at Bowness on Windermere. He was granted a Civil List pension of fifty pounds on April 1861, but it was cancelled by Lord Palmerston 3 June 1861, before it had received royal signature; he was eventually, however, granted 100 pounds from the royal bounty fund. These events seem to have garned Close some notoriety, for they were featured in the periodical Byrne’s Gossip of the Century in an article titled ‘Poet Close and his pension: shewing how it was got, who took it from him and what the queen sent him from the royal bounty 1861’ (1892, I, 249-51; also apparently featured in The Illustrated London News, Feb 1891 p. 239). Biographer Frederick Boase notes, “He indited some verses to the king of Bonny [referring perhaps to his 1862 publication], who created him his poet laureate, but unfortunately for the poet no salary was attached to the office.” Pub. numerous vols including: The Satirist, or, Every Man in his Humour (Appleby, 1833); The Poetical Works, etc. of John Close (Kirkby Stephen, 1860, in five parts); The wise man of Stainmore: or, tales and legends of old time (1864); Bowness Church Bells and other Poems (1872); Poet Close's Christmas Book, Containing, Memorial of His Late Royal Highness Prince Albert; The Black Man’s Visit to Poet Close; Drops from the Spring; New Sketches, New Poems; Capt. Hudson’s Mesmerism, &c (Kirkby Stephen, 1862); Poet Close at the Lakes. Dedicated to Everybody. Part II (Kirkby Stephen: J, Close, [1865]); Poet Close in Carlisle and Scotland; and, a Night with Jacob Thompson, the Celebrated Westmoreland Painter; Shap Abbey, and the “Wise Men” of Kendal; Grand Cluster of the Barnsley poets, &c. (Kirkby Stephen, 1866); Poet Close’s New Poem on the Late Awful Fire at his Bookstall, Bowness, Kirkby Stephen, Westmorland (?Kirkby Stephen, 1875). Ref: ODNB; Frederick Boase, Modern English Biography: Containing Many Thousand Concise Memoirs of Persons who Have Died Since the Year 1850, with an Index of the Most Interesting Matter, Vol. 4, (printed for the author by Netherton and Worth, 1908), 692; Reilly (2000), 98-9; Sutton, 209 (manuscripts and letters). [—Katie Osborn]Close, John George, linen wrapper of Belfast, pub. Echoes of the Valley (Belfast, 1879). Ref: Reilly (2000), 99. [I]Clounie, Thomas (b. 1867), of Kirkcudbright then Blackburn, draper. Ref: Hull, 440-5. [S]Coaker, Jonas (1801-1890), The Dartmoor poet, servant-boy, later labourer, publican, parish tax-collector, most of his work printed in fragments but pub. A Sketch of the several Denominations in the Christian World; with a short account of Atheism, Judaism, and Mahometanism [verse] (Tavistock, 1871). Ref: Wright, 99-101.Coates, James, labourer, Bridlington-Quay, a Descriptive Poem (2nd edn., Scarborough, 1813); A Description of Burlington Key and Neighborhood [in verse] (Gainsborough, 1805); A Pathetic Elegy on the Death of W. Brown and C. Choddick, who Suffered on the Tempestuous Night of Oct 30th, 1807, while Engaged in the Herring-fishery (York, 1808). Ref: Johnson, items 192-3.Cochran, John, of Paisley, drawboy, weaver, coal seller; pieces in newspapers. Ref: Brown, II, 418-20. [S]Cochrane, Robert (b. 1854), of Paisley, turner, tenter, poems in Brown. Ref: Brown, II, 444-51. [S]Cock, James (1752-1822), of Elgin, weaver, became overseer at linen factory in 1796, Hamespun Lays, or the Simple Strains of an Untutored Muse (1806; Aberdeen, 1810, 1824); Simple Strains; or the Homespun Lays of an Untutored Muse (Aberdeen, 1810). Ref: Edwards, 2, 181-2 and 16, [lix]; Johnson, items 198-9. [S]Colburn, George (b. 1852), of Laurencekirk, Kincardineshire, farm labourer, grocer, spent time in America, pub. Poems on Mankind and Nature (1891), and in prose and verse in periodicals. Ref: Edwards, 5, 64-70; Reid, Bards, 121-3. [S]Coldwell, Peter (1811-1892), of Lauder, grocer, wrote humorous poems and recitations, pub. in Crockett. Ref: Crockett, 335-9. [S]Cole, Charles, described as ‘The Weaver of Keighley’, but on the title page of Political... Poems as ‘a London Mechanic’, by Ashraf as a ‘mechanic’, by Sheckner as a ‘Little-known worker-poet’, and by Schwab as Secretary of the Unitee Operative Weavers of London—so this may possibly be a conflation of two authors, but could equally well describe a single career. Pub. Political and Other Poems (London: W.C. Mantz, 1833, 2nd edn 1834, both these in BL); ‘A poetical address to his grace the Duke of Wellington’ (1835); poems in the radical papers in the 1840s and 1859s (see Scheckner). Ref: Ashraf (1978), I, 13, 24, 43-4; Kovalev, 120-1; Scheckner, 129-32, 331; Schwab, 188; inf. Bob Heyes.Coles, John (b. 1775), of Weedon Lois, Northamptonshire, son of John and Hannah Coles, shoemaker, agricultural labourer, pub. with Joseph Furniss (qv), Poems Moral and Religious (1811), stating in the preface, ‘We are plain unlettered men; having never received the advantages of an education [...] from our childhood to the present time we have been under the necessity of labouring hard for our daily support’. Ref: Hold, 53-4.Collier, Mary (1688?-1762), farm and general worker, born near Midhurst in Sussex and led a long working life. She had no formal education, having been taught to read when very young by her mother. In delineating the seasonal drudgery working-class women are locked in, and railing against such inequities as the women’s double-shift, The Woman's Labour (1739) embodies a rejoinder to Stephen Duck’s paean to male labours, The Thresher's Labour (1736). At 246 lines, it is wittily written in the old folk mode of the ‘argument of the sexes’, and also comments upon the relation between private vices and public welfare with a lack of deference that illuminates the humbug about ‘national’ wealth, and may partly account for the shortage of patronage. Collier spent several years nursing her sick father before relocating to Petersfield in Hampshire after his death, where she worked as a washerwoman and itinerant household brewer until the age of 63. She retired to a garret in Alton, last being identified in her 72nd year composing a poem in honour of the marriage of George III. Collier is one of several eighteenth-century plebeian poets who have been revived and anthologised since the 1980s. Although the absence of letters and eminent patrons has meant that the particulars of her life remain cloaked in obscurity, she stands unmistakably as a seminal poetic spokesperson for the common woman. Pub: The Woman’s Labour (1739); ed. Moira Ferguson (Augustan Reprint Society, 1985); ed. E.P. Thompson (Merlin, 1989). Also published were Poems (1762 and ?1820) and The Poems of Mary Collier (1765?). ‘To a Friend in Affliction’ and ‘Verses Addressed to Mrs Digby’ were featured in Vol. 2 of The Lady’s Poetical Magazine (4 Vols, 1781-82). Ref: LC 1, 311-48; ODNB; Unwin, 73-4; Tinker, 94-5; Christmas, 115-29; Fullard, 553; Lonsdale (1984), 325-6; Klaus (1985), 3-18; Keegan 2003; Lonsdale (1989), 171-3; Milne (1999), 100-38; Milne (2001); Phillips, 214-16; Rizzo, 243; Shiach, 51-3; Kord, 260-1; Backscheider, 405; Donna Landry, ‘The Resignation of Mary Collier’, in Felicity Nussbaum and Laura Brown (eds), The New Eighteenth Century, (1987), 35-8 and in The Muses of Resistance 38-40, 56-77; John Goodridge, Rural Life in Eighteenth-Century English Poetry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), Part I; H. Gustav Klaus, ‘Mary Collier (1688?-1762)’, Notes and Queries, new series, 47, no. 2 (2000), 201-4; William Christmas, ‘An Emendation to Mary Collier’s The Woman’s Labour’, Notes and Queries, 246 (March 2001). [F] [LC 1] [—Iain Rowley]? Collier, Mary, housemaid, pub. Poetic Effusions, by M. Peach (Derby: printed for the authoress, 1823; 1835, 1847, 1851). The first edition appeared in 1823 and the pieces composed in intervening years added to the later editions. The publishing information indicates that this is not the now well-known C18th poet. Bodleian catalogue specifies her as ‘Mary Collier, of Belper’. Ref: Johnson, item 205; ; C. R. Johnson, cat. 49 (2006), item 72. [F]Collier, Samuel, labourer, pub. On Discontent [1743]. Ref: Foxon, C291; copy in Bodleian.Colling, Mary Maria (née Kempe, 1805-53), of Tavistock, Devon, daughter of a husbandman, self-taught, worked as a domestic servant for most of her life, patronised by Anna Bray, author of Fables and Other Pieces in Verse. With some account of the author, in Letters to Robert Southey by Mrs Bray (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, 1831), subscribers include Wordsworth, Southey, Rogers, L.E.L., and a ‘Mrs Kempe’ who was perhaps the poet’s mother and whose copy was listed by Hart. Ref: LC 5, 11-16; ODNB; Southey, 212-13; Jackson (1993), 83; ABC, 271-2; Burmester, item 378; John Hart, catalogue 69, item 108. Link: wcwp [F] [LC 5]? Collins, Emmanuel (b. ?1712), publican, author of Miscellanies in Prose and Verse (Bristol, 1762). Ref: Lonsdale (1984), 500-1; Meyerstein, A Life of Thomas Chatterton (London: Ingpen & Grant, 1930), 81.Collins, George Thomas (b. 1844), of Southampton then Blackburn, brush maker, pub. in Blackburn newspapers. Ref: Hull, 264-71, which includes an unpublished autobiographical statement.? Collins, John (1742-1808), ‘Brush Collins’, tailor’s son, staymaker, actor, pub. Scripscrapologia, or Collins’s doggerel dish of all sorts (Birmingham, 1804). Ref: ODNB, NCBEL, DNB, LION. Johnson, item 207.Collins, Samuel (1802-78), of Hollinwood, near Manchester, ‘The Bard of Hale Moss’, weaver, wrote verses in Lancashire dialect, pub. The Wild Floweret (Manchester, 1875); Limerick Races, as Sung by Sam Collins (1860?); and Miscellaneous Poems and Songs (1859) in Lancashire dialect. Ref: ODNB; Reilly (2000), 103.? Collins, Sarah, broadside balladeer who ‘was transported to Van Dieman’s Land for highway robbery’, according to her ballad, quoted in Fraser’s Magazine in 1839; poss. a pseudonym or a fantasy. Ref: Hepburn, I, 40, 274 note. [F]Collins, William (1838-90), of Strabane, Co. Tyrone, labourer, soldier, journalist, emigrated to Canada at 13 or 14, lived in Upper Ottawa for some years, crossed the US when the Civil War broke out, and served in one of the Western regiments; In 1866 accompanied General O’Neill to Canada, ‘in connection with the expected Fenian invasion of the Dominion’; worked as a labourer in the quarries of Cleveland, Ohio, writings poems for the Boston Pilot; staff writer on the Irish World and later the New York Tablet; co-founded The Globe, New York, and wrote for ‘many other papers’. Pub Ballads, Songs and Poems (New York, 1876); notable poems include ‘Tyrone Among the Bushes’ and ‘Summer in Ireland’. Ref O’Donoghue, 74. [I]Collyer, Rev. Robert (b, 1823), Keighley factory-worker and blacksmith, emigrated to the US in 1850 and entered the Methodist ministry later. Ref Andrews 137-rie, William, of Paisley, ‘knight of the shuttle’ (i.e. weaver), poems in Brown. Ref: Brown, II, 260-63. [S]Connell, Philip (fl. 1865), attended a ‘hedge school’ in Ireland, an ‘immigrant Irish plasterer’ in Manchester when he wrote ‘a Winter Night in Manchester’, pub. in Poaching on Parnassus: A Collection of Original Poems (Manchester and London, 1865), a ‘tiny subscription edition’. Ref: Maidment (1987), 99, 150, 152-4, Reilly (2000), 104. [I]Constable, Michael (‘M.C.’, ‘One of the Ranks’, ‘A British Soldier’; fl. 1841-56), Irish-born tailor, enlisted in 1841 and was appointed a messenger at the Admiralty in London in 1856. Pub. National Lyrics for the Army and Navy (Dublin, dnk; 2nd edn. 1848); Othello in Hell, and The Infant with a Branch of Olives, by ‘One in the Ranks’ (Dublin, 1848); Othello Doomed, etc., by ‘One in the Ranks’ (Dublin, 1849); Songs and Poems (Dublin, 1849). Ref O’Donoghue, 78. [I] ? Constantine, Henry, of Carlton, Yorkshire, ‘The Coverdale Bard’, pub. Rural Poetry and Prose (Beverley, 1867). Ref: Reilly (2000), 105.Cook, Andrew (b. 1836), of Paisley, compositor. Ref: Edwards, 12, 268-71. [S]Cook, Eliza (1818-89), daughter and eleventh child of a Southwark brewer or tinman and brazier, self-taught, established in 1849 Eliza Cook’s Journal, pub. Lays of a Wild Harp: A Collection of Metrical Pieces (London, 1835), BL 11644.a.49; New Echoes, and other poems (London, 1864), Poems (1860, 1861); Poetical Works (London, 1870, 1882 and New York, 1882). Her poems include ‘God Speed the Good Ship; Or, The English Emigrant’, ‘Stanzas to my Starving Kind in the North’ both discussed by Hepburn, as well as ‘The Streets’ (recalls London childhood), Poems (1845 as opposed to 1860), ‘A Song, to The People' of England’, and ‘Nature's Gentleman’, ‘The Old Arm-Chair’, ‘The Old Water Mill’, ‘The Indian Hunter’, ‘O come to the ingle side’ (last five set to music in the 1840s and 50s). Ref: ODNB; Rowton, 480-95; Jackson (1993), 84; Reilly (1994), 103; Reilly (2000), 105; Sales (2002), 77, 84-5l Bradshaw, 551-7; Hepburn, II, 409-10; Boos (2008), 279-98. Link: wcwp [F]Cooke, Noah (b. 1831), of Kidderminster, ‘The Weaver Poet’, of poor illiterate parents, carpet weaver, pub. Wild Warblings (Kidderminster, 1876). Ref: LC 6, 269-86; Burnett et al (1984), no. 170; Ashton & Roberts, ch. 6, 70-75; Reilly (2000), 106-7. [LC 6]Cooper, George (1829-76), of Arbroath, painter, flax dresser, soldier, humorous poet. Ref: Edwards, 6, 72-7; Reid, Bards, 124. [S]Cooper, Joseph (1810-90), of Thornsett, New Mills, Derbyshire, ‘The Poet of Temperance’, orphaned at seven and had to work, pub. The Temperance Minstrel: Original Melodies (Manchester, 1877); Helping God to Make the Flowers Grow, with other original poems, hymns, song, dialogues, recitations (Manchester: Brook and Chrystal, 1889). Ref: Reilly (2000), 107; Samuel Laycock, ‘To my Friend, Joseph Cooper, the Derbyshire Bard’, Collected Writings (2nd edition, Oldham, 1908); Charles Cox, Catalogue 51 (2005), item 73.Cooper, Thomas (‘Adam Hornbook’), (1805-92), shoemaker, of Leicester then Gainsborough, Chartist poet, best known for his prison poem, The Purgatory of Suicides: A Prison Rhyme (1845), and for the fact that, as Sales (2002) puts it Cooper’s ‘life, and to a lesser extend his works, were raided and reconstructed by [Charles] Kingsley for his social-problem novel Alton Locke: Tailor and Poet (1850).’ Cooper pub. many other vols of poetry and prose including Wise Saws and Modern Instances (1845); The Baron’s Yule Feast. A Christmas rhyme (1846); ‘Sonnets on the Death of Allen Davenport, by a Brother Bard and Shoemaker’, The Northern Star, 5 December 1846; Captain Cobbler; or the Lincolnshire Rebellion. An Historical Romance of the Reign of Henry VIII (1850); Eight Letters to the Young Men of the Working Classes (1851); The Belief in a Personal God and a Future Life (1860); A Calm Inquiry into the Nature of Deity (1864); The Bridge of History over the Gulf of Time (1871); Plain Pulpit Talk (1872); The Life of Thomas Cooper. Written by Himself (1872); God, the Soul, and a Future State (1873); A Paradise of Martyrs (1873); Old Fashioned Stories (1874); The Verity of Christ’s Resurrection from the Dead (1875); The Verity and Value of the Miracles of Christ (1876); Poetical Works (1877); Evolution, the Stone Book, and the Mosaic Record of Creation (1878); The Atonement and other discourses (1880); Thoughts at Fourscore, and Earlier. A Medley (1885). Ref: LC 5, 189-204; ODNB; Winks, 190-228; Miles, X, xiv; Vicinus (1974), 108-12, 159, 189; Ashraf (1975), 173; Ashraf (1978), I, 36-7; Maidment (1983), 79; Burnett et al (1984), no. 177; Kovalev, 87-8; Cross, 128-9, 150-6; James, 172, 175-6; Newitt, 8-22; Maidment (1987), 57-9, 127-32; Scheckner, 133-7, 331-2; Schwab 188-9; Zlotnick, 176-7; Janowitz, esp. 166-73; Vincent, 146-7, 194; Goodridge (1999), item 21; Bradshaw, 501-9; NCBEL III, 516-7; Reilly (2000), 107; Sales (2002), 76-7, 80-83; Sutton, 240 (numerous manuscripts and letters). [LC 5] [C]Cope, Elijah (1842-1917), of Ipstones, Staffs., gardener‘s son, wood carver; pub. Poems by Elijah Cope of Leek (Leek, 1875), including ‘An Elegy on the Late George Heath’ (George Heath, qv). Ref: Poole & Markland, 248-50.? Copland, William (b. 1837), of Strichen, Aberdeenshire, saddler’s son, became a parish teacher, pub. Vacation rhymes and verses, chiefly relating to the district of Buchan (Dundee, 1866). Ref: Reilly (2000), 108. [S]Corbet, Denys (1826-1909), of Vale, Guernsey patois poet, seafaring father died, drafted into militia, left as a pacifist, became parish schoolteacher, farmer, pub. Les Feuilles de la Foret: ou, Recueil de Poesie Original, en Anglais, Francais, et Guernesais (Guernsey, 1871)?; Le jour de l'an de 1874 (successful, led to subsequent Le jour de l'an 1875, 1876, and 1877) and Les chànts du drain rimeux (1884, acknowledges that he is the last, or dernier, of patois poets). Ref: ODNB, Reilly (2000), 108.Corbett, Hamilton (1850-85), of Glasgow, plumber, singer. Ref: Edwards, 8, 302-5. [S]? Cordingly, John, received ‘a very limited commercial education’, pub. Poems (Ipswich, London, Bury, Colchester and Norwich, 1827. Ref: Johnson 46, nos. 280-1.Corrie, Joe, of Fife, coalminer, poet, lifelong socialist and prolific poet, pub. Poems, with an Introduction by Hugh S, Robertson (Port-Dundas, Glasgow: The Forward Publishing Co, n.d. [c. 1926]. Ref Charles Cox, Catalogue 51 (2005), item 344. [OP]? Corry, John (fl. 1792-7), self-taught Ulster writer, settled in London. Pub. Odes and Elegies, Descriptive and Sentimental, with ‘The Patriot’, A Poem (Newry, 1797), and miscellaneous prose works including histories of Liverpool, Macclesfield and lancashire, biographies and stories. Subscribers to Odes included Lord Edward Fitzgerald, several other writers, and a number of United Irishmen, suggesting a link. Ref O’Donoghue, 80. [I]Corry, Samuel, of Ballyclare, reedmaker. Ref. Hewitt [I]Corvan, Edward ‘Ned’ (c. 1830-65), of Newcastle (born in Liverpool), popular entertainer and prolific dialect songwriter, apprenticed as a sailmaker, then a member of Billy Purvis’s company, later a publican, pub. Works (1872). Ref: ODNB, Allan, 387-446; Ian Peddie, ‘Playing at Poverty: The Music Hall and the Staging of the Working Class’, in Aruna Krishnamurphy (ed), The Working-Class Intellectual in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Britain (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 235-54 (241-4).Costley, Thomas (1837-1900), of Maghaberry, Belfast, County Down, of poor parents, hand-loom handkerchief weaver in Belfast, Glasgow, Salford, later estate agent, poor law guardian, pub. Sketches of Southport, and Other Poems (Manchester, 1889). Ref: O’Donoghue, 82; Reilly (1994), 108. [I] [S]? Coupe or Coop, Joseph, of Oldham, Lancashire, ‘barber, tooth-drawer, blood-letter, spinner, rhymester and jack-of-all-trades’, and possible co-author with Joseph Lees (qv) of ‘Jone o’ Grinfilt’s Ramble’. Ref: Vicinus (1969), 31-2; Hepburn, II, 387.Courtenay, Georgina (fl. 1886), resident of ‘The Home,’ a home for fallen women, Paton’s Lane, Dundee; pub. ‘Out of the Depths,’ in The People’s Journal, 27 November, 1886, later issued as a broadside. Ref: inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]? Cousin, Mary (b. 1862), of Stirling, blind poet, lost her sight through measles, but at twenty still planned to become a teacher; poems, published locally, included ‘The Shetland Fishermen,’ ‘Mother,’ ‘Comfort in Adversity,’ and ‘A Friend.’ Ref: Edwards, 4, 364-7; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Cowan, Isa (fl. 1886), was born and lived ‘in the humbler walks of life,’ and received little education; pub. The Banks O’ Cree and Other Poems by Isa, 2nd edn, enlarged (Newton-Stewart: M’Credie and Anderson, 1886), full text on ; her poems ‘have been produced, sometimes in the intervals of domestic duties, and at other times in the very acts of household work’ (Edwards); many were addressed to friends; several are the acrostic verses popular in the period. Titles include ‘Lines on the Funeral of Miss Ranken,’ celebrating the life of a teacher, ‘On Hearing An Essay Read in the “Vale of Cree” Lodge by Miss M. A—, Now Mrs. G—,’ and ‘Wee Magie.’ Ref: inf. Florence Boos; copy online at . [F] [S]Cowan, John (b. 1840), of Paisley, boilermaker, spirit dealer, poems uncollected. Ref: Brown, II, 369-73. [S]Cowan, Thomas (b. 1834), of Danskine, Garwald, East Lothian, printer, bookseller. Ref: Edwards, 4, 326-34. [S]Coward, Nathan (1735-1815), grocer’s son of March, Isle of Ely, glover and breeches-maker and poet, later of Dersingham, Norfolk, pub. Quaint Scraps, or Sudden Cogitations (1800). Ref: William Hone, The Table Book (London: William Tegg, 1878), 543-6.Cowie, James (b. 1827), of Woodside, Aberdeen, mason, pub. Hame-spun Lays of a Deeside Ploughboy (1850). Ref: Edwards, 1, 386. [S]Cowper, William (1812-86), of Laurencekirk, Kincardineshire, taught by his mother, weaver, teacher, pub. At Midnight with the Book and the Stars, and Other Poems (Montrose, Edinburgh and London, 1874). Ref: Edwards 1, 185-87 and 9, xxii; Reid, Bards, 124-5; Reilly (2000), 113. [S]? Cox, Roger (fl. c. 1699), of Cavan, hatter, later Parish Clerk of Laracor, eccentric; four poems by him quoted in Henry Brooke, Brookiana (London, 1804): ‘The Landlord’ and ‘Interest Like Rust’, The Deserted Fair’, and ‘Verses written in a Marriage Register Book of the Parish of Laracor’ (34-40). Ref Swiftiana, ed. G. H. Wilson (London, 1804), 1. pp. 4-7; O’Donoghue, 84. [I]Cox, Walter (b. 1770-1837), of Co. Meath, blacksmith’s son, gunsmith, political writer and journalist, wrote for the papers of the United Irishmen, founded the Union Star in 1797 and after spending time in America founded in Dublin the Irish Magazine and Monthly Asylum of Neglected Biography, which he ran from 1807-15; in America again he started another journal, The Exile, which failed; he later lived in France and Ireland, dying in poverty. O’Donoghue describes Cox as a ‘remarkable character of the ’98 movement’. Pub The Snuff Box, a bitter satire against America (New York, 1820); The Widow Dempsey's Funeral, a comedy (Dublin, 1822), ‘much of the verse in the Irish Magazine for 1814’ including ‘The Parting Cup; or The Humours of Deoch an Darrish’, and a number of other works. Ref O’Donoghue, 84; DNB. [I]? Coyle, Henry (fl. 1899), self taught son of a Connaught father and a mother from Limerick, b. in Boston, Mass., contributed verse to the periodicals Harper's Bazaar, Detroit Free Press, Boston Transcript, Catholic Union and Times (Buffalo), and Boston Pilot; became assistant-editor of Orphan’s Bouquet, Boston. Pub. The Promise of Morn, poems (Boston, Mass., 1899). Ref O’Donoghue, 85.Coyle, Matthew (‘The Smiddy Muse’, b. 1862), of Arva, Killeshandra, County Cavan, lived in Scotland from infancy, educated Port Glasgow, later a blacksmith in Govan. Pub. poems in Glasgow Weekly Mail, Belfast Irish Weekly, Glasgow Observer, Ulster Examiner, and many other papers. Ref: Edwards, 14, 215-19; O’Donoghue, 85. [I] [S]Craig, David (b. 1837), of Dundee, Baxters factory boy at 13, rose to weaving manager, wrote ‘lively skits at election times’. Ref: Reid, Bards, 126-7. [S]Craig, John (1796-1854), of Airdrie, weaver poet. Ref. Knox, 110-20; inf. Bridget Keegan. [S]Craig, John (b. 1851), of Burrelton, Coupar Angus, agricultural labourer, fruit-grower, pub. in Dundee Weekly News and other papers. Ref: Edwards, 2, 121-3. [S]? Crane, John (fl. c. 1799-1820), watchmaker and general dealer, ‘Bird at Bromsgrove’, pub. An Address to the Bachelors by a bird at Bromsgrvoe (Birmingham: printed for the author by Swinney and hawkins, n.d. [c. 1799]); Rhymes after Meat. By a Bird at Bromsgrove, fourth edition (Birmingham: Printed for the author by Messrs. Swinney and Hawkins, [n.d., ?1800—but Cox gives c. 1804]); Poems. Dedicated without Permission, to John Bull. By a Bird at Bromsgrove. Volume the First, perhaps the Last. The seventh Edition. With the Addition of Forty pages (Stourport: printed for John Crane, seniour, by G. Nicholson, Stourport, And sold by Joshua Crane, Bookseller, Bromsgrove, [n.d., c. 1817-20]), which incorporates his extended poem ‘The London Wakes’. A number of chapbooks were published by this clever and eccentric shopkeeper. Rhymes after Meat has a ‘typographically ingenious folding advertisement frontispieces bearing his punning emblem, a crane with a watch in its beak. The advertisement lists a vast array of goods and trinkets available from the author: jewellery, nutcrackers, cutlery, musical instruments, shuttlecocks and battledores, magnets, pocket books, Tunbridge-ware, cricket bats and other toys’. Ref Croft & Beattie, I, 58 (item 183); Johnson, items 226-8; Charles Cox, Catalogue 51 (2005), item 79.Craw, William (1771-1816), of Chirnside, mason, sailor, pub. Poetical Epistles (Kilmarnock, 1809). Ref: Crockett, 107-9. [S]Crawford, James Paul (1825-87), ‘Paul Rookford’, of Catrine, tailor in Glasgow, temperance poet and author of ‘The Drunkard’s Raggit Wean’, brother to Mungo and John Kennedy Crawford (qqv). Ref: Edwards, 1, 372-7 and 12, xvi-xvii; Glasgow Poets, 361-63; Murdoch, 188-92. [S]Crawford, John (1816-73), of Greenock, house-painter, cousin once removed of Burns’s ‘Highland Mary’ (Mary Campbell), pub. Doric Lays: Being Snatches of Song and Ballad (1850; 2nd ser 1860), also wrote non-verse Memorials of the Town of Alloa (1874). Ref: ODNB; Wilson, II, 396-8; Reilly (2000), 114-15; Edwards, 1, 324-5 and 5, 101-4. [S]Crawford, John (b. 1851), of Carluke, Lanarkshire, opencast miner, cabinet-maker, poems in newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 10, 150-7. [S]Crawford, John Kennedy (b. 1831), of Catrine, Ayrshire, brother to James Paul and Mungo Crawford (qqv), apprentice draper in Glasgow, later in the shawl trade in Paisley. Ref: Edwards, 7, 292-7. [S]Crawford, Margaret (fl. 1855), gardener’s daughter, factory girl, pub. Rustic Lays, on the Braes of Gala Water by Margaret Crawford, A Gardener’s Daughter, Stow (1855); includes poems on her pastor, her sister, the trials of a factory girl’s life, and on an ill-tempered suitor. Ref: inf. Florence Boos; Boos (2008), 19. [F] [S]Crawford, Mungo (1828-74), of Catrine, Ayrshire, brother to James Paul and John Kennedy Crawford (qqv), apprentice draper in Glasgow, part-paralyzed at 25, ship’s purser, later draper in Kilmarnock. Ref: Edwards, 7, 292-7. [S]Crawford, William (b. 1803), of Paisley, weaver and soldier, pub. The Fates of Alceus: or Love’s Knight Errant. An Amatory Poem in five books, with other poetical pieces on various subjects (1828). Ref: Brown, I, 404-05. [S]? Crealock, W. M., sailor, pub. Scraps by a Sailor; or, Rhymes of the Land and Sea (London, 1888). Ref: Reilly (1994), 115.Cresswell, Marshall (d. 1889), of Dudley colliery, pub. song collection with autobiographical sketch in 1876. Ref: Allan, 512.Crighton, James (d. 1892), ‘The Whistler’, of Perth, later Arbroath, ploughboy, stationmaster, finally estate manager in England. Ref: Reid, Bards, 128-30. [S]Crocker, Charles (1797-1861), of Chichester, shoemaker, left school at 12. Southey, a good friend, ‘asserted that the sonnet “To the British Oak” was one of the finest in the English language’. Pub. The Vale of Obscurity, the Lavant and other poems (1830; 2nd edn Chichester and London, 1834; 3rd edn, 1841); Kingley Vale and Other Poems (Chichester, 1837); A Visit to Chichester Cathedral (1848), The Poetical Works of Charles Crocker (1860). In 2014 a ‘blue plaque’ was unveiled in South Street, Chichester, commemorating this ‘Poet, Cathedral Sexton, and most respected Cicestrian’ (Chichester Observer, 11 March 2014). His papers are in the West Sussex Record office, Add Mss 21,431 (National Archives web page). Ref: ODNB; Winks, 321-2; Johnson, items 233-4; Reilly (2000), 116; Johnson 46, no. 282; Sutton, 256 (letters).Cronshaw, Joseph, of Ancoats, Manchester, self-made working man, began as a barrow-boy and became a large merchant, pub. Dingle Cottage: Poems and Sketches (Manchester, 1908). Ref: Maidment (1987), 368-9. [OP]Cross, William (1804-86), of Paisley, son of a handloom weaver, drawboy, pattern maker, manufacturer, journalist, pub. Songs and miscellaneous poems, written at rare intervals of leisure in the course of a busy life (Glasgow, 1882), poems in Whistle-Binkie, and a famous story, ‘The Disruption’. Ref: Glasgow Poets, 263-66; Brown, I, 379-83; Edwards, 6, 19-28 and 9, xxi-xxii; Reilly (1994), 118. [S]Crossarthurlie, Jessie, pub. poem, ‘The Factory Girl’s Lament,’ in The Poet’s Box, sold in Glasgow and Dundee. Ref: inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Crowe, Robert (b. 1832), tailor, temperance advocate, born in Ireland, raised in poverty, educated at National School, later lived in London and Birmingham, emigrated to America, pub. autobiography, Reminiscences of an octogenarian (New York, ?1901), 32 pp, copy in Library of Congress; ‘some poetry and ballads is included’. Ref Burnett et al (1984), no. 189. [I]Cruickshank, William (d. 1868), of Bauds of Montbletton, Gamrie, Banffshire, gardener’s son, molecatcher (‘The Rhyming Molecatcher’), pub. Charlie Neil, and Other Poems, Chiefly in the Buchan Dialect (Peterhead, 1869). Ref: Edwards, 2, 192-5; Reilly (2000), 117. [S]? Cruse, Jesse, London postman, primitive-methodist lay-preacher, abstainer, numerous 30-page pubs. in 1890s including Labour of Love: Containing Twelve Original Poems on Moral & Religious Subjects (London, 1898), A Poor Man’s Logic: Containing Twelve Original Poems on Moral & Sacred Themes (London, 1896). Ref: Reilly (1994), 119-20.Cryer, Silas (b. 1840), of Bingley, printer, compositor, pub. Leisure Musings (1876), 72 pp., ‘a good example of the motto poeta nascitur non fit’ (Forshaw). Ref Forshaw, 67-8.Cryer, William, pub. Lays After Labour (Bolton, Alfred Blackshaw, 1913), pp. 440, with guarded photo. Ref: full text on . [OP]? Cumming, Thomas (fl. 1810-19), glazier and poet, pub. Dreadful Catastrophe at Paisley, November 10th, 1810 (Paisley: printed for and sold by Thomas Cumming 1810); Peep into the cabinet, A poem (Paisley: printed for the author, 1818); Strictures on the Election of John Maxwell, Esq., of Pollok, 4th July, 1818, as representative in Parliament for the Shire of Renfrew: a Poem printed by Stephen Young, Paisley (Paisley, 1818); Sympathy displayed and Patriotism Delineated: a Poem (Paisley: printed for the author, undated [?1819]). Ref: Brown, I, 197; Scottish Book Trade Index, online at: . [S]Cunningham, Allan, ‘Hidllan’ (1784-1842), ‘The Nithsdale Mason’, friend to Hogg and Clare, esteemed by Scott, misc. writer, brother of Thomas Mounsey Cunningham (qv); pub. Songs, Chiefly in the Rural Language of Scotland (1813); The Songs of Scotland, Ancient and Modern (four volumes, 1825); Lives of the most Eminent British Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (six volumes, 1829-1833); and The Works and Life of Burns (eight volumes, 1834); Sir Marmaduke Maxwell ... and Twenty Scottish Songs (London: Taylor & Hessey, 1822); The Maid of Elvar, A Poem. In Twelve Parts (London: Edward Moxon, 1832). Ref: ODNB; Radcliffe; Miller, 192-203, 217; Wilson, II, 61-72, Douglas. 302-3, Cafarelli, 84, Johnson, items 109, 373, 751, Jarndyce, items 1358-9, Goodridge (1999), item 26, Powell, items 171-4; Miles, X, xvii; Sutton, 269 (numerous manuscripts and letters). [S]? Cunningham, John (1729-93), born in Dublin, lived in Edinburgh, died in Newcastle upon Tyne, wine merchant/cooper’s son, grammar school educated strolling player, playwright and poet, wrote his first poems for the Dublin papers before he was 12. Pub. Poems, Chiefly Pastoral (1766); An Elegy on a Pile of Ruins (1761, 144 lines, shows knowledge of England’s medieval history); Poetical Works?(1781). Ref: ODNB; O’Donoghue, 93; Radcliffe; Allan, 18-21; Welford, I, 676-9; Powell, item 175; Sutton, 272 (manuscripts and letters). [I]Cunningham, Thomas Mounsey (1776-1834), of Culfaud, Kirkcunbright, village school and Dumfries Academy educated, mill-wright, later lived in Rotherham and London, and rose to chief clerk in engineering firm Rennie; contributed verses to the Scots Magazine, Hogg’s Forest Minstrel, and the Edinburgh Magazine; pub. Har’st Kirn, and Other Poems and Songs (1797); brother of Allan Cunningham (qv). Ref: ODNB; Radcliffe; Miller, 212-13; Harper, 251; Wilson, I, 537-40; Sutton, 273 (letters). [S]? Curling, Mary Anne (b. c. 1796), daughter of a London tailor and a lace-cleaner, won a suit for breach of promise of marriage in 1819, against the Pastor of the Baptist Church in Oxford Street, pub. Poetical Pieces (Dover, 1831), Poetical Pieces...with some additional pieces (London, 1831). Ref: Jackson (1993), 93. [F]Currie, James (1829-90), of Selkirk, child textile-worker, soldier, lost his right arm in the Crimea, later post-runner, mill employee, pub. Wayside Musings; or Poems and Songs (Selkirk, 1863), Poems and Songs, with a biographical sketch by Charles Rogers (Glasgow, 1883). Ref: Edwards, 3, 117-21 and 16, [lix]; Reilly (1994), 120-1, Reilly (2000), 119. [S]Currie, William J. (b. 1853), of Selkirk, son of James Currie, creeshie (carding machine worker). Ref: Edwards, 11, 226-33. [S]Curtis, G. (fl. 1850s-60s), of Oxford, pub. [with T. L. Aldridge] Poem dedicated to the working men of England; by two of their order, second enlarged edition [cover title Golden Moments] (London and Oxford, 1861). Ref: Reilly (2000), 7-8.? Cuthbertson, David (b. 1856), of Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, draper’s shop worker, clerk, librarian, pub. Eskdale Lyrics (Edinburgh, 1878), Rosslyn lyrics (Edinburgh, 1878). Ref: Reilly (2000), 120. [S]Dakers, Robert A., ‘D.A.R.’ (b. 1865), of Creiff, later of Haddington then Edinburgh, weaver’s son, compositor. Ref: Edwards, 14, 144-9. [S]Dalby, J. W., radical, wrote for Black Dwarf and for Leigh Hunt’s publications; pub. Poems (London: Printed for the Author, 1822), Tales, Songs and Sonnets (1866). Ref: inf. Bob Heyes.Dale, Sarah (‘Essdee’), neé Schofield, of Ashton-under-Lyne, taught to read and write by her mother, cotton mill worker, pub. Adelia and other poems (Ashton-under-Lyne, 1883), Merriky letters, with other rhymes of old and new England, by Essdee (Huddersfield, c. 1890s). Ref: Reilly (1994), 124. [F]Dalgity, Isa (fl. 1895), born at Craigharr Cottage, on Persley Braes, over the Don valley, Aberdeenshire; attended school at Whitstripes, Old Machar, until age 14, when she began to work first as a farm servant, and later for some years as a papermaker; lived in Aberdeen and published in the Aberdeen Free Press; sister to John Dalgity (qv). Her verses include ‘Alane’, ‘Oor Countra Side’, ‘School Days’, and ‘Freen’s O’ Auld Langsyne.’ Ref: Edwards, 8, 65-69; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Dalgity, John (b. 1859), of Upper Persley, Aberdeen, gardener, brother to Isa Dalgity (qv), pub. poems in newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 7, 208-11. [S]? Dalglish, A. (b., 1856), of Stonehouse, age 14 entered a mercantile house in Glasgow, wrote ‘Bauldy’s Hay Stack’ and a poem in Edwards. Ref: Edwards, 1, 351. [S]Dalgleish, Walter (b. 1865), farmer’s son of Potburn, Ettrick, joiner, pub. The Moorland Bard (1887), Poems and Songs (1891). Ref: Edwards, 15, 67-9. [S]Daly, John, of Blackburn, tentatively identified as the fellow ‘factory bard’ of Richard Rawcliffe’s (qv) ‘In Blackburn Park—To Flora’, and clearly identified in Daly’s reply ‘The Voice of Flora—In Blackburn Park’ [c. 1891]. Ref: Hull, 202-4.? Dalziel, Gavin (fl. 1808-25), pub. Poetical satires & Epistles (Kilmarnock: printed by H. & S. Crawford, for the author, 1808), and A selection of poetical pieces. (Paisley: printed for the author, 1825); the two poems in Brown, ‘Hard Times’ and ‘Prison Song’ strongly suggest this is a labouring-class poet. Ref: Brown, I, 233-34; COPAC. [S]? Dalzeil, Mrs Jane Waddell (fl. 1895), of Stoneyburn Farm, Addiewell, Linlithgowshire, poems in Bisset. Ref: Bisset, 242-6. [F] [S]? Dannon, Jeannie, ordinary life poet, pub. Hameland (Newton Steward, 1907). Ref: inf Florence Boos. [OP] [F] [S]? Dare, Joseph (1800-83), glovemaker, of Leicestershire, later a teacher, radical reformer, described by Ashraf as among ‘the most active radical and socialist organisers and poets of the 1820-ies and 1830-ies’. Pub. The Garland of Gratitude, 1849). Ref: Ashraf (1978), I, 24; Sales (2002), 98; Schwab, 290; inf. Ned Newitt.? Darling, Isabella Fleming (1861-1903), left school at age 15 to assist her mother; poss. best considered as a middle-class poet; author of five vols of poetry, including Poems and Songs (Glasgow, 1889), Scotia, Mountainland, and Other Poems, and Whispering Hope (Edinburgh: Simpkin & Marshall and Glasgow: J. Menzies, 1893); Songs from Silence (Paisley: Gardner, 1904); A Certain Rich Man (Shotts: J. Macleod, 1913). Ref: Gifford & Macmillan, 682; inf. Florence Boos; Grian Books web page, visited July 7th 2014. [F] [S]Davenport, Allen (1775-1846), of a poor peasant family, served in the army, London Chartist and shoemaker, Spencian, pub. Kings, or, Legitimacy Unmasked (1819); Claremont (gives date 1820?); English Institutions (1842); Claremont, or the sorrows of a prince. An elegiac poem [on the death of Princess Charlotte] (1821?); The Muse’s Wreath (1827); The Life, Writings, and Principles of Thomas Spence (1836). Ref: ODNB; Burnett et al (1984), no. 199; Kovalev, 122-4; Scheckner, 138-40, 332; Schwab, 190; Janowitz, esp. 115-32, 159-64; Worrall, esp. 77-88. [C]? Davidson, Elizabeth (1828-73), b. at Thornhill, Dumfriesshire; though poor, received a relatively good education and worked as a teacher until her marriage; 1853 moved to England with her husband, where she lived near Alnwick in Northumberland, d. leaving seven children between the ages of 3 and 23; pub. Miscellaneous Poems (Edinburgh: printed for the author by Ballantyne, 1866), and The Death of King Theodore, and Other Poems. She recorded that of her poems ‘the greater number have been composed with a baby in the arm, or while sitting by the cradle, and written most frequently during the hours borrowed from rest. If some cynic should ask, what business has a woman in such circumstances to write poetry? He might be answered by telling him that a crowing or sleeping baby is of itself sufficient to inspire a poetic mind. He who formed the human soul, formed it with faculties which not only enable it to plan, and calculate, and bargain, but which lead it to admire and enjoy what is pure, and good, and beautiful; and when we can gain a short respite from toil, and rush away to the contemplation of such subjects, the soul comes back purified and strengthened to resume the duties of life. ... our sympathies wander outward to the great suffering, sinning world, and we cherish the desire, and breathe the prayer, that we may do something to make it better and happier.’ A second volume (1874) edited by her husband, a gardener at Newton Gardens, Felton, Northumberland, was published shortly after her death. He remembered that her writing was done on Sunday evenings, and every piece finished at one sitting because she never knew when other opportunities for writing would be granted. She contributed to religious periodicals and took a lively interest in the temperance cause, disliked attention to religious theology rather than the practice of religion. She wrote poems on liberty, autumn leaves, ‘The Old Family Clock.’ Possibly the same as Elizabeth Davidson, also of Northumberland, who published ‘The Seasons’ in the Dundee collection, Poems by the People. Ref: Edwards, 4, 93-9; Reilly (2000), 124; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]? Davidson, George, of Scottish origin though lived in Yorkshire, pub. ‘Thoughts on Peel Park’, The Bradfordian, 1 (October 1861), 198; Holroyd includes his ‘To a Sprig of heather, from the Braes of Balmoral’. Ref: Holroyd, 8; Vicinus (1974), 150-1, 180n.? Davidson, James (b. 1829), ‘The Buchan Poet’, of Logie Buchan, Aberdeenshire, son of a mason, orphaned at nine, shopkeeper, reporter, pub. Poems, chiefly in the Buchan dialect (Aberdeen, Banff, Peterhead, Fraserburgh and New Pitsligo, 1861). Ref: Edwards, 1, 91-94; Reilly (2000), 125. [S]Davidson, John (1825-60), of Maxton, Roxburghshire, carpenter, pub. Poems (Kelso, 1860). Ref: Reilly (2000), 125. [S]? Davidson, John (1857-1909), of Barrhead, schoolteacher at charity school and writer, first employed in scientific and analytic offices, and spent only one year at Edinburgh University. Pub. Diabolus amans (1885); Bruce?(1886); Smith: a Tragic Farce?(1888); annus mirabilis, 1894; and Testaments (published between 1901 and 1908); In a Music Hall and other Poems (London, 1891), Fleet Street Eclogues (1893-6), Poems, ed. A. Turnbull (Edinburgh and London: Scottish Academic Press, 1973). Ref: ODNB; LION; Ashraf (1975), 279-91, Leonard, 346-59, Miles, VIII, 349, Ricks, 600-3. [S]Davidson, Margaret (d. c. 1781), of Killinchy, Ballybreda, daughter of poor uneducated parents, blinded by smallpox at two, self-taught flax-spinner, self-converted Methodist, pub. The Extraordinary Life and Christian Experience of Margaret Davidson, (as Dictated by Herself) Who Was a Poor, Blind Woman among the People Called Methodists, but Rich towards God, and Illuminated with the Light of Life. To Which are Added, Some of Her Letters and Hymns (Dublin, 1782). Ref: Jackson (1993), 97. [I] [F]Davies, David, (‘Dai’r Cantwr’, David the Singer, 1812-74), farmer and radical, born near Llancarfan, Glamorgan; participated in the Rebecca Riots, an uprising by poor farmers in 1839 at Cilymaenllwyd in Carmarthenshire, and was subsequently sentenced to Australia for twenty years; wrote his ‘Threnody of Dai’r Cantwr’, a poem in strict meter illustrating scenes of his youth, while awaiting transportation; pardoned in 1854 and returned to Wales, where he lived as a vagrant and died in a barn fire perhaps set by his own pipe. Ref: OCLW; Wikipedia. [W] [—Katie Osborn]Davies, Robert (‘Bardd Nantglyn’, 1769-1835), apprenticed to a tailor, wrote carols and englynion, won prize at Caerwys Eisteddfod (1798) with an awdl titled 'Cariad i'n Gwlad' and became president of the Society, pub. Cnewyllyn mewn Gwisg (1798), Diliau Barddas (1827), and a popular and influential grammar 'Iethiardur neu Ramadeg Cymraeg' (five editions by 1848). Ref: OCLW. [W] [—Katie Osborn]Davis, Francis (1810-85), ‘The Belfast Man’, of Ballincollig, County Cork, muslin weaver in Belfast, ‘Young Irelander’, wrote for and edited periodicals, given small Civil List pension, began the short-lived nationalist publication the Belfast Man's Journal (1850), pub. Belfast, the City and the Man (1855); A phantasy and other poems (London, Dublin, Edinburgh and Belfast, 1861), The tablet of shadows; A phantasy, and other poems (London, Dublin, Edinburgh and Belfast, 1861), Leaves from our cypress and our oak (London, 1863), Earlier and Later Leaves, or, An Autumn Gathering (1878, charity volume published by friends). Ref: ODNB; Reilly (2000), 127. [I]Davlin, Charles (1793?-1871), of Bolton, handloom weaver, autodidact, revolutionary Chartist, his poem were ‘appreciated by Robert Owen’, and published in Reid, City. Ref Schwab, 191. [C]? Davys, Mary (1674-1732), wife of friend of Swift, of very uncertain origins, after the early death of her husband kept a coffee house in Cambridge; author of popular novels and plays, published a collected works in 1725. Ref: ODNB; Carpenter, 135. [F]Dawson, James, jun. (1840-1906), of Hartshead, near Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancs, farmer’s son, agricultural labourer, dialect poet, ‘a working man’ (Harland), later a journalist in Manchester and London, pub. Facts and Fancies from the Farm: Lyrical Poems (1868). Ref: Harland, 441-2, 469-70; Maidment (1987), 274-5; Hollingworth (1977), 153; Reilly (2000), 127-8.? Dawson, William Henderson, of Newcastle, bookbinder and poet, writer on local history and song. Ref: Allan, 484-90.? Deans, Mrs. C. E. Pettigrew (b. 1862), educated at Bathgate Academy and attended the Church of Scotland Training College in Edinburgh; farmer’s wife, lived near Fordoun, and wrote sentimental and comic verses, with touches of social observation. A few were in Scots, such as ‘The Stirkie’s Sta’,’ ‘My Ain Laddie,’ and ‘The Terrible Mearns Folk.’ Ref: Poets and Poetry of Linlithgowshire; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Deans, George (b. 1851), of Fogo, tenant farmer’s son, cow-herder, newspaper reporter, pub. Harp Strums (Kelso, 1890). Ref: Crockett, 265-9. [S]? Dearnley, William, of Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire, pub. The power loom weaver, being a reply to the factory child (Halifax, ?1865). Ref: Reilly (2000), 129.? Deer, James, ?thatcher, pub. Occasional Poems by the Thatcher of Risby (Bury St Edmunds, [c. 1864]), 20. Ref: Cranbrook, 187.Delday, William (b. 1855), of Quoybelloch, Deerness, Orkney, farmer. Ref: Edwards, 12, 39-41. [S]Denholm, Agnes Mack (b. 1854), of Abbey St. Bathans, educated at the parish school; at fourteen she entered domestic service, and at 34 married William Denholm, overseer on farm of Abbey St. Bathans. She published romantic ballads. Ref: Crockett, 270-3; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]? Denning, John Renton (‘J.A.N’), served as a private in the Rifle Brigade, in India, c. 1878, pub. Poems and Songs (Bombay, 1888), ‘Soldierin’’: a few military ballads (Bombay, 1899). Ref: Reilly (1994), 133.Derfel, Robert Jones (‘Munullog’, 1824-1905), of Llandderfel, hand loom weaver, Welsh nationalist and socialist, moved to Manchester, 1843, learned English and became travelling salesman, Baptist lay-preacher, friend of John Hughes Ceiriog (qv), pub. three vols of Welsh verse between 1861 and 1865, political activist, prominent in Manchester Cambrian Literary Society. Pub. Rhosyn Meirion (1853, ‘contained a prize-winning poem on the Hungarian nationalist, Kossuth’ [ODNB]); Caneuon min y ffordd [‘Songs from the Wayside’] (1861); Mynudau segur (1863); Caneuon gwladgarol Cymru [‘Songs of Patriotic Wales’] (1864); Songs for Welshmen (1865); Hymns and songs for the church of man (Manchester, 1890), Musing for the masses (Manchester, 1895), Social songs (Manchester, 1890). Ref: LC 6, 343-54; ODNB; OCLW; Ashton & Roberts, 6, note 11; Reilly (1994), 134; Cass, Eddie, ‘Robert Jones Derfel: A Welsh Poet, in the Cotton Factory Times’, Llafur, 7, no. 2 (1996), 53-67. [W] [LC 6] ? Dermody, Thomas (1775-1802), poet, died young. Known as ‘The Irish Chatterton,’ Thomas Dermody was the son of an Ennis schoolmaster. Jason Edwards observes that Dermody showed ‘a precocious talent for drinking, poetry, and scholarship’ (ODNB), and alcoholism would ail him until his death in near vagrancy in London in 1802. His poetry, often reprinted and anthologized, has been noted for its wit and allusiveness. ~ Dermody was a child prodigy, learning Greek and Latin at the age of four and serving as his father's classical assistant from age nine. He ran away to Dublin at age fifteen and won the patronage of several high-profile dignitaries and aristocrats (Henry Grattan, Lady Moira, and Charlotte Brooke), who (?in the space of one year)?helped him publish three volumes of poetry, a few critical essays, and a pamphlet on the war in France. Dermody, however, resisted his patrons, boldly declaring in his poetry, ‘I am vicious because I like it’ (ODNB). Having put up with his alcoholism and distemper, his patrons finally abandoned him when he refused a scholarship to Trinity College, Dublin. ~ Dermody joined the army (the 108th regiment, as a private) and served with such distinction in France that he won a commission. However, returning to London, Dermody quickly fell back into his drinking habits and died in poverty in a hovel in Kent on his half-birthday, 15 July 1802. Pub Poems (Dublin, 1789); Poems Moral and Descriptive (1800); Poems, Consisting of Essays, Lyric, Elegiac (Dublin, 1792); The Rights of Justice [prose] (1793); Poems on Various Subjects (1802); The Harp of Erin, containing the Poetical Works of the Late Thomas Dermony, ed. J. G. Raymond (1807), 2 vols. Ref: James Grant Raymond, The Life of Thomas Dermody, Interspersed with Pieces of Original Poetry (London: Miller, 1806); ODNB; CBEL III, 232;Richardson, 249; Goodridge (1999), item 32; Johnson, item 326; Jackson (1985); Meyenberg, 209; Basker, 406-7; R. Welch, ed.,?The Oxford companion to Irish literature?(1996), 142; S. Deane, A. Carpenter, and J. Williams (eds.),?The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, 1 (1991), 399, 401–3, 418, 492, 495; R. Stephen Dornan, ‘Thomas Dermody’s Archipelagic Poetry’, European Romantic Review, 21: 4 (2010), 409-23. [I] [—Katie Osborn]Derrick, Samuel (1724-69), Irish poet, linendraper’s apprentice, referred to in Cuthbert Shaw’s The Race. Like Shaw, he tried his hand first as an actor, but then turned to hack writing, published in several genres, and wrote translations and criticism. Poetry includes ‘The Battle of Lora’. He eventually went on to become master of ceremonies at Bath. He was known to Johnson, who pitied his condition of ‘poor poet’. Ref: ODNB; Sutton, 287 (manuscripts and letters); inf. Bridget Keegan. [I]Deverall, Mrs Mary (b. 1737), self-taught daughter of a Gloucestershire clothier, pub. Miscellanies in Prose and Verse, Mostly Written in the Epistolary Style: Chiefly upon Moral Subjects, and Particularly Calculated for the Improvement of Younger Minds (London, Bristol, Bath, Oxford, Hereford & Tunbridge-Wells, 1781), Theodoras & Didymus, or, the Exemplification of Pure Love and Vital Religion. An Heroic Poem, in Three Cantos (London, Bath & Bristol, 1784, 1786), and Mary Queen of Scots; an Historical Tragedy, or, Dramatic Poem (London and Gloucester, 1792), Ref: Jackson (1993), 103-4. [F]? Devlin, James Dacres (d. c. 1863), shoemaker, ‘radical, activist and minor literary figure...the best craftsman in the London trade’ (Hobsbawm and Scott, 107n), journalist, pub. The Shoemaker (2 vols, 1838/39), a prose work; Two Odes Written upon the occasion of the Cinque Ports festival held at Dover (1839); An essay on the Boot and Shoe Trade of France as it affects the manufacture of the British manufacture in the same business. (1838); Helps to Hereford History, civil and legendary (1848); Critica Crispina, or the Boots and Shoes British and Foreign of the Great Exhibition (1852); Strangers’ Homes; or the Model Lodging Houses of London (1853); The Sydenham Sunday (1853); Rules and Regulations (1855); Contract Reform: its necessity shown in respect to the shoemaker, soldier, sailor (1856); (\with John O’Neill, qv) letter and ‘Sonnet, to Mr. Bloomfield, with Prospectus’ (1820), in Bloomfield, Remains, 1824, I, 164-6. Ref: Cross, 151-2; Bloomfield, Remains, 1824, I, 164-6, Winks, 313.? Devlin, John Dacres, correspondent of Dickens, pub. ‘The November Primrose’ (Peoples Journal, 6 [1848] 316). Ref: Maidment (1987), 216-17.? Dibb, Robert, poet from ‘the humbler walks of life’ also calls himself the ‘Wharfedale poet’, pub. The Minstrel’s Offering: or a wreath of poetry (London: Hamilton, Adams & Co., Leeds: J. Y. Knight, 1839); poems ‘of a radical tinge’ and include ‘The Factory Girl’; Ebenezer Elliott (qv) is among the subscribers. Ref: Johnson, item 270; Johnson 46, no. 284; John Hart Catalogue 74, item 101; Charles Cox, Catalogue 51 (2005), item 91.Dick, Robert (1849-89), of Langlands brae, Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, child factory worker, printer, pub. Tales and poems (Kilmarnock, 1892). Ref: Reilly (1994), 137. [S]Dick, Thomas (fl. 1846-52), of Paisley, weaver, pub. The Burn-lip: a tale of 1826—containing an account of Paisley at that time, with particular notices of the great fire at Ferguslie in 1789, the dearth in 1800, and the capsizing of the Canal passage boat in 1810 (1852), also published The Temperance Garland (1846), which included some of his own pieces included. Ref: Brown, I, 438-40. [S]Dickey, John, weaver of Rockfield; pub. Poems on Various Subjects (1818). Ref. Hewitt. [I]Dickinson, Grace (d. 1862), mother of six, entered the Halifax workhouse, died of TB, pub. Songs in the night: a collection of verses; by the late Grace Dickinson, composed in the Halifax Union Workhouse, edited by the chaplain (London and Halifax, 1863). Ref: Reilly (2000), 132; Turner, 126. [F]? Dickinson, William, mentioned by Ashraf, nothing further known, but this might possibly relate: Uncollected literary remains of William Dickinson: being a series in prose and verse, arranged from the author’s manuscripts by W. Hodgson (Carlisle, 1888), copies in Cambridge and BL. Ref: Ashraf, I, 33-4.Dinnie, Robert (1808-91), of Allancreich, Birse, mason. Ref: Edwards, 13, 286-96. [S]Dippen, Maria Catharina (c. 1737-62), German poet and farmer of Halberstadt, ‘discovered’ by Anna Louisa Karsch (qv). Dippen ‘wrote in High German butspoke the local dialect of her village’ and was noted for the ‘speed and sponaneity with which she wrote’. Did not pub. but there are three poems in Karsch’s correspndence, possibly re-worked, and we rely on Karsch’s descriptions of her poetry, some of which ‘depicts the horror of war and its consequences for the rural population’. Dippen also ‘was a great inspiration for numerous fledgling women poets in her village’. Ref Kord, 261-2. [F]? Ditchfield, Ralph (fl. 1882-3), of Blackburn, little biographical information but some evidence of labouring-class origin. Ref: Hull, 185-93.Dixon, William (1829-68), of Steeton, Yorkshire, of humble parents, self-educated, woolcomber, later a watchmaker and working jeweller, pub. The Poetical Works of William Dixon, including Epistles, Pleasures of meditation, Melodies, etc., with Preface by the Author (Bingley, 1853), a ‘first attempt’ by a poet self-confessedly ‘entirely unknown to the public’; three poems in Forshaw. Ref Forshaw, 69-71; Grainge, II. Dobie, George (b. 1824), of Lanark, handloom weaver, later ran his own business in Edinburgh; verses commended by the Queen and Lord Palmerston. Ref: Edwards, 5, 128-33. [S]Dodds, Jeanie (b. 1849), of Hillhouse, parish of Channelkirk, Lauder, daughter of a farm grieve, at age 12 a message girl in a draper’s, later head of dress-making department, and finally self-employed businesswoman; pub. Ruth’s Gleanings: Poems (Kirkcaldy, 1894), and poems in Fifeshire Advertiser; poems include ‘A Pauper,’ ‘The Artist,’ ‘A Mother’s Trust,’ ‘Consider the Lilies,’ ‘The Pauper’s Burying Ground,’ and ‘Lines Written on a Child’s Album,’ and ‘Nothing that Defileth’. Her poems are sentimental verses on the stresses of life and rewards of friendship. Ref: Crockett, 263-4; Edwards, 13, 53-6; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Dodsley, Robert (1704-1764), footman of Mansfield, later a major London publisher. Pub. Servitude (1729), A Muse in Livery, or, The Footman's Miscellany (1732), The Modern Reasoners (1734), An Epistle to Mr. Pope, Occasion'd by his Essay on Man (1734), Beauty, or, The Art of Charming (1735), Miseries of Poverty (1731), and also an anthology, A Collection of Poems by Several Hands, 'to preserve to the public those poetical performances, which seemed to merit a long remembrance' (ODNB). Ref: LC 1, 73-120; ODNB; Radcliffe; Unwin, 71-72; R?stvig, II, 158; Cafarelli, 78; Christmas, 69-71, 106-10, 147 ; Sutton, 320 (manuscripts, letters, legal papers); Harry M. Solomon, The Rise of Robert Dodsley: Creating the New Age of Print (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1996). [LC 1]Doig, Alexander (1848-92), of Dundee, tailor. Ref: Edwards, 13, 261-4; Reid 133-5. [S]Donald, George (b. 1826), of Thornliebank, Renfrewshire, son of factory worker (his father was a radical and also a poet published in Glasgow newspapers—unidentified further), calico printer, pattern designer, warehouseman, journalist, pub. in the newspapers and a collection of Poems: Reflective, Descriptive, and Miscellaneous (1865), well-reviewed. Ref: Brown, II, 229-33; Edwards, 2, 72-7; Murdoch, 279-82. [S]Donald, George Webster (1820-91), of Westfield, near Forfar, farmer’s son, lamed cattle-herder, weaver, teacher, keeper of Arbroath Abbey, pub. Poems, ballads and songs (Arbroath, 1867, 1879), “The muckle skeel” and other poems (Dundee, 1870). Ref: Edwards, 1, 21-4; Reid, Bards, 136-40 (with photograph); Reilly (2000), 136. [S]Donald, James (1815 - c. 1893), of Kirriemuir, handloom weaver, Chartist, band leader and raconteur. Ref: Edwards, 14, 129-32; Reid, Bards, 140-1. [S] [C]Donaldson, Alexander (b. 1851), of Gifford, Haddingtonshire, tailor, soldier, Precenter in Yester Free Church, ‘comic vocalist and humourist’ (Reilly); pub. Rustic lays (Haddington, 1879). Ref: Edwards, 6, 374-9; Reilly (2000), 137. [S]Donaldson, Thomas, weaver at Glasgow, Poems, chiefly in the Scottish dialect; both humorous and entertaining (Alnwick, 1809). Ref: Johnson, item 276, NCSTC. [S]Donaldson, William (1847-76), of Rathven, Banffshire, printer, at age 17 pub. The Queen Martyr and Other Poems (1864). Ref: Edwards, 1, 343-4. [S]Donnelly, Robert (b. c. 1800), weaver of Portadown, County Armargh, pub. Poems on Various Subjects, Moral, Religious and Satirical (Portadown, 1852); Poems on Various Subjects (1867); Poems (Belfast, 1872), Poetical Works, 2nd edn (1882). Ref: Hewitt; Reilly (2000), 137; Kate Newman (Dictionary of Ulster Biography: see link). Link: [I]Donnet, James (1830-69), of Dundee, flax-dresser, pub. jointly with D. S. Robertson, Lays of Love and Progress (1859); also collaborated with David Gardiner (qv). Ref: Reid, Bards, 141-3. [S]Dorward, Alexander Kent (b. 1866), of Letham, Forfarshire, weaver, tailor, soldier poet, pub. poems in the Forfar Herald, emigrated to Pawtucket in the USA. Reif includes ‘The Worker’s Song’ and other poems. Ref: Edwards, 13, 347-50; Reid, Bards, 143-4. [S]Dorward, John, carter at Letham spinning mill. Ref: Reid, Bards, 144-5. [S]? Doubleday, Thomas (1790-1870), of Newcastle upon Tyne, son of a soap manufacturer, Quaker family, merchant, ‘angling poet’, Chartist, companion to Robert Roxby (qv). His first publication was a collection of sixty-five sonnets (1818); he also wrote verse dramas The Italian Wife (1823); Babington (1825); Diocletian (1829); Caius Marius (1836); nonfiction Political Life of Sir Robert Peel (2 vols., 1856). Ref: ODNB; Allan, 160-2; Schwab, 191; Sutton, 324 (manuscripts and letters). [C]Dougall, Neil (1776-1862), of Greenall, sailor, songwriter, pub. Poems and Songs (1854). Ref: ODNB; Edwards, 14, 110-16. [S]Douglas, Alexander, weaver, of Strathmiclo, Fifeshire, pub. Poems, chiefly in the Scottish dialect (Cupar-Fife, 1806), includes short biography and a poem ‘To Mrs. M___ of R___ on Returning Dr Blacklock’s Poems’ (Thomas Blacklock, qv). Ref: Johnson, item 277. [S]? Douglas, Francis (bap. 1719-c. 1790), miscellaneous writer, born Aberdeen, commenced business as a baker; pub. The Birthday (1782), A Pastoral Elegy to the Memory of Miss Mary Urquhart (1758) Life of James Crichton of Clunie, Commonly Called the Admirable Crichton (1760), Reflections on Celibacy and Marriage (1771), Familiar letters, on a variety of important and interesting subjects, from Lady Harriet Morley and others (1773), The Birthday; with a Few Strictures on the Times; a Poem in Three Cantos (1782), and A General Description of the East Coast of Scotland from Edinburgh to Cullen (1782). Ref: ODNB; Sutton, 324 (letters). [S]Douglas, Sarah Parker, formerly Sarah Parker, ‘The Irish Girl’ (1824-81), of Newry, County Down, emigrated to Ayr in childhood, tended cows, uneducated, but later through help of friends was able to learn ‘enough to give a tone to my musings’; at age 20 pub. in newspapers incl. Ayr Advertiser; admired Burns and wrote an ode to him. Her husband had a paralytic arm, became completely helpless and died in the hospital at Ayr; she too died in poverty; pub. [as Sarah Parker] The Opening of the Sixth Seal, and other poems (Ayr, 1846; BL); Miscellaneous Poems, second edition with additions (Glasgow, 1856; BL); [as Sarah Parker Douglas] Poems, 3rd edn (Ayr, 1861), Poems and Songs, 4th edn (Ayr, ?1880; BL); poems include ‘The Stream of Life,’ Speak Gently of the Dead,’ and ‘Envy Not the Poet’s Lot’. Ref: Edwards, 3, 282-6; Reilly (2000), 137-8; Sales (2002), 90, 175 note 29; Davis and Joyce, nos. 1576 and 4156; inf. Florence Boos. Link: wcwp [I] [F] [S]Dowey, Ralph (b. 1844), Northumberland miner, poet, newspaper publications. Ref: Allan, 568-9.Downing, Ebenezer, ‘T’ Stoaker’, of Sheffield, wrote in dialect; pub in 1906 ‘The filecutter’s lament to liberty’ (on new health and safety regulations). Ref: inf. Yann Lovelock; England 15-6. [OP]Downing, James (b. ?1780), of Truro, apprentice shoemaker, soldier, lost his eyesight and after a period of drunkeneness experienced a conversion, later worked a mangle, pub. A Narrative of the Life of James Downing (A Blind Man) late a Private in his Majesty’s 20th Regiment of Foot. Containing Historical, Naval, Military, Moral, Religious and Entertaining Reflections. Composed by Himself in easy verse, and publishe [sic] at the request of his Friends (pub. by subscription, 1811; London, 3rd edn, 1815; bedford, 1840). Ref: Burnett et al (1984), no. 212.Dowsing, William (1868-1954), of Sheffield, sonneteer; his fatherless family arrived in Sheffield, tramping from workhouse to workhouse; worked in mines and factories; his original collection financed by the owner of Vickers. Pub. Sonnets Personal and Pastoral (1909); Sheffield Vignettes (1910); Dream Fantasies (1912). Ref: inf. Yann Lovelock [OP]Drake, John (b. 1846), of Edinburgh, tailor’s boy, various menial and clerical jobs in Glasgow, pub. The Crofter, and other poems (Glasgow, 1888, 1890), Jock Sinclair, and other poems (Glasgow, 1890), The Lion of Scotland, a tale of 1298 (Glasgow, 1897). Ref: Edwards, 13, 109-13; Reilly (1994), 145. [S]Draper, Francis (b. 1832), of London, carver and gilder, pub. The escape from Lochleven (1879). Ref: Edwards, 9, 48-54. [S]Drummond, Alexander (1843-70), of Larbert, Stirlingshire, ploughman, businessman, studied German in Konigsberg, land steward to the Earl of Zetland. Ref: Edwards, 6, 48-53. [S]Duck, Stephen (1705-56), of Charlton St Peter, Wiltshire, thresher poet, a seminal amd highly influential figure in the history of labouring-class poetry, author of ‘The Thresher’s Labour’ (1730, 1736), patronised by Queen Caroline, later a minister of religion whose sermons were admired. Dr Jennifer Batt’s forthcoming biography from Oxford will settle many important matters in his life-story including the questionable story of his ‘suicide’. Ref: LC 1, 127-80; ODNB; Rose Mary Davis, Stephen Duck, the Thresher Poet (Orono: University of Maine Press, 1926); John Goodridge, Rural Life in Eighteenth-Century English Poetry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), Part I; Southey, 88-113, 182-91; Craik, II, 219-22; Blunden, 106-17; Unwin, ch. 3, 47-67; Tinker, 92-5; Ashraf (1978), I, 30-1, 53; Klaus (1985), x, 2-21; Shiach, 44, 47-52; Cafarelli, 78; Richardson, 257; Rizzo, 242-9; Phillips, 212-13; Vincent, 30-3; Christmas, 17-18, 20-1, 26, 73-95, 122-5; Milne (2001); Keegan (2003); Keegan (2008), passim; Sutton, 331 (manuscripts and letters). For ‘Arthur Duck’ of Ipswich (b. 1680), author of the parodic The Thresher’s Miscellany (1730) see R?stvig, II, 157-8; Cranbrook, 187. [LC 1]? Dudgeon, William (1758-1813), Berwickshire farmer, older contemporary of Burns. Pub. song ‘The Maid that Tends the Goats’ (included in Cunningham's [qv] edition of Burns's Works). Ref: ODNB; Crockett, 99-101; Shanks, 115. [S]Duffy, Alexander, weaver, pub. Poems on Various Subjects (Dungannon, 1813), 197 subscribers. Ref. Hewitt. [I]Dugdale, Richard (1790-1875), of Blackburn, ‘The Bard of Ribblesdale’? parish apprentice, ran away at fourteen, enlisted and served, poems included in Hull (photograph of the poet in Hull, frontispiece). Ref: Hull, 27-38, James, 171, 173.Dugeon, Robert, Scottish youth, apprenticed to a tailor, ‘Mr Bateman, in Ripon’, Yorkshire, when he composed a poem, ‘The Lovers’ on the tragic drowning of two lovers in the river Eure at Ripon in 1831; the poem is described as ‘100 verses of homely rhyme’, extracted in Newsam; further publication not noted. Ref Newsam, 153-4. [S]Dunbar, William (?1852-74), of Wardley Colliery, songwriter, pub. Local and other songs, recitations, and conundrums: A local tale, &c, composed by the late William Dunbar (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1874). Ref: Allan, 511, Reilly (2000), 143.Duncan, Alexander (1823-64), of Dalmeny, Linlithgowshire, tailor, pub. Leisure Hours (1858). Ref: Edwards, 6, 188-92. [S]Duncan, D., “A Young Working Man”, author of a poem, The Author Outwitted (Islington: Grubb and Co., [?1860]). Ref: COPAC, BL 11602.e.2.(11.), information Bridget Keegan.Duncan, John F. (b. 1847), of Newtyle, painter and decorator, pub. ‘Light and Shadows’, a dramatic sketch in verse of the life of Burns, for the Dundee Burns Club and performed at the Theatre Royal, Dundee. Ref: Edwards, 3, 49-51. [S]Dunlap, Jane (fl. 1765-71, ‘Little is known about this pious Bostonian, except her self-description as a “poor person in [an] obscure station of life” who avidly followed the evangelist George Whitefield…’ (Basker, 192); pub. Poems upon several sermons, preached by the Rev’d, and renowned, George Whitefield, while in Boston. A New-year gift, from a daughter of liberty and lover of truth (Boston, 1771). Ref: Basker, 192. [F]Dunn, Sarah Jane, of Wormley, Hertfordshire, educated at charity school, suffered from heart and spinal defects, pub. Poems (London, 1870). Ref: Reilly (2000), 143. [F]Dupe, Eliza (fl. 1860), working-class Christian poet, pub. Happiness, or the secret spring of bliss and antidote of death. By Eliza Dupe, a member of the working class (Oxford: W. Baxter, 1860). Dupe hopes that her poetry will win souls for Christ, the topic of the first poem and the discussion that follows. They then follow themes; ‘Happiness,’ ‘Friendship,’ ‘Heaven,’ ‘Adoption – or Christian Blessedness,’ ‘To Backsliding or Disheartened Christians’ and, finally, ‘The Antidote of Death.’ [F] [—Dawn Whatman]Durie, James (b. 1823), of Kingskettle, Fifeshire, weaver, quarry worker, seriously injured, became a book and sewing-machine seller. Ref: Edwards, 8, 158-63. [S]Duthie, George (1804-84), of Glenbervie, Kincardineshire, shoemaker to the Royal Lunatic Asylum, Dundee. Ref: Edwards, 7, 345-9; Reid, Bards, 153-5. [S]Duthie, Jane Allardice, née Farquhar (b. 1845), of Tannadice, raised in parish of Guthrie where her father tenanted a small farm; worked as a servant until she married Mr. Duthie, a road surveyor, and lived at Dun Cottages, by Religious of character, and interested in astronomy; her songs are about her grandparents, and on how the poor can lead good lives: ‘life’s wirth the livin’ yet’; other poems include ‘Winter,’ ‘The Bonnie Braes O’ Dun,’ and ‘Stocking Lore.’ Ref: Reid, Bards, 155-7 (with photo); Edwards, 1, 307-9; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]? Duthie, Robert (1826-65), of Stonehaven, Kincardineshire, baker’s son, antiquarian, Presbyterian, town clerk, pub. Poems and songs; and, Lecture on poetry, with a brief memoir of the author (Stonehaven, 1866). Ref: Reid, Bards, 157-9; Reilly (2000), 143-4, Bodleian. [S]Duxbury, James (b. 1854), of Blackburn, factory worker, printer. Ref: Hull, 347-55.Easson, James (1833-65), of Dundee, painter, pub. Select Miscellany of Poetical Pieces (Dundee, 1856); his poems ‘The Midnight Streets’ and ‘The Factory Girl’ included in Reid; his memorial erected by the proprietors of the People’s Journal. Ref: Reid, Bards, 160-1. [S]Eccles, Joseph H. (1824-73), of Ripponden, nr. Halifax, later of Leeds, dialect poet and writer of songs in standard English; self-taught twin from a poor family; pub. in Yorkshire and Leeds papers and produced dialect annuals including Tommy Toddles, Tommy’s Annual and the Leeds Loiner and a volume of Yorkshire Songs (1862). Ref. Holroyd 40-2 (a slightly fuller account by Holroyd is given in a press cutting headed ‘A Yorkshire Song-Writer’, reproduced at the back of the British Library reprint of Grainge I, presumably because it was tucked into the BL copy); Andrews, 8-12; Moorman, xxxv, 47-51; England 26.Eckford, Thomas (b. 1832), herd boy, joiner, hospital warder. Ref: Edwards, 8, 404-8. [S]? Edington, James Stead, a secretary to the North Shields Tradesmen and Mechanics’ Institution, Northumberland, pub. Billy Purvis’s benefit: The keelman’s grand remonstrance, and other pieces (North Shields, South Shields, Newcastle, Sunderland, Hartlepool, West Hartlepool and Blyth, 1863). Ref: Reilly (2000), 146.Edwards, John (bap. 1699-?1776), of Glynceiriog, Denbighshire, ‘Sion y Potiau’, ‘The Welsh Poet’, weaver, Welsh-language poet, trans. Bunyan into Welsh, poems uncollected. Ref: ODNB. [W]Edwards, John (b. c. 1772), son of shoemaker of Fulneck near Leeds, began life as a weaver, known by the Wordsworths who called him ‘the ingenious poet’, pub. The tour of the Dove, a poem ...with occasional pieces (London, 1821, 1825). Ref: Johnson, items 305-6.Edwards, Thomas (b. 1857), of Milnab, Creiff, miller’s son, house painter, pub. in People’s Friend, People’s Journal and newspapers. Ref: Edwards 9, 63-68. [S]? Edwards, William, of Delgaty, Turreff, gardener, pub. A collection of poems, on various subjects, in the English and Scottish dialects (Aberdeen, 1810). Ref: Johnson, item 307. [S]? Elder, William (b. 1829), apprentice gardener, later superintendent of the Fountain Gardens, Paisley, pub. A Shakespearean Bouquet (1827), Milton’s Bouquet (1874), Burns’s Bouquet (1875), Tannahill Bouquet (1877), all works examining use of flowers in the works of these poets, and doing so in his own poems, and ‘To the defenders of Things as They Are’ in An Address Delivered by William Elder on the Evening of Monday 27th March 1870, at the Soiree of the Eclectic Mutual Improvement Class, Meeting in the Trades Hall, Paisley, S. Mitchell in the Chair (Paisley, nd [1870]). Ref: Brown, II, 256-59; Leonard, 278-80. [S]Elliott, Ebenezer (1781-1849), of Rotherham, self-styled ‘Corn Law poet’, Sheffield ironmaster, poet and political campaigner, a major figure in the history of nineteenth-centry regional and political poetry, whose works include The Village Patriarch (1829); Corn Law Rhymes (1830); The Splendid Village [with other poems] (1833); Poetical Works (1840); More Verse and Prose (1850). Ref: LC 4, 177-86; ODNB; Holroyd, 9, 17; Newsam, 103-4; Thomas Carlyle, ‘Corn-Law Rhymes’, Edinburgh Review, CX (April 1832), 338-61, reprinted in the various editions of Carlyle’s essays; A.A. Eaglestone, Ebenezer Elliott...1781-1859 (Sheffield, 1959); Howitt, 643-68; Burnett et al (1984), no. 226; Cross, 148-50; James, 171, 173-4, 176-9; Vicinus (1974), 96-7, 165-6, 168-70; Ashraf (1975), 149-52; Sambrook, 1360; Maidment (1983), 80-3; Maidment (1987), 48-55, 61-2, 102-11, 223-4, Johnson, items 127, 313, 612; Scheckner, 141-52, 332-3; Goodridge (1999), item 40; Miles, II, 231-60; Ricks, 302-3; Sales (2002), 83-4; Keegan (2008), 95-97; Sutton, 353 (business records, manuscripts, letters); Selected Poetry of Ebenezer Elliott, ed. Mark Storey (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 2008); Marcus Waithe, “The Pen and the Hammer: Thomas Carlyle, Ebenezer Elliott, and the ‘active poet’”, in?Class and the Canon: Constructing Labouring-Class Poetry and Poetics, 1780-1900, ed. Kirstie Blair and Mina Gorji?(Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2012), 116-35; Simon J. White, ‘Ebenezer Elliott, the Industrial Revolution and the Rural Village’, in his study of Romanticism and the Rural Community (Houndmills: Palgrave, 2013), 154-74. [LC 4]? Elliott, Margaret, of Teviothead, Roxburghshire, tenant farmer. Ref: Edwards, 6, 579-81. [F] [S]Elliott, N[?athaniel] (fl. 1767-76), shoemaker of Oxford, author of The Vestry (Oxford, 1767); An Ode to Charity (Oxford, 1770, Dobell 479); Food for Poets, a Poem (London, 1775); A Prophecy of Merlin, an heroic poem concerning the wondrous success of a project now on foot to make the River from the Severn to Stroud in Gloucestershire navigable, translated from the original Latin annexed, with notes explanatory (1776, BL 11633.g.21; Dobell 480); The Atheist, a Poem (Birmingham, 1770, Dobell 2889); Food for Poets (n. d.). [There may have been two N. Elliotts, and the ESTC entry suggests The Atheist is by the other one.] Ref: LC 2, 251-62; Dobell. [LC 2]Elliott, Robert, of Choppington, miner, poet, member of the ‘School of Bedlington Radicals’, wrote ‘A Pitman gan te Parliamint’, pub. Poems & Recitations (Bedlington, 1877). Ref: Allan, 571; Reilly (2000), 150; Edwards, 11, 186; Farne Collection: . Elliott is briefly discussed in John Goodridge, John Clare and Community (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013) 188-9.Elliott, Thomas (1820-68), of Fermanagh, shoemaker in Belfast then Glasgow, pub. Doric Lays and Chimes (1856). Ref: Glasgow Poets, 345-50; Janet Hamilton, ‘An Appeal for Thomas Elliot, The Shoemaker Poet’ [poem], in her Memorial Volume: Poems, Essays and Sketches (Glasgow, 1880), 311-12. [I] [S]Ellis, Edward Campbell (b. 1875), of Montrose, ‘Sartor’, tailor in Arbroath, moved to Glasgow in 1897. Ref: Reid, Bards, 162-3. [S]? Emerson, G.R., poet, wrote ‘The Dream of the Artisan’ (Peoples Journal, 10 (1850) 74. Ref: Maidment (1987), 214, 224-6.? Emery, Robert (1794-1871), b. Edinburgh, lived on Tyneside, printer, songwriter. Ref Allan, 284-90; Harker (1999), 115-16; Wikipedia entry lists many songs and collections. [S]Emmott, James, pub. A Working Man’s Verses (London, 1896). Ref: Reilly (1994), 154.Emsley, John, Yorkshire village blacksmith, pub. Rural musings (Skipton, 1883). Ref: Reilly (1994), 154.? Enoch, Frederick, songwriter, of Leamington, Warwickshire, member of the ‘Nottingham group’, later connected with the Pall Mall Gazette, pub. Songs of land and sea (London, 1877). Ref: James, 171; Reilly (2000), 152.Equiano, Olaudah (‘Gustavus Vassa’, 1745-97), slave, African-American whose famous autobiography includes a long poem on his spiritual awakening. Ref: Basker, 387-90.Evans, Evan (‘Ieuan Glan Geirionydd’, 1795-1855), farmworker, schoolmaster, translator and priest; born at Trefriw, Caerns, and educated at the Llanrwst Free School; worked on his father’s farm for a while before becoming a schoolmaster at Tal-y-Bont in 1816; ordained priest in Church of England in 1826 and worked as a curate in Cheshire until he retired in 1852 and returned to Trefriw; won numerous prizes and accolades at eisteddfodau; considered “the most versatile Welsh poet of the nineteenth century” (OCLW); pub: ‘Gwledd Belsassar’ (1828), ‘Y Bedd’ (1821); a collected works, including biographical notes, was edited by Richard Parry (1862); other selections were collected by Owen M. Edwards (series Cyfres y Fil, 1908) and Saunders Lewis (1931). Ref: OCLW. [W] [—Katie Osborn]Evans, John (1818-73), woolcomber, born at Pilton, Somerset, died at Keighley, having been a resident of Bradford and Keighley for 40 years. Pub. The Emigrant (Keighley); Village Scenes (Keighley); The Poacher (Keighley) and ‘a 12 pp. pamphlet on “The Progress of Intemperance” in decasyllabic verse’ (Bradford). Ref Forshaw, [72].? Evans, Simon, early twentieth-century postman-poet of Cleobury Mortimer. Ref: Poet’s England 14: Shropshire, ed. by Neil Griffiths and John Waddington-Feather (St Albans: Brenthem Press, 1994), 27. [OP]Ewart, Charles, H., of Dalbeattie, sailor, ‘a frequent contributor to the “Poet’s Corner” of the local newspapers on various names’; poems in Harper include one on Hawaii. Ref: Harper, 245. [S]Ewing, William (b. 1840), of Gardenside, Bridgeton, Glasgow, engineer and boilermaker, blinded in a workplace accident, pub. Poems and songs (Glasgow, 1892). Ref: Reilly (1994), 157. [S]Fair, R.C. (fl. 1814-15), political activist and shoemaker poet. Ref: Janowitz, 69, 71, 106-7.? Fairburn, Angus (1829-87), of Edinburgh, office boy, vocalist, itinerant lecturer, pub Poems by Angus Fairburn, a Scottish Singer (1868). Ref: Edwards, 4, 316-21. [S]? Fairburn, Margaret Waters (‘M.W.F.’, b. 1825), neé Waters, of Selkirk, assistant keeper of Melrose Abbey, m. a factory worker, pub. ‘Songs in the night’ (London and Edinburgh, 1885). Ref: Edwards, 10, 249-55; Reilly (1994), 159. [F] [S]Fairley, Cessford Ramsay Sawyers (b. 1868), of Leith, Edinburgh postman known as ‘The Postman bard’, pub. Poems and songs (Leith, 1890). Ref: Reilly (1994), 159. [S]? Falconar, Harriett (b. ?1774), precocious girl / youthful prodigy; her and her sister Maria’s (qv) background is uncertain, but they were presented as having written poems as children in their ‘rest’ hours, Lonsdale notes that their subscription list suggest Scottish relatives (Robert Falconar of Nairn and James Falconar of Drakies), while Backscheider considers that their mother was probably Jane Hicks Falconar and suggests a daughter or niece relationship to ‘the Scottish poet William Falconar’ (?William Falconer, qv). In 1787, aged about 13 Harriett contributed poems to the European Magazine; with her sister she published Poems (London: Joseph Johnson, 1788), with 400 subscribers including the Duke of Northumberland; Poems on Slavery (1788), and Poetic Laurels (1791). Ref: Lonsdale (1989), 451-2; Backscheider & Ingrassia, 873-4; Basker, 359-60. [F]? Falconar, Maria (b. ?1771), precocious girl / youthful prodigy; her and her sister Harriett’s (qv) background is uncertain, but they were presented as having written poems as children in their ‘rest’ hours, Lonsdale notes that their subscription list suggest Scottish relatives (Robert Falconar of Nairn and James Falconar of Drakies), while Backscheider considers that their mother was probably Jane Hicks Falconar and suggests a daughter or niece relationship to ‘the Scottish poet William Falconar’ (?William Falconer, qv). In 1786, aged about 15 Maria contributed poems to the European Magazine; with her sister she published Poems (London: Joseph Johnson, 1788), with 400 subscribers including the Duke of Northumberland; Poems on Slavery (1788), and Poetic Laurels (1791). Ref: Lonsdale (1989), 451-2; Backscheider & Ingrassia, 874; Basker, 359-60. [F]Falconer, William (1732-1770), sailor poet. His ship, The Aurora, was lost at sea 1770. Pub. the very popular and successful poem, The Shipwreck: a Poem, in Three Cantos, by a Sailor (1762, 2nd edn 1764, 3rd edn 1769). His The Universal Dictionary of the Marine (1769), “became standard nautical dictionary until the end of sail” [ODNB]. Ref: LC 2, 115-22; ODNB; Wilson, I, 235-46; Unwin, 81-4; Powell, item 201; Keegan (2008), 122-47; Sutton, 361 (manuscripts, receipts); Croft & Beattie, I, 70 (229); William Jones (ed), A Critical Edition of the Poetical Works of William Falconer (Lewiston, NY and Lampeter, UK: Edwin Mellen Press, 2003). [LC 2]? Falkner, George, member of the ‘Sun Inn’ group of writers, editor of Bradshaw’s Journal (1841-3) and publisher. Ref: Vicinus (1974), 160.Farmer, Edward (‘Ned’), chief of the Midland Railway Department at Derby, pub. poems on common topics, in various revisions of Ned Farmer’s Scrap Book (1846, 1853, 1863 and later edns). Ref: Bob Heyes, listings.? Farningham, Marianne (pen name of Mary Anne Hearn, 1834-1909)? from a ‘Baptist, working-class family’, teacher, pub. eight volumes of poetry from 1860 to 1909, including Poems (1866); A Working Woman;s Life. An Autobiography (London: James Clark, 1907). Ref: ODNB [as Hearn]; Burnett et al (1984), no. 238; Hold, 78-79; ABC, 571-2. [F]Farquhar, Barbara H, daughter of a labourer, pub. Pearl of Days (1849) [an essay on the sacredness of the Sabbath]; Female Education; Its importance, design and nature (1851); Real Religion; or, the practical application of Holy Scripture to Daily Life (1850); Poems (London, 1863, 1864). Ref: Reilly (2000), 160. [F]Farquhar, William A. G. (b. 1863), of Fyvie, gardener at Fyvie Castle. Ref: Edwards, 7, 275-6. [S]Farquharson, Alexander (b. 1836), of Carlops, tenant farmer. Ref: Edwards, 13, 278-82. [S]Fawcett, Stephen (1805-76), ‘The Ten Hours Movement Poet’, b. Burley, Wharfedale, farmer’s son, moved to Bradford, pub. Wharfedale Lays; or, lyrical poems (London, and Bradford, 1837); Edwy and Algiva (1842); Bradford Legends: A Collection of Poems (1872, by subscription, dedicated to Mayor of Bradford). Ref: Holroyd, 117; Andrews, 154-5 (gives birth as 1807); Vicinus (1974), 141, 161, 172; Johnson, item, 326; Reilly (2000), 160.? Feist, Charles, of East Anglia (‘Mine’s but an humble Muse, content to sing / Of rustic deeds, and rural scenes t’explore’), pub. The Wreath of Solitude (Newark, 1818), which includes a poem to Kirke White and mention of Bloomfield. Ref: Crossan, 37; Powell, item 202; Johnson, item 327.Fenby, Thomas, native of Beverley, pub. Wild Roses (Liverpool, 1824), ‘productions of the leisure hours of a mechanic’. Ref: Johnson, item 328.? Fennel, Alfred, author of The Red Flag. Ref: Kovalev, 130; Ashraf (1975), 214-15; Scheckner, 153, 333.Ferguson, Dugald (b. 1839), of Brenfield, Ardrishaig, Argyleshire, farmer’s son, emigrated to Australia then New Zealand, settled in Otago, pub. Castle-Gay and Other Poems (Dunedin), and another volume. Ref: Edwards, 13, 296-302. [S]? Ferguson, Duncan (1824-79), of the Vale of Leven, pattern designer. Ref: Macleod, 112-14, 159-62. [S]Ferguson, Jems, ‘Nisbet Noble’ (b. 1842), of Stanley, worked in a mill from age 10, apprentice grocer, worked in Glasgow and Perth as a labourer, engine keeper, clerk, surfaceman, dyer, pub. Lays of Perthshire (1880). Ref: Edwards, 1, 146-50. [S]Ferguson, Malcolm (b. 1838), of Paisley, carpet weaver, mechanic, emigrated to New Zealand, pub. ‘The Emigrant’s Warning’, in Brown, II, 321-24. Ref: Brown, II, 315-24; Leonard, 323-7. [S]Ferguson, Nicol (b 1830), of Cumbernauld, Dumbartonshire, descendant of the poet Robert Ferguson, coalminer, emigrated to America. Ref: Edwards, 12, 355-9. [S]? Fergusson, Ballantyne, (c. 1798-1869), farmer, of Gretna, who died ‘aged 71, leaving a great number of MS. poems and prose tales, which are now scattered and probably hopelessly lost’ (Miller, 203). His poem ‘Young Bridekirk’, subtitled ‘An Old Border Ballad’, though, was supplied by his son John Ferguson to the Annandale Observer, who published it (22 May 1995), as does Miller. Ref: Miller, 203-6. [S]Fergusson, William (1806-62), of Edinburgh, plumber, supporter of Labour League, director of the Philosophical Institution, pub. Songs and poems, with a memoir of the author (Edinburgh, 1864), Ref: Reilly (2000), 162. [S]Field, George (b. 1804), of Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, gardener’s and seamstress’s son, self-educated farm worker stricken by rheumatism, worked as a shoemaker and carpenter, shopworker, postman. Pub. Poems and essays on a variety of interesting subject ... in Reference to the natural and scientifically cultivated systems developed in the world (Stratford-upon-Avon, Birmingham and London, 1870); second edition published with The Universality of Probation (Stratford-upon-Avon: E. Adams, 1871). Both poems and essays are in verse, prefaced by a prose autobiography described as a ‘sad catalogue of illness injury and poverty’; the second vol. is a continuation of the main poem in the first. Ref: Reilly (2000), 164; Charles Cox, Catalogue 51 (2005); inf. Bob Heyes.? Findlay, John Haddow (1849-95), of Kilmarnock, apprentice ironmonger, commercial traveller, pub. Prose and poetry (Kilmarnock, 1899). Ref: Reilly (1994), 165. [S]Finlay, William (1792-1847), of Paisley, weaver, pub. Poems, Humorous and Sentimental (1846). Ref: Wilson, II, 131-3; Brown, I, 265-68. [S]Finlay, William (1828-84), of Dundee, shoemaker, married in his teens and ‘fell into dissolute ways’, wrote a ‘Song of the Wanderer’. Ref: Reid, Bards, 170. [S]Finlayson, William (1787-1872), of Pollokshaws, weaver, exciseman, pub. ‘Weaver’s Lament on the Failure of the Celebrated Strike of weaving, for a Minimum of Wages, in 1812’ in his Simple Scottish Rhymes (Paisley, 1815). Ref: Murdoch, 27-9; Leonard, 57-62. [S]? Fisher, James (b. 1818), of Glasgow, foreman in a Calico printer’s, later a schoolmaster, author of ‘The Queer Folk in the Shaws’, in A.G. Murdoch (ed), Recent and Living Scottish Poets (Glasgow, undated). Ref: Leonard, 178-9. [S]Fisher, Robert M’Kenzie (b. 1840), of Prestwick, Ayrshire, weaver, farm servant, ship carpenter, bookseller and stationer, pub. Poems, songs, and sketches, 3rd edn (Ayr, 1898), Poetical Sparks (1880, two editions by 1890). Ref: Edwards, 6, 324-8; Brown, II, 377-81; Reilly (1994), 166. [S]Fitton, Sam (1868-1923), of Congleton, Cheshire, then Rochdale, worked in a mill (doffer then piecer (weaver), then as a cartoonist/entertainer, doing recitations of his own verse. Ref: Hollingworth (1977), 153.Fleming, Andrew, of Whithorn, stonemason, believed to have composed some of the poems in the collection of his brother John Fleming, teacher (Poems, Glasgow, 1838). Ref: Harper, 262. [S]Fleming, Charles (1804-57), of Paisley, second generation weaver, pub. Poems, Songs and Essays (1878). Ref: Brown, I, 406-10; Maidment (1983), 84; Maidment (1987), 331-4; Reilly (2000), 166. [S]Fleming, Robert (b. 1856), of Bathgate, orphaned blacksmith’s son, printer, reporter, pub. poems in the People’s Friend and other miscellanies and newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 4, 199-202; Bisset, 254-67. [S]Fleming, William (b. 1860), of Paisley, father a dyer, apprenticed to boot and shoemaking trade, pub. poems in papers. Ref: Brown, II, 483-87. [S]Flower, Joseph, fl. c. 1785, butcher, of Chilcompton, pub. The prodigal son, a poem:?or, a dialogue between an extravagant youth, his father, Fancy, (the youth’s companion) and an elder brother. In imitiation of the parable of the prodigal in the 15th Chap. of St. Luke. Address’d to Parents and Children. By Joseph Flower, Butcher, of Chilcompton (Bath [1785?]). Ref ESTC. [—Bridget Keegan]Floyd, William, cordwainer of Notting Hill, London, pub. Lays from the lapstone (Kensington, 1862). Ref: Reilly (2000), 167.Foot, Edward Edwin (b. 1828), of Ashburton, Devon, son of a shoemaker and hatter, house painter and glazier, inventor, worked for HM Customs in London, pub. The original poems of Edward Edwin Foot (London, 1867). Ref: Reilly (2000), 167-8.Ford, Robert (1846-1905), of Wolfhill, Cargill, Perthshire, cloth-measurer, clerk, pub. in newspapers, and Hamespun Lays and Lyrics (1878); Humorous Scotch Readings (1881). Ref: Edwards, 1, 125-30; Glasgow Poets, 444-47; Murdoch, 409-13. [S]Forrest, John, pitman, author of the broadside The Total Banishment of Self-Tyranny & Oppression (Newcastle upon Tyne; E. Mackenzie, undated c. 1831-2). Ref Harker (1999), 135-7.Forrester, Arthur M., son of Ellen (qv) and sister of Fanny Forrester (qv), co-author with his mother of Songs of the Rising Nation: and Other Poems (Glasgow and London, 1869). Ref: Davis and Joyce, item 1901. [I]Forrester, Ellen (d. 1883), Irish immigrant, mother of Fanny Forrester (qv) and Arthur Forrester (qv), seamstress, Fenian activist, served time in prison and emigrated to USA, pub. in English and Irish newspapers and vols. Simple Strains (1863) and Songs of the Rising Nation (Glasgow and London, 1869), latter co-authored with her son. Ref: Boos (2001), 269-70. [F] [I]Forrester, Fanny (1852-89), female operative in a Pendleton Dye-Works, daughter of the Irish immigrant seamstress poet Ellen Forrester (qv) and sister of Arthur Forrester (qv), regular contributor to Ben Brierley’s Journal throughout the 1870s. Ref: LC 6, 175-92; Maidment (1987), 151, 156-8; Zlotnick, Susann, ‘Lowly Bards and Incomplete Lyres: Fanny Forrester and the Construction of a Working-Class Woman’s Poetic Identity’, Victorian Poetry, 36, no. 1 (1998), 17-35, and Women, Writing and the Industrial Revolution (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 168-222; Boos (2008), 237-52. Link: wcwp [F] [I] [LC 6]Forster, John (fl. 1793-7), shoemaker poet, pub. Serious Poems (1793); Poems, Chiefly on Religious Subjects (1797). Ref: LC 3, 301-4; Winks, 313. [LC 3]Forsyth, William (‘William o’ ye West’, 1818-79), or Earlston, Berwickshire, of a Covenanting family, pupil-teacher, wool-spinner, hotel keeper, pub. A Lay of Lochleven (Glasgow, 1887), The Martyrdom of Kelavane (1861) and Idylls and Lyrics (1872). Ref: ODNB; Edwards, 13, 205-9; Crockett, 183-6 (who gives his birth as 1823); Reilly (1994), 171; Sutton, 376 (letters). [S]Foster, William Air (1801-62), of Coldstream, shoemaker, moved to Glasgow in 1842, Border sportsman, friend of Hogg, pub. verses in Whistle-Binkie and the Book of Scottish Song. Ref: Crockett, 149-54. [S]Foster, William C. (fl. 1798-1805), ‘Timothy Spectacles’, of New York State, a ‘self-described workingman of little formal education, but a passionate autodidact’ (Basker 588); pub. Poetry on Different Subjects, Written under the Signature of Timothy Spectacles (Salem, NY, 1805). Ref: Basker, 588-9.Foulds, Andrew (1815-41), of Paisley, cooper; poems appeared in Renfrewshire Annual of 1841, longest piece ‘The Begunk: a Halloween Tale’. Ref: Brown, II, 42-47. [S]? Fowler, John (fl, 1798), printer and shopman, of Salisbury and later London, pub. Fowler’s Address, To the Ladies and Gentlemen of Salisbury; Wrote, during his Residence in that City, and now re-published in London, for the Amusement of his Friends (London: At Fowler’s printing Office, No. 21, Newcastle-Street, near Somerset House, Strand, [1798]), broadsheet verse beginning ‘O Yes! with due respects we greet / All folks who pass down Silver-street’. While not strictly part of a labouring-class poetry tradition, this type of humorous self-advertising verse has a kinship with it and is an important presence and element of popular culture, akin to verses used in C18th advertisements, and the annual broadsheet Christmas appeals in verse written and printed by the Clifton Lamplighters in Bristol in the Victorian period. Ref: Croft & Beattie I, 74-5 (item 246), which gives a full-plate image of the broadsheet.Fox, John Dawson (b. 1849), poet and hymn writer, of Harden, Bingley, raised by grandparents to age 12, worked as a ‘doffer’ at Victoria Mill, Bingley, for five shillings a week; was appointed Librarian of Bingley Mechanics’ Institute, later insurance agent, businessman, local Methodist preacher, temperance advocate; pub. Bonny Morecambe Bay: A Souvenir (1910, verse); Life and Poems of John D. Fox, ‘Throstle nest’, Bingley (Bingley: Thos. Harrison, 1914); Forshaw calls him the author of Struggles of a Village lad, but if so he published it anonymously COPAC has none with his name on). Ref Forshaw, 73-7 (Fox was a subscriber to this); Burnett et al (1984), no. 244. [OP]Franklin, Robert (fl. 1809-51), of Ferriby Sluice, Lincolnshire, weaver, miller, and descendant of millers, pub. The Miller’s Muse; Rural Poems (Hull, 1824). Ref: LC 4, 291-308; Johnson, item 339. [LC 4]Fraser, Janet Douglas (1777-1855), of ?Closeburn, Dumfriesshire, daughter of a joiner, from an old covenanting family, stocking weaver at Penpoint, pub. three volumes of religious verse which ‘may still be found in the cottages of pious Nithsdale shepherds,’ according to Miller (1910), who quotes her lines ‘On reading Ralph Erskine’s Paraphrase on the Song of Solomon’; pub. Poems on Religious Subjects (Dumfries [1850?]), copy in BL. Ref: Miller, 240-2. [F] [S]Fraser, John (b. 1812, Edinburgh), of Paisley, worked in a foundry, worked in tobacco shop, shoemaker, sewed belts in factory, sustaining an injury in which his friend was killed, lectured on phrenology, and was himself discussed in a lecture on ‘The Paisley Poets’, given by J.S. Mitchell in November 1882. Fraser pub. a collection in 1830; the second enlarged edition is Poetic Chimes, or Leisure Lays; also, a Scottish National Play in three acts, entitled King James V., or the Gipsey’s Revenge (Paisley: Gardner, 1852), 192 pp. Ref: Brown, I, 455; Alex & Emily Fotheringham book catalogue no. 68; inf. Bob Heyes. [S]? Fraser, Lydia Mackenzie Falconer, (née Fraser, later Miller, ‘Mrs Harriet Myrtle’, 1812-76), of Inverness, children's writer, merchant’s daughter, wife of Hugh Miller (qv). Ref: ODNB; Edwards, 3, 309-12. [F] [S]Frazer [Fraser], John (c. 1809-52, ‘the poet of the workshop’), cabinet-maker of Birr, Ireland, Chartist and Irish Nationalist, pub. Hints from Fancy: Poems for the People (Dublin, 1845); Poems (1851), which included his stark poem on the potato famine, ‘The Three Angels’. also pub. under a number of pseudonyms in Irish radical periodicals of the 1840s. Ref ODNB; Schwab, 192. [C] [I]Freeland, John (1826-88), of Edinburgh, chemist and druggist, local poet and parodist, member of the ‘Under the Beeches’ Literary Society, two poems in Bisset. Ref: Bisset, 151-3. [S] Freeland, William (1828-1903), of Kirkintilloch, Dunbartonshire, calico-printer, journalist, edited David Buchanan’s poems, pub. A Birth song, and other poems (Glasgow, 1882), Ballads and other Poems (Maclehose, 1904). Ref: Glasgow Poets, 435-40; Macleod, 277-83; Reilly (1994), 173; Edwards, 5, 17-27. [S]Freeth, John (‘John Free’, 1731-1808), alehouse keeper of Birmingham, topical songwriter and singer, political ballad writer, born at Bell Tavern, Philip Street, Birmingham. Freeth began his working life as a brass foundry apprentice on Park Street, inheriting his father's inn, the Leicester Arms, by 1768.?‘Freeth’s Coffee House’, as it became known, was transformed into a vibrant public sphere; Freeth combined his words about topical local and national events with popular melodies, singing to assemblies that included eminent visitors and patrons.?One of the most renowned taverns in England, it became a meeting place for the Birmingham Book Club and Jacobin Club. ~ From 1771 until 1785, Freeth used the pen name John Free in punning reference to his radical and nonconformist outlook.?To publicise the inn, Freeth also distributed printed invitation cards, written in verse, comprising vigorous comments on news items as well as indicating the fare offered. ~ The style and content of Freeth’s material reveals affinities with the likes of Ned Ward, the songwriting publican of the 1730s.?Britain’s conduct in the War of American Independence irked Freeth to the extent that he repudiated his early radical patriotism, though his later work underlines that Briton’s have a particular historical claim on liberty.?Indeed, ‘Britain’s Glory’ became his most famous song in the 1780s and beyond. ~ The enthusiastic response to Freeth’s material conduced him to publish over a dozen collections between 1766 and 1805—the most substantial being The Political Songster (1790)—and he became known as ‘the Birmingham poet’. ~ Freeth had nine children with his wife Sarah.?He died, possibly of Paget’s disease, on 29 September 1808.?Pub: in The Warwickshire Medley (Birmingham, 1780); Modern Songs on Various Subjects (Birmingham, 1782); New London Magazine, III (1786), Supplement; The Political Songster, or, a touch of the times, on various subjects, and adapted to commmon tunes (6th edn. with additions, Birmingham, 1790). ~ Ref: LC 3, 1-6; ODNB; P. Clark, The English Alehouse: A Social History, 1200-1830?(London: Longman, 1983); J. Horden, John Freeth (1771-1808): Political Ballad-Writer and Innkeeper (Oxford: Leopard’s Head Press, 1993); E. Hughes, Birmingham: The first Manufacturing Town in the World, 1760-1840 (London: Wiedenfeld and Nicholson, 1989) J. Money, Experience and Identity: Birmingham and the West Midlands 1760-1800 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1977); R. Palmer, R, The Sound of History: Songs and Social Comment (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988); Rizzo, 243; Lonsdale (1984), 656-60, 852n; Poole, 156-60; Hobday; Johnson, item 346; Johnson 46, no. 290; ESTC; BL 11622.b.1, BL 11622.b.44, BL 11632.de.59. [LC 3] [—Iain Rowley]Frizzle, John, of Cory’s Mill, near Enniskilling, ‘Verses by a Miller in Ireland, to Stephen Duck’, Gents. Mag. III (1733), 95. Ref: LC 1, 231-2; Klaus (1985), 4-5. [LC 1] [I]? Fulcher, George Williams (1795-1855), printer, son of a tailor, biographer of Gainsborough, pubs include The village paupers: an anti-Poor Law poem of the 1840’s (1850); reprint edited by E. A. Goodwyn (Cherry Hill, Ashmans Rd, Beccles, Suffolk: E. A. Goodwyn, 1981). The Sudbury Pocket Book (second edition, 1841) is ascribed on its final page to ‘G.W. Fulcher, Printer, Sudbury’, and Fulcher is presumably the author of the numerous poems in it signed ‘G.W.F’, including the first one, ‘The Village Poor’. Ref: ODNB; inf. Bob Heyes.Fullarton, John (b. 1808), of Ballynure, County Antrim, reedmaker, wrote for The Ulster Magazine, pub. O’More: a tale of war, and other poems (Belfast and London, 1867). Ref: Reilly (2000), 174. [I]Fullerton, John (b. 1836), of Woodside, Aberdeen, millworker, flax ‘heckler’, ‘twister’, learned grammar and composition at evening school, later a writer in a solicitor’s office, contributing to newspapers including the People’s Friend in prose and verse as ‘Wild Rose’ and ‘Robin Goodfellow’, pub. The Ghaist o Dennilair (1870. Ref: Edwards, 1, 16-19; Murdoch, 295-8. [S]Furness, Richard (1791-1857), currier and preacher, of Eyam, Derbyshire, later of Sheffield, one of the ‘better-known’ working-class poets (James), The rag-bag: a satire. In three cantos (London and Sheffield, 1832), Medicus-Magicus, a poem, in three cantos, with a glossary (Sheffield and London, 1836)—a poem addressed to and descriptive of the miners of the Peak region, Poetical Works, with a Life by J. Calvert Holland (1858). Ref: LC 5, 43-54; ODNB; James, 171-2; Maidment (1983), 84; Maidment (1987), 162-3, 171-2; Johnson, items 352-3; Jarndyce, item 1377. [LC 5]Furniss, Joseph, snr. (b. 1783), of Weedon Lois, Northamptonshire, son of Richard and Jane Furniss, father of Joseph Furness jnr (qv), shoemaker, pub. with John Coles (qv), Poems Moral and Religious (1811), stating in the preface, ‘We are plain unlettered men; having never received the advantages of an education [...] from our childhood to the present time we have been under the necessity of labouring hard for our daily support’. Ref: Hold, 53-54.Furniss, Joseph, jnr. (b. 1821), son of Joseph Furniss snr (qv), of Weedon Lois, Northamptonshire, agricultural labourer, pub. Miscellaneous Poems (1841). Ref: Hold, 53-54.Fyfe, Archibald (1772-1806), of Paisley, mechanic, pub. posthumous Poems and Criticisms, by the Late Archibald Fyfe, Paisley. Ref: Brown, I, 75-77. [S]Fynes, Richard (1827-1892). English sailor, collier, trade unionist and lecturer; went to sea aged 10, swept overboard, had typhoid, began working at St. Hilda's pit. A prominent trade unionist, active in 1844 Great Strike, he later traveled as a lecturer, addressing miners about their rights. Fynes started his own theatre in 1892 but remained involved with the mines. He published at least one poem, ‘The Coil Barrers’, and an important factual prose work, The Miners of Northumberland and Durham (Blyth, John Robinson, 1873). Ref: A Pitman's Anthology, compiled by William Maurice (London: James and James, 2004); inf. Bridget Keegan.Gabbitass, Peter (b. 1822), of Worksop, Nottinghamshire, carpenter, moved to Bristol and known as ‘The Clifton Poet’, teetotaller, pub. Musings Poetical from the Diary of Miss Chameleon Circumstances (Bristol, 1876), Cook’s Folly: A Legendary Ballad of St. Vincent’s Rocks, Clifton, and Written There, 3rd edn (Bristol, 1882); Excelsior! a Day Dream in Autumn on St. Vincent’s Rocks, with Other Poems Suitable for Readings and Recitations (Clifton, ?1880); Heart Melodies; For Storm and Sunshine. From Cliftonia the beautiful. By P. Gabbitass, the Clifton Poet, once a Carpenter Boy (Bristol, 1885), includes ‘The Poet’s Autobiography’. Ref: Burnett et al (1984), no. 253a; Reilly (1994), 178, Reilly (2000), 176.Gairns, Robert (b. 1804), of New London, St Martin’s, Perthshire, handloom weaver, stone dyker and wood cutter, abstainer and reciter, pub. Rustic Rhymes. Ref: Edwards, 9, 385-8. [S]Gaites, Benjamin (fl. 1820), of Bath, hairdresser, pub. A Basket of Flowers; Being a Collection of Poetical Pieces (Bath: printed by W. Meyler and Son, 1820), with a short list of subscribers. ‘While at Bath, I purchased a little volum[e] of poems written by a man living there, & following the business of a Hair dresser—He calls it the “Basket of wild flowers”—and certainly it contains many very sweet little things[ ] but they are only of a class to please the ear, and to admire for their purity of feeling: they have no touches of the sublime, and beautiful[ ] The poor man, has consequently met with very little patronage, altho’ he has seven children to support.’ (Eliza Emmerson, unpub. letter to John Clare, November 25th 1820, British Library MS Egerton 2345, ff. 239-42). Ref: Johnson, 356.Galbraith, James (b. 1838), of Glasgow, orphaned by thirteen, bookbinder, shoemaker, self-taught lecturer and journalist, businessman and employer, pub. City Poems and Songs, with a prefatory note by Fergus Ferguson (Glasgow, 1868). Ref: Edwards, 2, 147-54; Reilly (2000), 176-7. [S]Galbraith, Tina (1837-1923), of Forrestfield, Airdrie, domestic servant who ‘thought in verse, spoke in verse, and wrote in verse’, including verse-letters to the editor of the Airdrie Advertiser. Ref: Knox, 229-34. [F] [S]Gall, James Hogg (1842-78), of Aberdeen, tailor, soldier. Ref: Edwards 1, 13-14. [S]? Gall, Richard (1776-1801) of Linkhouse near Dunbar, notary’s son, apprentice housebuilder, printer and poet, friend of Burns and Hector MacNeill, pub. Poems and Songs by the Late Richard Gall (Edinburgh, 1819) Clare owned a copy. ‘Two of [his songs], “The Farewell to Ayrshire” and “Now bank and brae are clad in green”, were falsely assigned to Burns’ (ODNB). Ref: ODNB; Wilson, I, 551-4; Douglas, 300; Powell, item 217. [S]? Gallacher, Daniel Warrington (b. 1848), Irish labourer’s son, of Paisley, attended charity school, apprenticed printer, compositor, pub. a vol. in 1879 (not found on COPAC, but Brown confirms Edwards’ date and says it was printed in Kilmarnock and was 80 pages). Ref: Brown, II, 307-08; Edwards, 3, 43-4. [S]Galloway, Robert (1752-1794), born in Stirling, lived in Glasgow, shoemaker and shopman, pub. Poems, Epistles and Songs, chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. To which are added a brief account of the Revolution of 1688, and a narrative of the Rebellion of 1745-6, continued to the Death of Prince Charles in 1788 (Glasgow: Printed for W. Bell, for the author, and sold at his shop, No. 24, South side of Bridgegate, and by other Booksellers, 1788), includes two poems on Vincenzo Lunardi’s balloon ascent from Glasgow and ‘The Whiskey Brewers’ Lamentation’. Ref Robertson (1822), II, 128; ODNB; Croft & Beattie I, 78 (item 257). [S]Garden, Alexander (b. 1845) of Auchanacie, Banffshire, brother of William (qv), crofter’s son, herdsman, railway labourer, policeman, pub. in periodicals. Ref: Edwards, 2, 117-21. [S]Garden, William (b. 1848), of Auchanacie, Banffshire, brother of Alexander (qv), crofter’s son, herdsman, baker, pub. Meg’s Wedding, and Other Poems (Keith, 1868), Sonnets and Poems (London, 1890). Ref: Reilly (1994); 180, Reilly (2000), 177; Edwards, 2, 24-7. [S]Gardiner, David, of Dundee, a poor weaver and field-worker; pub. with James Donnet (qv), a 52-page booklet, Love and Liberty; Being Poems and songs by David Gardiner, Dundee, with Additional Pieces by James Donnet (Dundee, 1853). Ref: Reid, Bards, 174-5. [S]Gardiner, Peter, of Edinburgh (1847-85), blacksmith, served in the US Marine Corps from 1865, poems in Murdoch. Ref: Edwards, 10, 315-21; Murdoch, 378-83 (with image). [S]Gardiner, William (fl. 1815-18), father of the botanical William Gardiner (1809-52, qv), also presumably of Dundee, Reid makes reference to him as managing ‘an inheritance of toil and care’, and the ‘warblings of the self-taught muse’; pub. two small vols of Poems and Songs (1815 and 1818). Ref: Reid, Bards, 177-8. [S]Gardiner, William (1804-85), of Applegarth, Dumfriesshire, cabinet maker, organ and piano maker. Ref: Edwards, 9, 248-55. [S]Gardiner, William (1809-52), of Dundee, ‘destined to a life of toil’, though followed his uncle and father (William Gardiner, fl. 1815-18, qv) in pursuing botany, and pub. The Flora of Forfarshire (London, 1848), a 300-page book of poetry and prose. Ref: Reid, Bards, 175-7. [S]? Gardner, Henry, of Guilsborough, Northamptonshire, farmer, pub. Poems (Northampton, ?1898), including hunting poems; but not in COPAC or Northants online library catalogues; nothing via Google or Google Books. Ref: Hold, 81-83.? Gaspey, William (1812-86) of Blackburn, second-generation journalist, pub. Poor Law Melodies (1841); A Dish of Trifle (London and Whitehaven, 1869); Landmarks of Paradise (London, 1878); Remanets [sic] (London, Keswick and Cockermouth, 1865), and contributed to The Festive Wreath (1842). Ref: Hull, 43-8; James, 171, 177; Reilly (2000), 180.Geddes, James Young (b. 1850), of Dundee, tailor and clothier, librettist, pub. The new Jerusalem, and other verses (Dundee, 1879), The spectre clock of Alyth, and other selections (Alyth, Perthshire, 1886); In the Valhalla, and other poems (Dundee, 1891). Ref: Edwards, 1, 244-6; Reid, Bards, 179-81; Reilly (1994), 182; Reilly (2000), 180. [S]Gellatly, William (1792-1868), of Kettins, Coupar-Angus, wright, spent time in America. Ref: Reid, Bards, 181-3. [S]Gemmell, Robert (1821-87), of Irvine, Ayrshire, shipbuilder, soldier, railwayman, pub. Sketches from life, with occasional thoughts and poems (Glasgow and Edinburgh, 1863), Montague a drama, and other poems (London, Glasgow and Edinburgh, 1868), The village beauty, and other poems (Glasgow, Edinburgh and London, 1886). Ref: Edwards, 2, 57-62, and 12, xix-xx; Murdoch, 199-201; Reilly (1994), 182; Reilly (2000), 180-1. [S]? Gemmill, Jamie, tailor, Elegy on Jamie Gemmill, tailor (Paisley, 1820), chapbook. Ref COPAC. [S]Gent, Thomas (c. 1702-1788), miscellaneous writer, born in Dublin of English parents, served as a printer’s apprentice of Dublin, ran away to England from a cruel master, worked as a printer in London, Norwich and York where he married and settled as a printer and author of a great many works especially of antiquity. Gent was ‘like a kind of northern Caxton, printing books of his own writing, and illustrating them by pictures of his own engraving’. His ‘circumstances were generally indigent; so much so, that he often sold almanacks, &c from the York booksellers from door to door’. Gent published the major poem of Peter Aram (qv), ‘Studley Park’, in his The Antient and Modern History of the Loyal Town of Ripon (York, 1733), and was the major publisher of the blind poet John Maxwell (qv). Ref Grainge, I, 146-50. [I]? Gerrie, James (b. 1852), of Crosshill, Lamphanan, Aberdeenshire, worked in agriculture, later in a mercantile firm in Glasgow. Ref: Edwards, 1, 356-7. [S]Gerrond, John (b. 1765), of Kirkpatrick-Durham, blacksmith, emigrated to the USA, pub. Poems on Several Occasions, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (1802), and various editions of his poems. Ref: Harper, 260. [S] Gibb, George (1826-84), of Aberdeen, factory operative, railway official. Ref: Edwards, 3, 376-9 and 9, xxiii. [S]Gibb, George A. G. (b. 1860), of Rothiemay, Aberdeenshire, son of George Gibb (qv), railwayman, police officer, pub. poems in newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 9, 349-53. [S]Gibson, John (1819-82), of Greenlaw, tailor, Religious Tract Society book-hawker, pub. Poems, grave and gay (1875). Ref: Crockett, 181-2. [S]? Gibson, Miss, ‘of Nottingham, ‘an uneducated young woman’, contributed a sonnet to Capel Lofft’s Laura, or an Antholoy of Sonnets (London, 1813-14). Ref Meyenberg, 212. [F]Gifford, William (1756-1826), shoemaker, later a major poet and critic, pub. The Baviad (1791), The Maeviad (1795), Epistle to Peter Pindar (1800); The satires of D. J. Juvenalis, translated into English verse (1802). Ref: LC 3, 329-38; Radcliffe; Hobsbawn & Scott, 96. [LC 3]? Gilchrist, Robert (1797-1844), of Gateshead, sailmaker’s son, local poet and songwriter, celebrated in his day, pub. A Collection of Original Songs, Local and Sentimental (Newcastle upon Tyne: published for the author, 1824); there is a rich store of information about him, samples of his work and some pictures, on his descendant Paul Gilchrist’s research web pages. Ref: Allan, 169-96; Welford, II, 295-7; .? Gilding, Elizabeth, of Woolwich, Kent, an orphan without formal schooling, pub. The Breathings of Genius, Being a Collection of Poems; to Which are Added, Essays, Moral and Philosophical (London, 1776). Ref: Jackson (1993), 133. [F]Giles, Joseph (fl, 1771), ‘an uneducated poet hired and coached by Shenstone’ and a member of the topographical movement of the 1770s (Aubin); pub. Miscellaneous Poems: on various Subjects, and Occasions. Revised and Corrected by the late Mr. Shenstone (London: J. Godwin, F. Newbury, et al, 1771), includes ‘The Rapture: on viewing the tomb of SHAKESPEARE, at Stratford-upon-Avon’. Ref Croft & Beattie I, 81 (item 271).Gilfillan, Robert (1798-1850), of Dunfermline, son of a weaver, apprenticed to a cooper, also worked as grocer’s shopman and a clerk; Original Songs (Edinburgh, ?1831); Songs (2nd ed, Edinburgh, 1835); Poems and Songs (3rd ed, 1839); Emanuel’s land [a poem] (Leith, 1846); Poems and songs, with a memoir (4th ed., Edinburgh, 1851). Ref: ODNB/DNB; Wilson, II, 177-81; Johnson, items 373-4; Sutton, 399 (manuscripts and letters). [S]Gilkinson, John (1851-95), of Gorbals, Glasgow, son of a working man, writer and shopkeeper, pub. The Minister’s fiddle: a book of verse, humorous and otherwise (Glasgow, 1888). Ref: Glasgow Poets, 430-34; Macleod, 91, 261-64; Edwards, 13, 165-73; Reilly (1994), 185. [S]Gill, Edmund (1754-1830), shoemaker poet, published single poems in European Magazine; a descendant has created the website ‘The Gill Pedigree’. Refs ; A.J. Peacock, ‘Edmund Gill, Poet, Son of Crispin, and Political Protestant’, York History, 3 (1976), 150.? Gill, Edwin, of Sheffield Chartist. Ref: Kovalev, 104-5; Scheckner, 154-5, 333. [C]Gills, Gill or Gils, Thomas, ‘the Blind Man of Bury St Edmunds’, beggar, pub. The Blind Man's Case at London: or, a character of that city. In a letter to his friend in the country. By Thomas Gills, the blind man of St. Edmunds-Bury, Suffolk (1711, Dobell 575; 2nd edn 1712), ‘a vivid if unsophisticated picture in verse of the noise and filth of London’, 8 pp. Weissman also notes that a ‘portion of the poem is based upon the observations of the poet’s wife Deb, who stands at the “garret-window”, and looks out at the street below. The poet goes on to describe the city’s tumult, as he wanders the streets as a beggar’. Also pub. Advice to Youth (1708, BL 161.k.12); Instructions for Children in Verse (BL 161.k.13); Upon the Recovery of His Sight, and the Second Loss thereof (?1710, BL 1643.bb.32). Ref Dobell; ESTC; Weissman, III, item 1201 (xix); Chris Mounsey, ‘Thomas Gills: An Eighteenth-Century Blind Poet and the Language of Charity’, in The Idea of Disability in the Eighteenth Century, ed Chris Mounsey (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2014), 223-45.Gilmour, George, of Edington, son of a mason, emigrated to America c. 1833, author of ‘The Sabbath’, pub. in Crockett. Ref: Crockett, 209-10. [S]Glass, Andrew (b. 1820), of Girvan, Ayrshire, handloom weaver, journalist, pub. Poems and Songs (Ayr, 1869). Ref: Edwards, 6, 338-42; Reilly (2000), 184. [S]Glass, Richard Aitken, ‘Roderick’ (b. 1874), commercial painter, pub. poems in the People’s Journal, Dundee News and elsewhere. Ref: Bisset, 328-33. [S]? Glassford, William (1762-1822), of Paisley, grocer, described as a ‘dirty, daidlin’, snuffy body, fond of a dram, and fond to dispose of his rhyme, which he hawked through the town’, pub. Poems upon Engaging Subjects (1808), 16 pp. Ref: Brown, I, 41-2. [S]Glover, Jean (1758-1801), Scottish poet, daughter of a weaver, actress and singer; appears to have published only in periodicals/newspapers; Robert Burns transcribed her song (‘O’er the muir among the Heather’) directly from a performance and published it with music to a different tune in Scots Musical Museum (1792). Miller calls her ‘a girl of notoriously bad character’ and is unremittingly hostile. Ref: ODNB/DNB; Wilson, II, p, 518; Miller, 169-71; Douglas, 80-1, 294-5; Fullard, 555; Kord 262. [F] [S]Goldie, Alexander (b. 1841), of Catrine, Sorn, Ayrshire, cotton factory worker, Co-op Treasurer, Abstainer. Ref: Edwards, 11, 358-63. [S]? Gomersall, Mrs. A, destitute widow of seventy-four, pub. by subscription Creation. A Poem (Newport, [Isle of Wight]: printed for the author, 1824). Ref: Johnson, item 382; Charles Cox, Catalogue 51 (2005), item 119. [F]Gooch, Richard (‘Cassial’, b. 1784), of Blundeston, Suffolk, self-taught farm labourer and whitesmith, lived for most of his life in Norwich, Lakenham and Povingland, pub. Memoirs, Remarkable Vicisssitudes, Military Career and Wanderings in Ireland, Mechanical and Astronomical Exercises, Scientific Researches, Incidents and Opinions of Cassial, the Norfolk Astrologer, Written by Himself (Norwich, 1844), a ‘most unusual book which ‘occasionally breaks into verse’ (Burnett et al); Ref Burnett et al (1984), no. 133.Goodlet, Quentin C., compositor, of Glasgow, pub. Flittings of Fancy (Glasgow, 1878). Ref: Edwards, 15, 173-6. [S]Gordon, Alexander (1809-73), of Aberdeen, shoemaker, clerk, trade unionist, soldier, pub. satirical and political poems in newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 9, 96-103. [S]Gordon, Francis Hogg (b. 1853/4), of Durris, Kircardineshire, shepherd’s son, forester, piper; pub. in East of Fife News, People’s Journal; Weekly News. Ref: Edwards, 3, 365-6; Reid, Bards, 184-5. [S]? Gordon, Georgina Jane, of Melbourne, Australia, daughter of an emigrant farming family who returned to Scotland when she was three, settled in the Highlands of Sutherland, then moved to farm at Alehouseburn, Bannf; poems include ‘A Mother’s Grief,’ ‘Cuddle Doon, My Bairnie,’ and ‘Dreich I’, the Draw. Ref: Edwards, 2, 256-9; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Gordon, John W. (b. 1868), of Kilmarnock, miner, pub. in newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 15, 329-33. [S]Gordon, Joseph, butler to the Earl of Airlie at Gortachy Castle; pub. Poetical Trifles (Forfar, 1825). Ref: Reid, Bards, 185-6. [S]Gordon, William (b. 1857), of Bourtie, Aberdeenshire, herd laddie, railway porter, signalman. Ref: Edwards, 14, 241-6; Reid, Bards, 187. [S]Gould, Robert (1660?-1708/9), born in humble circumstances, orphan, servant of the Earl of Dorset, obtained some education, pub. Love given over, or a Satyr against Woman (1680), Poems chiefly consisting of Satyrs and Satyrical Epistles (1689), The Rival Sisters (1696), a tragedy acted at Drury Lane; The works of Mr. Robert Gould (1709). Ref: Foxon; ODNB; E. H. Sloane, Robert Gould: seventeenth-century satirist (1940); C. R. Johnson catalogue 55 (2013), items 1-4. [OP]Gow, James (1814-72), of Dundee, ‘The Weaver Poet’, soldier’s son. Ref: Edwards, 8, 273-84; Reid, Bards, 188. [S]? Gowenlock, R. Scott, of Oldham, pub. Idyls of the people (London and Manchester, 1867). Ref: Reilly (2000), 189.Gracie, Thomas Grierson, pub. Songs and Rhymes of a Lead Miner (Dumfries: The Courier and Herald Press, 1921), 100 pp. with photo. Ref: inf. Bob Heyes. [OP]Graham, Charles (b. c. 1750, fl. 1796), of Penrith, ‘mechanic who was never taught the rudiments in the English language’, pub. Miscellaneous Pieces, in Prose and Verse (Kendal: W. Pennington, 1778); includes an epistle ‘To a friend in America’, ‘On John Wesley’s Address to the Americans’, ‘A Pastoral Dialogue, in the Cumberland Dialect’, and an essay ‘On the Savage diversion of Cock-Fighting’. Croft & Beattie quote a notice in the Cumberland Chronicle and Whitehaven Public Advertiser for March 1778 that Graham intends to publish this volume by subscription, wishing him success and noting that ‘several of Mr. Graham’s productions have been noticed by the ingenious Mr. Dodsley, and published in his Annual Register’. The subscribers are ‘a cross-section of Cumberland society’ and include Wordsworth’s cousin Richard, of Whitehaven. Ref: Radcliffe; Burmester catalogue 58; Croft & Beattie I, 85 (item 285); inf. Bob Heyes.? Graham, Dougal (1721-79), chapbook writer, bellman and chapman of Glasgow poet, took part in the ’45, pub. chapbooks ‘valuable as folklore’ (DNB); Collected Writings, ed. by G. MacGregor (2 vols, Glasgow, 1883); in verse, A Full, Particular and True Account of the Rebellion in the Years 1745–6 (1746); ‘The Battle of Drummossie-Muir’ (1746); the poems 'The Turnimspike,' 'John Highlandman's Remarks on Glasgow' are also ascribed to him. Ref: ODNB; Glasgow Poets, 38-46; Wilson, II, 519. [S]? Graham, Maud (b. 1871), of Londonderry, Ireland, moved with her parents to Paisley when she was four; after education in school until the age of thirteen, she began work in a furnishing shop. Ref: Brown, II, 541-47; inf. Florence Boos. [I] [F] [S]Graham, William (b. 1816), of County Down went to Paisley aged six, drawboy then weaver, then enlisted in British Legion, worked in coal mining then returned to Paisley, pub. The Wild Rose, Being Songs, Comic and Sentimental (Paisley, 1851). Ref: Brown, II, 61-65; Leonard, 193-94. [I] [S]? Grant, Joseph (1805-35), of Afrusk, Kincairdshire farmer’s son, later journalist on the Dundee Guardian. Pub. Juvenile Lays (1828) and Kincardineshire Traditions (1830). Ref: ODNB; Edwards, 10, 344-57; Shanks, 141; Reid, Bards, 193-8. [S]Grant, Lewis (1872-92), of Loch Park, workman’s son and self-taught teenage prodigy, poems in the People’s Journal. Ref: Edwards, 12, 196-206. [S]Grant, Robert (1818-95), of Peterhead, tailor, newspaper editor. Ref: Edwards, 3, 391-2 and 16, [lix]. [S]Grant, William (c. 1828-57), of Tannadyce, miller at Finhaven, fiddler, ‘debater’, emigrated to Detroit in 1856, died a year later; pub. A Few Poetical Pieces (1856). Ref: Reid, Bards, 198-9. [S]? Gray, Christian (1772-1830), blind poet of Aberdalgie, Perth, born into a farming family ruined by the drought years of 1816-26, daughter of George Gray and Janet MacDonald, pub. Tales, Letters, and Other Pieces, in Verse (Edinburgh, 1808), ‘Victims of War’ (1811), A New Selection of Miscellaneous Pieces, in Verse (Perth, 1821). Ref: Jackson (1993), 138; Johnson 46, no. 187; inf. Bob White; biography by Isobel Grundy in Blain et al (1990), 454. [F] [S]Gray, David (1838-61), of Duntiblae, Dunbartonshire and Glasgow, son of a handloom weaver, pupil-teacher, pub. The Luggie, and other poems (1862) with a memoir by James Hedderwick, and a prefatory notice by Richard Monckton Milnes (Cambridge, 1862), Poems by David Gray (1865), other editions of 1874 and 1886; also republished some poems in 1920 and 1991 as In the Shadows. Ref: LION; Glasgow Poets, 398-403; Macleod, 273-77; Hood, 367-78; Wilson, II, 485-8; Douglas, 269-73, 314-15; Reilly (2000), 191-2; Sutton, 413 (manuscripts and letters); A.V. Stuart, David Gray, The Poet of the Luggie: A Centenary Booklet (Kirkintilloch: privately published pamphlet, 1961). [S]? Gray, Isabella A., born at Hawthorn Cottage, Lilliesleaf, St. Boswells, where her father owned a few acres of land; pub. in local periodicals such as The Border Magazine. Among her poems are ‘Eyes,’ ‘The Bairns,’ ‘Gossip,’ and ‘Dear Little Loo.’ Ref: Edwards, 11, 293; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Gray, John Y., ‘G.’ (b. 1846), of Letham, Forfarshire, handloom weaver, poems in Edwards. Ref: Edwards, 10, 257-66. [S]? Gray, Mary (b. 1853), of Huntly, Aberdeenshire, where her father was house carpenter; Gray prepared to teach, and did so until 1880, but since then has been ‘occupied chiefly in private tuition and home duties’; obtained L.L.A. from St. Andrews University in 1882, the only university-educated woman on this list, and perhaps arguably therefore categorizable as middle-class. Pub. Lyrics and Epigrams After Goethe and Other German Poets (Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1853). Her poems are of high quality, among them ‘The Dead Child,’ ‘A Cradle Song,’ ‘The Violet,’ ‘The World Is Fair,’ ‘Springtime,’ ‘Necessity,’ and ‘Twilight Thoughts.’ Ref: Edwards, 14, 186; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Greatbach, John, ‘a member of the operative community’, Staffs. potter; writing for a prize offered by the committee of the Stoke-upon-Trent Athenaeum, competing with other working men, pub. Christmas (A Prize Poem) and Other Poems (London: Lockwood, 1860). Ref: inf. Bob Heyes.Greig, James (b. 1861), of Arbroath, flaxdresser, pub. poems in Dundee Weekly News. Ref: Edwards 9, 59-63. [S]Greene, J. W. (b. 1864), of Galston, Ayrshire, miner, emigrated to Australia but returned, journalist, pub. in newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 15, 345-50. [S]Greensted, Frances, of Maidstone, Kent, domestic servant who was supporting an ageing mother, and had worked for the same family for twenty years at the time that she pub. Fugitive Pieces (Maidstone, London, Bath, Marlborough, Faversham, Chatham & Canterbury, 1796). Ref: Jackson (1993), 139, Johnson, item 390 (reproduces title page, with 4-line tag from Pope [Epistle to Arbuthnot] beginning ‘I left no calling for the idle trade’), Burmester, item 404 and 118 (image). [F]Gregory, John (1831-1922), ‘The Poet-Shoemaker of Bristol’, of Bideford, Devon, minimally educated shoemaker in Bristol, Tenby, Aberavon, Swansea and Cardiff, friend of Capern (qv), socialist and stalwart of the labour movement, much honoured in his adopted city of Bristol, whose university awarded him an MA. ~ Gregory was born in Bideford, Devon. His father was a clerk in a merchant’s office and a highly esteemed Wesleyan lay preacher. He received minimal schooling, and became an apprentice shoemaker at age eleven. During his seven-year apprenticeship, Gregory gained the friendship of Edward Capern, the ‘Postman Poet’, which compounded his proclivity for writing. While aiding a sick friend leaving Bristol for Devon in 1856, Gregory met Ann, who he would wed five weeks later: ‘I saw him off by the train, and in the evening met my fate, this, as usual being in feminine form’ (Gregory cited Wright 1896). The North Devon Journal featured Gregory’s earliest literary contribution. From the outset, Gregory championed the cause of his fellow workmen, and became a pioneering member of the Labour movement, affiliating himself with an assortment of trades societies. ~ Gregory spent the largest portion of his life in Bristol. His verses were published regularly in local newspapers, and in 1883, a volume entitled Idyls of Labour was met with commendation in the Cliftonian: ‘Mr Gregory’s is a teeming, luxuriant fancy; he could set up a score of poets with the mere filings of his gold… It is quite certain that his book contains poetry, and a great deal of very fine poetry’ (cited Wright 1896). In the preface to his second volume, Song Streams (1877), Gregory stresses the difficulty of accomplishing a feat of literature under the shadow of grinding labour, and writes: ‘Hope not, then to find within the compass of my waif-fold the wonders of poesy. Yet here shall you discover flowers you will not disdain, and among the leaves thoughts that shall not be forgotten’ (cited Wright 1896). ~ Gregory was assigned leader of the Organising Committee of the Bristol Socialist Society in 1885. He was noted for his antipathy towards the death penalty and his advocacy of freedom of speech. His opposition to imperialistic policy is exemplified in ‘Ireland’, which marks the 1886 General Election and Gladstone’s efforts to pass the Home Rule Bill. Unflinching declarations and observations abound: ‘When that I read her story, / I hate my nation’s name… We taught them with our tortures, / The hate they justly hoard, / When we made them rebels, / We cut them down with the sword… Much have we sinned against her, / And great hath been our crime. / Her fat lands for the spoiler, / And not for her are sown…’ (Sables 2001). ~ Gregory was conferred with an honorary MA from the University of Bristol in 1912. He and his wife had nine children. Richard, his second son, became sub-editor of the journal Nature and was knighted for his contributions to science, especially in the field of astronomy. Pub. Idylls of labour (London and Bristol, 1871), Song Streams (1877), Murmurs and Melodies (1884), My Garden and Other Poems (1907), A Dream of Love in Eden (1911), Star Dreams (1919). Ref: LC 6, 193-210; Wright, 211-14; Reilly (2000), 194; George Hare Leonard, Some Memories of John Gregory (1922); Gerrard Sables, A working-class friend of Ireland: John Gregory 1831-1922 (2001) ; A Souvenir of John Gregory, ed. Gerrard Sables (Bristol: Fiducia Press, 2007); John Goodridge, ‘John Gregory, St Mary Redcliffe and the Memorialising of Chatterton’, chapter in Literary Bristol: Writing the City, ed. Marie Mulvey-Roberts (Bristol: Redcliffe Press, 2015); ‘Volume of poems, newspaper cuttings, etc, by or about John Gregory, c. 1886-1931’, Bristol Public Library Local Studies Collection, item 21416; Gregory Papers, Special Collections Department, Bristol University Library, ref. DM1741; the papers of Gregory’s friend and fellow shoemaker-poet John Wall, Bristol Record Office, ref. 37886. [LC6] [—Iain Rowley]Greig, David Lundie (b. 1837), of Edinburgh, mill-worker, blacksmith, Sunday school teacher, pub. Pastimes musings ... with supplementary contributions by John Paul and David Tasker [qv] (Arbroath, 1892). Ref: Edwards, 12, 110-16; Reid, Bards, 202-3; Reilly (1994), 197. [S]Greig, James (1861-1941), of Arbroath, Angus, flax-dresser, journalist and writer; pub. Poems and Songs from the Hackle-shop (Arbroath, 1887). Ref: Reid, Bards, 203-5; Reilly (1994), 198. [S]Grewar, Alexander (1815-94), of Dalnamer, Glenisla, tailor. Ref: Reid, Bards, 205-6. [S]Grierson, Constantia (1704/5-1732), Irish printer’s wife, daughter of ‘poor illiterate country people’, self-taught classicist, born in Graiguenamanagh, Co. Kilkenny. Although born to a poor family, Grierson’s father facilitated her rapid mastery of the classical languages through supplying her with suitable volumes. She proceeded to garner further instruction from the minister of the parish when she could find time away from her needlework. At age 18, Grierson was appointed to a Dublin physician to train as a midwife, and married George Grierson, the King’s Printer, soon after her arrival. This granted her the direct means for publishing her own work, and she produced three editions of Latin classics: Virgil (1724), Terence (1727) and Tacitus (1730). Dr E. Harwood considered the latter to be ‘one of the best edited books ever delivered to the world’. Grierson was working on an edition of Sallust when she died at 27. Her Poems on Several Occasions was printed in 1735, but many of her poems are no longer extant; a few have survived mainly through inclusion in collections. Laetitia Pilkington ranked her talent beyond that of any other woman writer of her era, singling out a poem on ‘Bishop Berkeley’s Bermudian Scheme’—which presented the Bishop as a true ambassador of Christ—as particularly noteworthy. Of her two sons, one died young, while the other, George Abraham Grierson, grew to be King’s Printer. Like his mother, he died at 27, after a spell of recognition for his exceptional knowledge, wit and vigour. Pub: ‘The Goddess Envy’ (1730), Poems on Several Occasions (London: Printed for C. Rivington 1735), ‘On the Art of Printing’ (1764). Ref: Carpenter, 203; DNB; Fullard, 556; Lonsdale, (1989), 91-3; Rowton, 161-2; Todd, Dictionary of...Women Writers 1660-1800; Backscheider, 406; Backscheider & Ingrassia, 875. [I] [F] [—Iain Rowley]? Grieve, John (1781-1836), born at Dunfermline, pseudonym “C,” of Edinburgh, his father was a Presbyterian minister; a merchant's clerk, then bank clerk, and finally settled as a hat maker with partner Chalmers Izzet. Questionable labouring class status. On intimate terms with Hogg, who supported him financially, and contributed to his Forest Minstrel (1810), wrote poems including ‘Polwarth on the Green’ pub. in Crockett.] Ref: Crockett, 325. [S]? Griffith, George Chetwynd (‘Lara’, d. 1906), self-educated clergyman’s son, wandered the world as a sailor, butcher, schoolmaster and journalist, among other jobs, settled in Littlehampton, pub. Poems: general, secular, and satirical (London and Edinburgh, 1883). Ref: Reilly (1994), 198.Gruffydd, Owen (c. 1643-1730), of Llanystumdwy, Caernarvonshire, weaver, Welsh-language poet and geneaologist, blind. Poems (written in alliterative meter): ‘The Day of Judgement’, ‘Old Age and Youth’, ‘The Creation of Man, his Fall and Deliverance’, ‘A Song of Praise.' Appeared in Carolau a Dyriau Duwiol (1696, 1720, 1729) and Blodeu-gerdd Cymry (1759), and selected verse (ed. Owen M. Edwards ,1904). Majority of verse remains in ms in British Library, Cardiff Public Library, and National Library of Wales, Cwrt-Mawr MSS. Ref: ODNB, OCLW. [W] [-Katie Osborn]? Guthrie, Ellen Emma, pub. Retrospection. An Exile’s Memories of Skye (1876), dedicated to a lady in Skye to whom she has sent these verses of her memories. The poem itself tells of a boy’s poverty-striken childhood, in which he and his parents nearly starved before they were forced to emigrate; it seems quasi-authobiographical, even though told from the viewpoint of a male protagonist. Ref: inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Guthrie, George (b. 1842), of Newcastle upon Tyne, blacksmith at Wallsend and Sunderland, songwriter. Ref: Allan, 518.Gwyer, Joseph (‘The Penge Poet’, b. 1835), of Redlynch, Downton, Wilt., farmer’s son, millworker in Bermondsey, potato-salesman and author of ‘doggerel platitudes’, moved to Penge, involved in the Baptist Church and the temperance movement, pub. Sketches of the life of Joseph Gwyer; with his poems, ramble round the neighbourhood, glimpses of departed days (2nd edn Penge, 1876, 4th edn, Penge and London, 1877), Poems and prose (London, 1895), with biographical materials by C.H. Spurgeon. Ref: Burnett et al (1984), no. 291a; Maidment (1987), 209; Reilly (1994), 202; Reilly (2000), 197-8; Charles Cox, Catalogue 51 (2005), item 122.Hadden, James (1800-64), of Stonehaven, ‘belonged to the labouring class’; a ‘big sonsty cheild’, with a reputation for his poetry and his skill at playing draughts while bindfolded; died in poverty, leaving unpub. MSS with his widow; pub. a small vol. in Aberdeen in 1850. Ref: Reid, Bards, 214-15. [S]Hague, Tom (1915-1998), coalminer who wrote prose and verse under the name ‘Totley Tom’, dialect verse pub. in Tales of a Yorkshire Miner (1976); . Ref: info Yann Lovelock. [OP]? Haigh, Levi, village postman at Sowerby Bridge, pub. Poems and Pictures 1922-9 (Halifax, 1929), five booklets bound together; also contributed to an autograph commonplace book up to 1927. Ref: inf. Bob Heyes.? Hair, Mary Bowskill (1804-84), of Airdrie, printer (in partnership with Hugh Baird), schoolmaster’s widow; poems in Knox include one on the sewing machine. Ref: Knox, 288-9. [F] [S]Hall, Joseph, collier, broadside songwriter, of Sheriff Hill, Gateshead. Ref Harker (1999), 120-22.Hall, Spencer Timothy (1812-85), ‘The Sherwood Forester’, born in Sutton-in-Ashfield, after a very lijited education was set to work at seven, and was later a stocking weaver, printer, bookseller and lecturer, publisher; leader and biographer of the Nottingham Group; also an accomplished mesmerist: in 1843, he founded the journal The Phreno-Magnet, or, Mirror of Nature. Hall was inspired to become a printer by reading the life of Benjamin Franklin. His first publication, The Forester's Offering (London: Whittaker, 1841), he initially set in print himself, in large part without a manuscript. Other pubs. include The Upland Hamlet (1847); Lays from the Lakes (Rochdale and Windermere, 1878); The Peak and the Plain (1853). Ref: ODNB/DNB; Powell, item 232; James, 171; Reilly (2000), 202; Newsham 190-2.? Hall, Thomas (fl. 1805-15), of Winchester, pub. Poems on Various Subjects, written in the debtors’ ward (Winchester, ?1805; 1808; Oxford and London, 1810; Hereford, ?1815); includes the poem ‘To the memory of John Howard’ and ‘May Day; or, chimney sweeper’s elegy on the death of mrs Montagu’. Ref Johnson, 405; CBEL3, 345.Hall, William (b. 1825), of Galashiels, weaver, gamekeeper, photographer, pub. poems in newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 8, 59-63. [S]Hamilton, Alexander (1832-95), of Kirkton Mains, Bathgate, farmer and gardener, pub. poems in the West Lothian Courier. Ref: Bisset, 184-90. [S]Hamilton, Janet Thomson (1795-1873), of Langloan, poet, daughter of a shoemaker; though she received no formal education, her mother taught her to read and spin. At the age of thirteen or fourteen she married John Hamilton, also a shoemaker, with whom she raised their ten children, while working also as a tambourer. At fifty-four she learned to write. ~ Born Janet Thompson at Shotts parish, Lanarkshire, while she was still in infancy, Janet’s family relocated to Langloan - where her parents worked as field labourers. Janet initially supplemented their income by spinning yarn, before taking up embroidery. With her mother’s assistance, Janet learnt to read before she was five years old - she borrowed books from the village library, including the Bible, Paradise Lost, the poetry of Burns, assorted histories, and volumes of the Spectator and Rambler. In her teens, she began writing religious verses that embodied her Scottish Calvinism; Robinson (2003) highlights that she memorised her works as she composed them, and Cunningham (2000. p. 41) notes ‘a pseudo-oriental handwriting she concocted for herself’. ~ After Janet’s father secured business as a shoemaker, at 14 years of age she married one of his workmen, John Hamilton, with whom she would bear 10 children. Janet Hamilton’s devotion to her family would not afford her sufficient time to practise her poetry until she was in her mid-fifties. Then, having taught herself to write, she became one of the few women to have essays featured in Cassell’s journal Working Man’s Friend, and proceeded to have several volumes of poetry published—the first being Poems and essays of a miscellaneous character on subjects of general interest, published in 1863. The Glaswegian missionary William Logan is noted as a significant figure in facilitating her literary success, buying her books in bulk and dispatching them to prominent critics. ~ Over these volumes, Cunningham (2000. p. 41) distinguishes her writing as ‘forthright, indignant, canny about Scottishness, the plight of the poor, worldwide oppression, war, slavery, drunkenness, Sabbath-breaking’. In ‘Oor Location’, Hamilton’s trenchant, heavily onomatopoeic Scots dialect verse rails against the ‘dreadfu’ curse o’ drinkin’!’ – ‘Oh the dool an’ desolation, / An’ the havock in the nation / Wrocht by dirty, drucken wives! / Oh hoo mony bairnies lives / Lost ilk year through their neglec’!’ – as part of a reflection on the darker ramifications of the Industrial Revolution. ~ Hamilton’s commitment to education is crystallised in a prose extract from Poems and essays… She laments that the labouring classes are ‘debarred from the attainment of the elegant tastes and refined perceptions acquired by those on whom the gifts of fortune, and a desire of improving and adorning their minds, have conferred the high advantages of a liberal and finished education’. However, she affirms that access to literature empowers anyone to ‘indulge a taste for the sublime and beautiful’, suggesting that the ‘gifts of God, of Nature, and of the Muses are as impartially and profusely bestowed’ on the lower orders as on the higher ones (Robinson 2003. p. 132). ~ As Hamilton grew blind in her last eighteen years, her literary output decreased. Her husband and daughter Marion read to her, while her son James was amanuensis. Nonetheless, she retained her popularity, being bestowed with a ?10 grant from the Royal Bounty following a petition to Prime Minister Disraeli, and being visited by the likes of Garibaldi’s son—noting her advancement the of Italian liberation cause. ~ Hamilton died on 27 October 1873, having never been twenty miles from home. 400 people attended her funeral, and roughly 20,000 people congregated to hear the dedicatory lecture at the erecting of a memorial. Pub. Poems and Songs (Edinburgh, 1863), Poems and essays of a Miscellaneous Character of Subjects of General Interest (Edinburgh, 1863; full text available on Google books), Poems of purpose and sketches in prose of Scottish Peasant Life and Character in Auld Langsyne: with a glossary (Edinburgh, 1865), Sketches (Edinburgh, 1865), Poems and Ballads (Edinburgh, 1868; Glasgow, 1868, With introductory papers by G. Gilfilan and A. Wallace); Poems, Essays and Sketches (Edinburgh, 1870; a collection of verses from the 1863 and 1865 poetry books); Pictures in Prose and Verse; or, Personal recollections of the late Janet Hamilton, together with several hitherto unpublished poetic pieces (1877, J. Young ed., Glasgow); and a memorial volume Poems, Essays, and Sketches: Comprising the Principal Pieces from her Complete Works (Edinburgh, 1880, 1885). Hamilton published poems and essays in periodicals, including The Adviser and The Working Man’s Friend, throughout the 1850s. Ref: LC 5, 245-66; ODNB/DNB; Edwards, 1, 248-59; Glasgow Poets, 224-32; Wilson, II, 149-51; Shanks, 159; Murdoch, 334-7; Maidment (1987), 187, 203-4, 267-8; Boos (1995); Valentine Cunningham, The Victorians (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000); ABC, 162-6; Breen xvii, 89-92; McMillan, D. (ed), The Scotswoman at Home and Abroad (Glasgow: Association for Scottish Literary Studies, 2000); Robinson, S.C., Serious Occupation: Literary Criticism by Victorian Women Writers (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2003); Wilson, J. G (1876) Poets and Poetry of Scotland. Volume 2, pp. 149-151; Wright, J (1889) Janet Hamilton and other papers. Edinburgh; Memoirs and portraits of one hundred Glasgow men: William Logan ; Reilly (2000), 204; Boos (2001); Boos (2008), 47-109; inf. Florence Boos. Link: wcwp [F] [S] [LC 5] [—Iain Rowley]Hamilton, John (b. 1827), of Paisley, cloth calenderer, later photographer in Greenock and Port Glasgow, pub. The Lay of the Bogle Stone, An Erratic Poem, Part First (London, 1869). Ref: Brown, II, 239-43; Leonard, 271-74. [S]Hamlyn, George (‘The Dartmoor Bloomfield’, 1819-?1896), of Tamerton, Devon, wheelwright, coachmaker, travelled country and lived in Australia, pub. Rustic Poems (Devonport, Plymouth and London, 1869). Ref: Reilly (2000), 204.Hammon, Jupiter (1711-1806?), slave, the first African-American writer to be published; pub. An Evening Thought. Salvation by Christ with Penitential Cries: Composed by Jupiter Hammon, a Negro belonging to Mr. Lloyd of Queen's Village, on Long Island, the 25th of December, 1760 (broadside, 1761); An Address to Miss Phillis Wheatley (broadside, 1778); A Winter Piece [prose] (1782); An Evening’s Improvement [prose and poetry] (1783); An Address to the Negroes in the State of New York [important prose work] (1787) Ref: PAL (); Wikipedia and other online sources; Basker, 137-45.Hampson, Walter (‘Casey’, 1864-1932), of Normanton, Yorkshire, self-taught railway engine driver, pub. Songs of the Line. And other Poems (London: King’s Cross Publishing Co, 1905); Tykes Abroad (Wakefield, 1911); autobiography, ‘Reminiscences of “Casey”’, serialised over 31 weeks in Forward magazine, 1931. Hampson edited a local journal devoted to the Yorkshire dialect, and an unpublished history of Normanton. Ref: Moorman, xxxvii, 92-4; Burnett et al (1984), no. 297; inf. John Lucas; Wikipedia. [OP]Hanby, George (1817-1904, ‘Peter Pledge’), of Barnsley, colliery surfaceman and verse-writer for charitable causes and income; ardent temperance writer, poems include ‘Verse on the Temperance and Sunday School Tea Meeting held on the 11th of November, 1864, in Miss Pilkington’s Reading Room, Newmillerdam, near Wakefield, convened for the purpose of presenting a testimonial to Mr. William Gates of Rotherham, late of Barnsley, for his unwearied zeal in the Church Sunday School at Walton’. Ref: Vicinus (1969), 26; Vicinus, 25; Burnett et al (1984), no. 135.Hands, Elizabeth Herbert (1746-1815), servant, of Allesley near Coventry, married to a blacksmith, pub. (as ‘Daphne’) in The Coventry Mercury, and won 1,200 subscribers for her The Death of Amnon. A Poem. With Appendix containing pastorals and other poetical pieces (Coventry, 1789, BL 1466.h.18); Caroline Franklin, Introduction to The Death of Amnon. A Poem by Elizabeth Hands [and] The Rural Lyre, A Volume of Poems by Ann Yearsley (London: Routledge, 1996). Ref: LC 3, 153-70; Radcliffe; Lonsdale (1989), 422-9; Rizzo, 243; Milne (1999), 60-99; Johnson, item 406; Jackson (1993), 144; Christmas, 228-34; Johnson 46, no. 192; Kord, 262-3; Backscheider, 406-7; Backscheider & Ingrassia, 876; Cynthia Dereli, ‘In Search of a Poet: the life and work of Elizabeth Hands’, Women’s Writing, 8, no. 1 (2001), 169-82. [F] [LC 3]Hannah, John, (1802-54), of Creetown, moved down from Scotland to Diss in 1823, itinerant packman, pub. Posthumous Rhymes (Beccles, 1854). Ref: Cranbrook, 118, 201; Copsey (2002), 168-9; Harper, 243. [S]Hannan, Roberts (1816-59), of Cardross, stonemason, poems in Macleod. Ref: Macleod, 217-19 [S]Hardacre, Ben, (c. 1820-80), factory operative of Bradford, Miscellanies in Prose and Verse (London and Bradford, 1874). Ref: Holroyd, 194-5; Vicinus (1974), 146-7, 180n.Hardaker or Hardacre, Joseph, of Haworth, self-styled ‘illiterate Moorland muse’. He pub. Poems, Lyric and Moral, on Various Subjects (Bradford: Printed for the author, 1822); The Aeropteron: or Steam Carriage (Keighley, Aked, for the author, 1830); The Bridal of Tomar; and other poems (Keighley and London: Charles Crabtree, and Simpkin and Marshall, 1831). Forshaw includes ‘The Author’s Cot in Ruins’; Holroyd includes an extract from ‘A Tour of Bolton Abbey and its adjoining scenery’, and notes that he ‘tried almost every sect of religionists’ before settling for Catholicism, in which he died. Ref: Holroyd, 52-3; Forshaw, 78-81; Johnson 46, nos. 296-7.Hardie, Alexander (1825-88), of Carlton, Glasgow, moved to Paisley aged one, father a shoemaker who entered army and then retired with good pension, got a good education but could not get a situation and so was apprenticed to shoemaker; late in life went blind; had started writing poetry in 1843, contributed to newspapers, pub. A Selection of Songs and Sentiments (1849); Freedom: A Poem (1854, a 16-page poem). Ref: Brown, II, 52-5. [S]Hardie, John, (b. c. 1782), of Glasserton, Wigtownshire in SW Scotland, and Whitehaven, Cumberland, cabinet maker at Whitehaven, vocal supporter of Tory Lord Lonsdale, patronised by Stair Hathorn Stewart of Glasserton. Pub. Poems on Various Subjects (Whitehaven, 1839) and occasional verses in Lonsdale’s newspaper, The Cumberland Pacquet. Ref. Burke (2005), ‘Lord Lonsdale and His Protégés: William Wordsworth and John Hardie’, Criticism, 47, no. 4 (Fall 2005), 515-29. Hardie, John (b. 1849), of Gamrie, Banffshire, cow herder, gardener, pub. in newspapers, Pub. Sprays from the Garden (Brechin: D. H. Edwards, 1898). Ref: Edwards, 15, 351-3. [S]? Hardy, William, groom, pub. Poems on Several Subjects by ... a Poor Groom at Oxford (no imprint, 1737). Ref: Dobell, 2946.Hargrave, Hugh Dunbar (1854-83), of Parkhead, Glasgow, son of a yarn dyer, left school at ten to work in dye works, later a bricklayer, pub. Poems, songs and essays (Glasgow, 1886). Ref: Reilly (1994), 211; Edwards, 2, 139-40 and 9, xx. [S]Harman, Matthew (b. 1822), of Scarborough, went to sea with Scarborough fishing fleet in youth, pub. Poetic buds (2nd edn 1865, rev ed. 1874), Wayside Blossoms (1867, rev. edn. 1883), A wreath of rhyme (Scarborough: James Ainsworth, 1871), Bodleian. Ref: Reilly (2000), 206-7.? Harney, (George) Julian, of Kent, Chartist and journalist, founder and editor of The Red Republican and The Democratic Review (1849-50). Ref: ODNB; Kovalev, 125-6; Scheckner, 156, 333-4; Schwab, 193-4. [C]Harper, Francis (b. 1865), of Feughs Glen, Aberdeen, farm worker, pub. poems in newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 6, 344-7. [S]Harris, John (1820-84), of Camborne, Cornwall, copper miner, worked in Dolcoath mine, wrote for magazines, including essays on the land question; pub. Lays from the Mine, the Moor, and the Mountain (1853); The Mountain Prophet, The Mine, and Other Poems (London: Alexander Heylin, 1860); A Story of Carn Brea, Essays, and Other Poems (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1863); Monro (London and Falmouth: Hamilton, Adams and Co., and The Author, 1879); Linto and Loner [and other poems] (London and Falmouth, 1881); My Autobiography (London, Falmouth and Exeter, 1882)—includes a photograph. Ref: ODNB/DNB; John Gill, John Harris, the Cornish Poet: a lecture on his life and works (Falmouth and Penryn, 1891); Burnett et al (1984), no. 304; Vincent, 14, 151, 182, 194; Wright, 231-3; Reilly (1994), 211-12; Reilly (2000), 207-8; Sutton, 436 (letters); Bridget Keegan and John Goodridge, ‘Modes and Methods in Three Nineteenth-Century Mineworker Poets’, Philological Quarterly, 92: 2 (2013), 225-50; The John Harris Society Newsletter; .uk/.? Harrison, George (1876-1950), hairdresser and popular Northamptonshire poet, pub. A Wanderer in Northamptonshire (1948). Ref: Hold, 84-85. [OP]Harrison, John (1814-89), of Forglen, Aberdeenshire, herd-boy from age 8, seaman, pub. The Laird of Restalrig’s Daughter (1857), Three ballads: the clipper screw; Maximilian; Trafalgar (London, 1869). Ref: Edwards, 7, 195-201 and 12, xv-xvi; Reilly (2000), 208. [S]Harrison, Susannah (1752-84), of Ipswich, of poor parents, domestic servant from sixteen, then taught herself to read and write, permanent invalid from 1772, religious poet, pub. Songs in the Night; By a Young Woman under Deep Afflictions, ed. John Conder (London, 1780), at least fifteen UK and six US editions by the 1820s, also pub. a broadside, A Call to Britain. Ref: LC 2, 375-86; Nancy Cho, ‘“The Ministry of Song”: Unmarried British Women’s Hymn-Writing, 1730-1936’, PhD dissertation, University of Durham, 2007; Fullard, 414-18, 557; Landry; DNB; Jackson (1993), 145-7; Cranbrook, 202-3; Backscheider, 407; Backscheider & Ingrassia, 876. [F] [LC 2]Hart, Alexander Morrison (b. 1853), of Maryhill, Glasgow, papermill worker, stationery manager. Ref: Edwards, 1, 231-2. [S]? Hart, Mary Kerr, Mrs. (fl. 1860), impoverished poet, pub. Heath Blossoms: Or, Poems written in obscurity and seclusion, with a memoir of the author (Ballingdon: 1830?). ‘In about 1830 Mary Kerr Hart prefaced her book?Heath Blossoms: or Poems written in Obscurity and Seclusion?with the story of her life and the “dark and melancholy fate” which had befallen her, her husband having been declared bankrupt and insane, leaving her at the mercy of his many creditors. What ultimately became of her is not clear.’ Ref: D.R. Fisher (ed.), The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1820-1832, (Cambridge: Cambidge University Press, 2009), via: [F] [—Dawn Whatman]? Hart, Samuel, miller’s son, quack-doctor and parish verse-maker of Kettleburgh, Suffolk, pub. Poem on the coronation and marriage of...Queen Victoria (nd, c. 1840). Ref: Cranbrook, 204.Hartley, Elizabeth (b. 1844), of Dumbarton, gardener’s daughter, pub. The Prairie Flower, and Other Poems (Dumbarton, 1870). Ref: Macleod, 181-6; Reilly (2000), 209. [F] [S]Hartley, John (1838-1915), of Halifax, pattern designer of worsted goods, worked in the Halifax dialect, and made a ‘really substantial income’ from dialect writing and later worked in America as a small businessman. Pub. Yorkshire Lyrics: Poems Written in the Dialect as Spoken in the West Riding of Yorkshire, To which are added a selection of Fugitive Pieces not in the Dialect (London: W. Nicholson, 1898). Hartley also has has four Yorkshire dialect poems in the England anthology: ‘Wayvin’ Music’, ‘To a Daisy’, ‘Bite Bigger’, ‘Give ’Em It ’Ot’. Bite Bigger, which Hartley originally sold as a penny broadsheet throughout the West Riding, writes of hurrying through town to work, and only having tuppence to give to a poor beggar; Hartley wrote extensively in poetry and prose, dealing with the poverty of the district. He edited the popular Original Illuminated Clock Almanack from 1866 [Moorman, and K.E. Smith in the Intro to England give 1867], and wrote a number of books about his character ‘Sammywell Grimes’, who ‘has a series of adventures and suffers unfortunate mishaps’. Ref Ref Holroyd, 74; Andrews 68-74; Moorman, xxxv-xxxvi, 62-7, 135-6 (gives birthdate as 1839); Smith, West; England 17, 44, 54, 63; antiquarian bookseller descriptions via Abebooks.? Harvey, William (b. 1811-74), of Edinburgh, bookseller, wrote ‘The Battle of Stirling Bridge’, pub. Poems of the Fancy and Affections (1843). Ref: Edwards, 15, 403-6. [S]Hatton, Ann Julia (1764-1838), née Kemble, other married name Curtis, born in Worcester into a theatre family, congenitally lame, later scarred by small pox, received little education, claimed to have been neglected and abandoned by her (middle class) family, married C. Curtis (d. 1817) in a union that proved bigamous and was abandoned by Curtis (though she published her first volume of poems as ‘Ann Curtis’), became an apprentice mantua maker; a newspaper advertisement in 1783 accused her family of neglect and solicited donations for her relief; lectured at James Graham’s ‘Temple of Health’; attempted suicide by poison in Westminster Abbey; was working at a bagnio in 1789, when a press report indicates she was accidentally shot in the eye; married William Hatton in 1792 and travelled to America (where she addressed the New York Democratic Society and wrote the libretto for an opera, ‘Tammany, or, the Indian Chief’ 1794), but returned to Britain and settled in Swansea in 1799, where they purchased and ran a bath house; Hatton was involved in the Swansea theatre scene and she was well-received in several roles, despite her physical disabilities; when William died (1806), Hatton ran a dancing school in Kidwelly; she returned and settled in Swansea in 1809, and claimed to receive financial assistance from her family on condition that she not come within 100 miles of them; died in relative isolation; though she was brought up protestant, ‘it is said that she died a Catholic like her father’ (ODNB). Pub: numerous novels, and the poetical volumes Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects (1783); Poetic Trifles (1811). In 1832 she sought a subscription for a third volume, to be titled Fifty-Two Poetic Cumaean Leaves. Predicting the Destiny of Ladies and Gentlemen. Ref: OCLW; ODNB; Gramich and Brennan. [F] [W] [—Katie Osborn]Hatton, Edmund (b. 1844), of Bradford, has two Yorkshire dialect poems in the England anthology: ‘Fettlin’ Neet’ and ‘Poor Barns’, and two in Holroyd including ‘Ahr Maggie’; Hatton writes autobiographically of poverty and hardship and from the evidence of his poetry seems to be a working man. Ref Holroyd, 12, 75-6; England 31, 40.Hawkins, Walter Thomas (b. 1855), of Tilbury, moved to Anna, Dumfriesshire in childhood, later a manufacturer in Huddersfield, pub. Bolter’s Barn (1888), prose works and magazine poems. Ref: Miller, 313-14. [S]Hawkins, Susannah (1787-1868), of Ecclefechan, Dumfriesshire, uneducated blacksmith’s daughter, cattle herder and dairymaid: the proprietor of the Dumfries Courier pub. her volumes for free and she sold them door to door for 50 years, travelling as far as Manchester; pub. The Rural Enthusiast, and other Poems (London, 1808); The Poetical Works (Dumfries, 1829); The Poems and Songs of Susanna Hawkins. Vol. 8. (Dumfries: W. R. M’Diarmid, 1866; vols. 1-10 appeared 1829-61); poems include ‘To the Honourable Lady Jane Johnston Doublas,’ ‘A Hymn,’ ‘To Mrs. M.,’ ‘On the Death of James Steward, Esq.’, ‘To F. C. Professor of Chemistry,’ On a Ship That was Overturned at Tynemouth in a Storm,’ ‘Satan and Falsehood,’ and, perhaps her most ambitious, ‘Art and Nature’. Ref: DNB; Miller, 238-41; Jackson (1993), 150; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Hawthorne, John, linen weaver, soldier, pub. Poems, By John Hawthorn, Light Dragoon in the Inniskilling Regiment (Salisbury, 1779; BL 11630.b.5(4), BL 11632.d.19). Ref: Lonsdale (1984), 653-6, ESTC.Hay, Alexander (b. 1826), of Newcastle upon Tyne, apprentice cabinet-maker, ship’s carpenter, tutor, journalist, songwriter. Ref: Allan, 560-4.Haynes, Lemuel (1753-1833), servant in Massachusetts, had an African father and white mother, fought in the Revolutionary war and became a preacher; poems circulated in MS but not published until 1980s. Ref: Basker, 229.? Haynes, William, cadet bandsman on the HMS Phoebe ‘at a time when all officers and cadets were required to keep a log during their voyages’. Pub. My Log. A Journal of the proceedings of the Flying Squadron. Dedicated to captain Bythesea (Devonport, 1871), a verse-log of a voyage to Australia via South America, returning via Japan. Ref John Hart, catalogue 69, item 145.? Head, Catherine (fl. 1837), sailor’s wife, poet, translator and novelist, pub. Sketches in Prose and Poetry, by K.H, (London: 1837); The Seven First Cantos of the Messiah; a poem, by Friedrich Gottlied Klopstock: translated [from the German] into English verse (1826); Rybrent de Cruce, a novel, the final vol., III, pub. 1829. Sketches was pub. by subscription, and the author expresses gratitude towards a Mrs Muspratt. Head laments that the death of a sailor does not bring an annuity to his widow as the death of a soldier would. However, it is unclear whether Head is struggling herself, writing to support sailors’ widows, or both. She appears fairly learned, having travelled with her husband and knowing several languages; the book alternates verse and prose and includes accounts of experiences in Ireland, from riots to the kindness of peasants, and comment on what life is like for sailors and their wives. Ref: works as cited; Samuel Halkett, Dictionary of Anonymous and Pseudonymous English Literature (New York: 1971), V, 236. [F] [—Dawn Whatman]Heany, James, bookbinder, author of Oxford, the Seat of the Muses (2nd edn, 1738, Dobell 2956). Ref: Dobell.Heath, George (1844-69), of Gratton, Staffordshire, known as ‘The Moorland Poet’ and ‘The Invalid Poet’, educated at village school, worked on his father’s farm, then as an apprentice builder, pub. two slim vols (Preludes, 1865; 2nd edn 1866 as Simple Poems); Heart Strains (1866), both printed locally—the latter by Mr. Hallowes of Leek); died of consumption at 25; The poems of George Heath, selected and arranged by J. Badnall, with a memoir by F. Redfern, memorial edition (1870, 2nd edn 1880). Ref: Maidment (1987), 19; Poole & Markland, 254-60; inf. Patrick Regan and the George Heath web page: ; ; , Noah (b. c. 1780), of Sneyd Green, Stoke, operative potter, later modeller and moulder, paralysed by an operation following a dog-bite, pub. Miscellaneous Poems, I (Hanley: James Amphlett, 1823) and II (Burslem: S. Brougham, 1829). Ref: Poole & Markland, 131-2; inf. Patrick Regan.Heaton, William (1801-70), handloom weaver of Halifax he was a carpet weaver for Messrs Crossley’s of Halifax for eight years (his second volume is dedicated to John Crossley), and later keeper of the People’s Par; pub. The Flowers of Calder Dale (1847), and The Old Soldier, The Wandering Lover and Other Poems, together with a sketch of the Author’s Life (London, 1857); BL 11650.d.15. Ref: LC 5, 205-20; Athenaeum, 21 August 1858, (review); Holroyd, 50-1, 70-1; Andrews, 79-81; E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, 324; Burnett et al (1984), no. 317; Vicinus (1974) 141, 149-51, 169, 177; Maidment (1987), 344-7; Vincent, 124-5, 183. [LC 5]? Heavisides, Edward Marsh (d. 1849), a young printer and poet who died of cholera, pub. The Poetical and Prose Remains, ed. by Henry Heavisides (London: Longmans, 1850), subscriber’s list mainly from NE England, printed in Stockton; first section five short chapters on the writings of Charles Dickens. Ref: inf. Bob Heyes.? Hebenton, Edward (1842-87), of East Memus, Tannardyce, Forfarshire, youngest of a large family, followed the others into ‘an early apprenticeship to toil’ but physical weakness drove him to clerical work and a solicior’s apprenticeship, later a Clerk at Register House, Edinburgh. Ref: Edwards, 7, 53-6. [S]? Hedley, George Roberts (b. 1833), of Ovington, Northumberland, farmer in the Newcastle upon Tyne area, pub. Ballads, and other poems (London, 1885). Ref: Reilly (1994), 219.Heggie, John (b. 1859), of Scotlandwells, Kinross, son of a small farmer who died when he was 15, clerk in Glasgow. Ref: Edwards, 7, 318-21. [S]Hemingway, John, shoemakr poet of Halifax, pub. a magazine poem as from a fellow worker to James Woodhouse (qv), dated 1764: ‘Verses addressed to James Woodhouse, By a Brother Craft’, pub. in Lloyd’s Evening Post, London, England, May 23rd-25th 1764, no, 1072. Ref journal as cited; inf Steve Van-Hagen.Henderson, Daniel M’Intyre (b. 1851), of Glasgow, wholesale draper, emigrated to Baltimore, book-keeper, pub. poems in local and US newspapers. Ref: Ross, 90-7; Edwards, 6, 115-20 and 12 (1889), 140-45 [this looks like an accidental duplication by Edwards: he does the entry twice, quite differently, with almost completely different poems]. [S]? Henderson, Duncan (d. 1832), grocer and correspondent of Cobbett. Ref: Brown, I, 121-26. [S]? Henderson, Fred (1867-1957), of Norwich, clothier’s son, socialist activist, poet and songwriter, journalist; pub. several books of verse, including By the Sea and other Poems (second edition, London: T. F. Unwin, 1892); poems including ‘Song of Springtide’ also appeared in anthologies; described as ‘one of the few workers who provided songs for the [socialist] movement’. Ref: Chris Waters, British Socialists and the Politics of Popular Culture 1884-1914; ; not in ODNB but has a Wikipedia entry.Henderson, William (b. 1831), of Biggar, Lanarkshire, compositor for Constable in Edinburgh, later worked in London. Ref: Edwards, 7, 278-84. [S]Henrietta, Frank (1837-83), of Glasgow, son of a handloom weaver who d. when he was five, barber, soldier, pub. Poems and Lyrics (Airdrie, 1879), and tales of soldier life in India. Ref: Edwards, 5, 165-9 and 9, xxiii; Knox, 193-7; Reilly (2000), 217. [S]Herald, Alexander (c. 1802-1865), postmaster of Guthrie, ‘suffered greatly from various maladies’, pub. Amusements of Solitude (1845). Ref: Reid, Bards, 221-2. [S]Herbert, Henry (1816?-76?), of Fairford, Gloucester, shoemaker poet, pub. Autobiography of Henry Herbert, a Gloucestershire Shoemaker and Native of Fairford [in verse] (Gloucester, 1866; second edn, Gloucester: printed for the author, 1876). Ref: Burnett et al (1984), no. 324; Reilly (2000), 219.Herbison, David (‘The Bard of Dunclug’, 1800-80), of Ballymena, County Antrim, son of an innkeeper, blinded at three, sight regained later, emigrated to Canada, survived a shipwreck, returned to Ballymena as a weaver; pub. in Ulster periodicals, and as follows: Midnight Musings (1848); The snow-wreath (Belfast and Ballymena, 1869); Children of the year, with other poems and songs (Belfast and Ballymena, 1879); The Fate of M'Quillan and O'Neill's Daughter (1841); The Woodland Wanderings (1858). Ref: Ulster DNB; Hewitt; Reilly (2000), 219. [I]Herd, Richard, shepherd of Howgill, pub. Scraps of Poetry. An Essay on Free Trade (Kirkby Lonsdale: printed by Arthur Foster, 1837); contains ‘Sir Walter Scott’ and ‘On the death of Lord Byron’, the majority of the poems composed ‘while wandering upon the lofty fells of Howgill, in his occupation as a shepherd, without pen or paper, when the ear alone was consulted...not only composed, but committed to memory, amended, and corrected in the author’s mind...as in the case of the poet Bloomfield [qv].’ Ref: Johnson, item 428.Hersee, William, ploughboy, pub. Poems Rural and Domestic (Chichester: printed by W. Mason for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, and Johnson and Co, London, 1810), contains ‘Sonnet to Mr Bloomfield’ (qv). Ref: Johnson, item 429.Hetrick, Robert (1769-1849), brought up a weaver, later became blacksmith, pub. Poems and Songs (Ayr, 1826), includes a ‘Prologue to the Gentle Shepherd’. Ref: Edwards, 4, 368-71; Johnson, item 431. [S]Heughan, Joseph (b. 1836), of Auchencairn, Kirkcudbrightshire, blacksmith who ‘early began to write verses, most of which are remarkable for the uncouth, old-fashioned Galloway words they contain, and for their richness in Biblical and classical references’. Ref: Harper, 262. [S]Hewit, John, of Auchecrow, labourer and farm-labourer, wrote songs and ballads on the ‘Witches of Edincraw’, unpublished. Ref: Crockett, 293. [S]Hewitt, Alexander (1778-1850) of Lintlaw, Bunkle, Berwickshire, sailor, ploughman, pub. Poems (Berwick, 1807). Ref: Crockett, 114-16. [S]Hewitt, James (b. 1847), born in Essex, settled in Perth as a garment dyer, pub. in the Perth Citizen, Scottish Guardian. Ref: Edwards, 1, 242-4, [S]? Hewitt, Richard (d. 1794), companion and amanuensis to the poet Blacklock (qv); author of ‘Roslin Castle’ and other Scottish lyrics. Ref: Eyre-Todd II, 86. [S]? Hick, William, Leeds Chartist, author of The Chartist Song Book. Ref: Kovalev, 89-90; Shencker, 157-8, 334; Schwab, 194. [C]Hicklin, John (b. 1805), apprenticed to a Nottingham hosiery firm, reading and writing in his leisure hours; abandoned a university course through ill-health but became joint proprietor of the Nottingham Journal. He was Secretary of the Nottingham Literary Society; later moved to Chester. Pub. Leisure Hours (Nottingham: G. Stretton, 1826), a vol. of poems and essays, and a History of Nottingham Castle. Ref Mellors.Hickling, George (‘Rusticus’, c. 1827-1909), of Cotgrave, Nottinghamshire, stocking-maker, educated at the village school, verses written ‘direct from the heart and home of one who is essentially a working man’, pub. The Mystic Land (1856); The Pleasures of Life and Other Poems (Nottingham and London, 1861). Ref: Mellors; inf. Bob Heyes; Reilly (1994), 224, Reilly (2000), 221.Hill, E.S., working man of Nottingham and elsewhere, pub. Matthew Hart’s Dream; or, Discontent Disconcerted: A Ballad for Working Men, by one of themselves (Alfreton, Derby and London, 1862); The politics of the people: rhymed reason by a radical; by one of themselves (London, 1865); Russelas: A Political Poem, for “the people”; by one of themselves (London, 1865), Melodies of the Heart: Poems (London, 1867). Ref: Reilly (2000), 222.? Hill, Mrs Robert, née Philippina Burton (fl. 1770-88), actress and playwright, widowed. She is jokingly chosen as ‘poet laureate’ (mentioned as ‘An am’rous, incoherent muse’) in the poem ‘The Petticoat Administration’ (by ‘Molly Machiavel’, in The new foundling hospital for wit. Being a collection of curious pieces in verse and prose, ed John Almon (London: 1771) The endnote to her last volume of poems notes that she was planning another publication. She published by subscription. Pub. Miscellaneous Poems, written by a Lady [Philippina Burton, afterwards Hill], being her first attempt. [With the Writer’s Autograph.] (London: 1768; 3 vol. BL 994.g.21); A Rhapsody, by Philippina Burton (London: 1769; Bodleian T.192971); an original ‘Epilogue’ from her character Constance in The Tragedy of King John in Gentlemen’s Magazine, Sept. 1770 following her well-received performance (485; ESTC no. P002032); (Poems on Several Occasions, 1775); A poem, Sacred to Freedom: and a poem, intitled, Beneficence (by ‘Mrs. Robert Hill’, Dublin, c. 1780 [BL .24]), full text on Google Books; Portraits, Characters, Pursuits and Amusements of the present fashionable world, interspersed with poetic flights of fancy (London: 1785? BL 992.g.4); The Diadem; or King David, a sacred poem; dedicated to her Majesty, (by ‘Mrs. Robert Hill’, Dublin, c. 1791 [BL Cup.408.tt.20], contains the footnote: ‘Mrs. Hill hath been advised to adopt the Christian Name of her late Husband for distinction sake’). Ref: ESTC/BLC; ECCO; Benjamin White, A new catalogue of books for the year 1770, consisting of several valuable libraries lately purchased…, item 4653. [F] [I] [—Katie Osborn]? Hill, Thomas Ford (d. 1795), son of a glove-manufacturer of Worcester, Quaker, antiquary, collector of Antient Erse poems, collected among the Scottish highlands, in order to illustrate the Ossian of Macpherson (1784). Ref: ODNB.Hird, James (1810-73), of Bingley, Yorkshire, self-taught poet, his father died when he was very young and he worked in a factory from age of six, later a brewery manager, councillor; pub. The Harp of the Willows (1834); The Prophetic Minstrel (1839); A Voice from the Muses (London and Bradford: Simpkin Marshall & Co and T. Brear, 1866). Ref: Forshaw, 84-7; Grainge, I, 241; Reilly (2000), 223; Newsham 223.Hodgson, Joseph (1783-1856), of Blackburn, handloom weaver, sometime librarian of the Mechanics’ Institute, prolific poet, ‘the earliest...of the Blackburn poets’. Ref: Hull, 17-26.Hogan, Michael (‘The Bard of Thomond’, 1832-99), of Thomond gate, County Limerick, labourer, bank governor for Limerick Corporation, pub. in The Nation and in small edition poetry pamphlets, and as follows: Lays and legends of Thomond, I (Limerick 1865); The story of Shawn-a-Scoob, Mayor of Limerick, who didn‘t know himself, nor anyone else, dedicated to the Corporation and the Catholic gentry of Limerick, by their grateful servant, the Bard of Thomond (Dublin, 1868-76, eight vols.). Ref: Reilly (2000), 226. [I]Hogg, James (1770-1835), ‘The Ettrick Shepherd’, major figure; pub. The Mountain Bard (1807), including a ‘Memoir of the Author’s Life’, and numerous other works. Ref: LC 4, 93-8; Borland, 98-126; Harp R, xlii-xliii; Miles, I, 173-210 and IX, 77-88; Macleod, 13-15; Wilson, I, 446-61; Burnett et al (1984), no. 337; Cafarelli, 84; Powell, items 244-9; Richardson, 247; Sutton, 461 (numerous manuscripts of poems and letters); Vincent, 14, 151; Valentina Bold, James Hogg: A Bard of Nature’s Making (Berne: Peter Lang, 2007); Studies in Hogg and His World (journal, ongoing). Hogg is the subject of a major multi-volume editorial project led by Edinburgh University Press and University of South Carolina Press. [LC 4] [S]Hogg, John (b. 1839), of Kirkfieldbank, Lanarkshire, handloom weaver from nine, railwayman, pithead worker, pub. in Hamilton Advertiser. Ref: Edwards, 9, 163-6. [S]Hogg, Robert (b. 1864), of Glasgow, engineer. Ref: Edwards, 7, 236-8. [S]Hogg, William (1822-89), of Cambusnethan, Wishaw, Lanarkshire, cowherd, butcher, Burns enthusiast, pub. That Hielan’ Coo, and Other Poems (Glasgow, 1892). Ref: Edwards, 6, 370-4; Reilly (1994), 227. [S]Hoggarth, James (b. 1834), of Ambleside, Westmorland, farmer’s son at Troutbeck, apprentice bobbin-manufacture, disabled by glaucoma and lost an eye, moved to Kendal, pub. Echoes from years gone by (Kendal, 1892). Ref: Reilly (1994), 227.Holcroft, Thomas (1745-1809), shoemaker, English Jacobin, wrote Memoirs of the late Thomas Holcroft, written by Himself, and continued to the Time of his Death from his Diary (1816), and numerous popular comedies and some prose tales: Elegies. I. On the death of Samuel Foote, Esq. II. On Age (1777); Duplicity. A comedy (1781); The Family Picture; or domestic dialogues on amiable subjects (1783); Human Happiness: or the Sceptic. A poem in six cantos (1783); Songs, duets, glees, choruses &c. in the comic opera of The Noble Peasant (1784); The Choleric Fathers: a comic opera (1785); Seduction; a comedy (1787); The School for Arrogance. A comedy (1791); Anna St. Ives (1792); The Road to Ruin, A comedy (1792); Heigh-ho! for a Husband (Dublin, 1794); Love’s Frailties. A comedy in five acts (1794); The adventures of Hugh Trevor (1794-97); A letter to the Right Hon. W. Windham in the intemperance and dangerous tendency of his public conduct (1795); A Man of Ten Thousand. A comedy (1796); Knave or not? A Comedy in Five Acts (1798); A Tale of Mystery, a melodrama (1802); Hear both Sides. A Comedy (1803); Travels from Hamburg through Westphalia, Holland, and the Netherlands, to Paris (1804); The Lady of the Rock, a melo-drama in two acts (1805); Memoirs of Bryan Perdue. A novel (1805); The Theatrical Recorder (periodical publication, 1805-6); Tales in verse; critical, satirical and humorous (1806); The Vindictive Man: a comedy (1806); Gaffer Gray. A favourite song (n.d.); The Deserted Daughter (n.d.). Ref: ODNB; Winks, 304-8; Craik, I, 407-116; Meyenberg, 213; Sutton, (manuscript, receipt, letters); Hobsbawm & Scott.Holder, Reuben (b. 1797), of Bradford, according to Vicinus ‘a licensed hawker who had started life as a trapper boy at five years, later became a brickmaker, and finally a seller of fish and poetry. As a strong teetotaller before the temperance movement, he wrote many poems against drink’ (24). Wrote numerous poems on contemporary and local events, as well as several regarding labor issues, especially ‘The New Starvation Law Examined – on the New British Bastiles’, online here: . Ref: Vicinus, 24-5; inf. Bridget Keegan.Holdsworth, Israel (b. 1816), of Armley, Leeds, weaver, bookkeeper, bookseller, pub. The ivy wreath; being original poems (Leeds: printed & published by the Author, 1854) [BL]; The literary pic-nic, and other poems (Leeds, 1872). Ref: LC 5, 335-48; Reilly (2000), 227; COPAC. [LC 5]Holkinson, Jacob (b. 1822), three weeks only of formal education, worked in a tobacco works from age 7, later farmworker and in the textile trade, pub. some of his poems in ‘various periodicals’; his autobiography, ‘The Life of Jacob Holkinson, Tailor and ‘Poet’ pub in The Commonwealth, 24, January 31st 1857 . Ref Burnett et al (1984), no. 340. [S]? Hollamby, John, pub. The unlettered muse (Hailsham, 1828), includes list of subscribers. Ref: Johnson, item 446.Holland, Joseph, farm labourer, pub: An Appendix to the Season of Spring, in the Rural Poem, ‘‘The Farmer’s Boy’’ (Croydon, 1806). Ref: Johnson, item 454.Holloway, William (1761-1854), of Dorset, but moved to London in 1798 and remained the rest of his life, retiring in Hackney village in north London; friend and imitator of Robert Bloomfield (qv); trained as a journeyman printer; worked at the East India House and was a colleague of Charles Lamb; author of The Peasant’s Fate: a Rural Poem (London: Vernor and Hood, 1802; 4th edn 1821); The British Museum, or Elegant Repository of Natural History (prose work, with John Branch, London, 1803-4); The Chimney-Sweeper’s Complaint (1806, available on ); The Minor Minstrel; or, Poetical Pieces, chiefly Familiar & descriptive (1808), includes ‘The Desolate Village—A Sketch from Nature’, ‘William the Thresher ’ and ‘To Robert Bloomfield on the Abolition of the Slave Trade’; ‘To Mr Bloomfield’ and other poems in Bloomfield, Remains (1824), I, 166-71. Ref: LC 4, 29-46; Barrell & Bull, 409-12; Sambrook, 1360. [LC 4] [—Katie Osborn]? Holmes, Gilbert (b. 1868), of Paisley, colour dyer’s son, shopboy, engineer, poems in Brown. Ref: Brown, II, 518-24. [S]Holroyd, Abraham (b. 1815), of Bradford, handloom weaver, soldier, editor and stationer, financially helped by Titus Salt, pub. poems in Yorkshire papers amd edited poetry vols, inc. A Garland of Poetry (Saltire, Bradford: 1873); pub. the local journal, The Bradfordian, providing an important outlet for local and dialect poets. Ref: Holroyd, 29; Andrews, 177-81 (citing William Smith, Old Yorkshire, II, 230-5); Forshaw, 88-97 (includes print of the poet); England, 7, 64; Vicinus (1974), 161, 171.Holt, Jane, née Wiseman (d. 1717), playwright, servant to William Wright, recorder of Oxford, apparently had access to his extensive library; pub. The Fairy Tale…With Other Poems (1717); her Antiochus the Great acted at Lincoln’s Inn Fields in 1702. Ref: LC 1, 33-46; Lonsdale (1989), 72-3; Backscheider & Ingrassia, 876. [F] [LC 1]Holyoake, George Jacob (‘Ion’, 1817-1906), Birmingham tinsmith and whitesmith, Chartist, secularist, imprisoned for blasphemy, pub. Blasts from Bradlaugh’s own trumpet: ballads, extracts, cartoons, versified, selected and sketched by ‘Ion’ (London, 1882), Songs of love & sorrow (Manchester and London, 1887). Ref: Reilly (1994), 229. [C]Home, James (d. 1868), dry-stone dyker and poet. Ref: Shanks, 154-6. [S]? Hood, Thomas (1799-1845), engraver, humorist, author of The Song of the Shirt (1843). Nearly all of his writings first appeared in middle-class magazines and annuals: The Gem, London Magazine, the Athenaeum, New Monthly Magazine, and Punch. Pub Comic Annuals (1830-9), collected writings in Whims and Oddities (1826-1827) and Whimsicalities (1844). Ref: ODNB; Schenker, 159-60, 334; Goodridge (1999); item 54, LION; Miles, III, 215 & IX, 249-70; Ricks, 66-74. Hopkin [Hopcyn], Lewis (fl. 1720s), of Llabedr-ar-fynydd, Welsh carpenter poet, later settled at Hendre-Ifan-Goch; one of the Glamorgan Grammarians, possibly bardic tutor of Iolo Morganwyg and Edward Evans. Pub: Y Fel Gafod (1812). Ref: OCLW, inf. Tim Burke. [W]? Horn, Miss Margaret, pub. poem, ‘Suspension Bridge,’ issued from The Poet’s Box, Glasgow. Ref: inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Horsfield, Louisa Adelaide (1830-65), the wife of a collier at Blacker Hill, Barnsley, pub. The Cottage Lyre: Being Miscellaneous Poetry (Leeds: J. Parrott, 1862), two editions. Ref: Holroyd, 116; ABC, 516-18; Reilly (2000), 232. Link: wcwp [F]Horsley, James (d. 1891), of Alnwick, orphaned in Newcastle, worked as a stable boy, cabin boy, journalist/writer, songwriter. Pub. Lays of Jesmond Dene (1891; copy at NTU). There is a tribute in Matthew Tate’s (qv) Songs, Poems and Ballads (1898), in a poem addressed to ‘Jesmond Dene’ (a ribbon of wooded parkland following the southward course of the river Ouseburn, which joins the Tyne to the east of Newcastle): ‘I thought upon poor Horsley too / ’Mong local bards there’s none were sweeter / How oft he’d rove thy mazes through / And wove together links of metre; / How often thou hadst been his god, / Bear witness, oh, his book of carols, / He’s sleeping now beneath the sod, / reposing on his well-won laurels’ (ll. 17-24, p. 166). Ref: Allan, 495-501.Hosken, James Dryden, postman poet of Helston, Cornwall, pub. Phaeon and Sappho, and Nimrod [two verse-dramas] (London: Macmillan, 1892); Verses by the Way with a Critical and Biographical Introduction by ‘Q’ [Hosken’s fellow Cornishman Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (London: Methuen, [1893]). Charles Cox offers an interesting sidenote: under the name of Charles Granville, Hoskens’ brother, a double bigamist and convicted fraudster, was briefly the publisher of Ezra Pound and Katherine Mansfield. Ref: inf. Bob Heyes; Charles Cox, catalogue 68 (2015), item 75; NTU (one of a hand-numbered limited edition, 27/75; it also has press cuttings pasted on the front endpapers).Hossack, Annie Dennison, of Burray, Orkney, domestic servant, dressmaker. Ref: Edwards, 12, 182-5. [F] [S]Houlding, Henry (d. 1901), of Burnley, factory worker, journalist, pub., an account of a foot journey to London, and Poems (Burnley, 1874). Ref: Reilly (2000), 233.Howard, Nathaniel, a charity boy, Bickleigh Vale, with other poems (York, 1804). Ref: Johnson, item 465.Howatson, Bella (b. 1863), of Tarbrax, coachman and surfacemen’s daughter, educated until age fourteen, and learned to love poetry and folk-lore from her mother. She became a farm servant at 16, but later returned home to help her mother, and published in local newspapers such as the Hamilton Advertiser and the Annandale Observer. Her verses include ‘Another Baby,’ ‘The Dying Child’s Words,’ ‘Dreamland,’ ‘Only,’ and ‘His Last Look’. Ref: Edwards, 11, 162; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Howden, Robert (b. 1776), wrote numerous unpublished poems including the satirical ‘The Raven and Mavis’, and the humorous story, The King’s Welcome to Edinburgh (1822). Ref: Edwards, 2, 34-6. [S]? Howden, Walter Cranston (b. 1851), of Penicuik, later of Dundee, watchmaker and jeweller, pub. in Chamber’s Journal, the Quiver, People’s Friend and other magazines. Ref: Reid, Bards, 227-8; Edwards, 4, 354-60. [S]Howell, John (1774-1830), ‘Ioan ab Ywel’, ‘Ioan Glandyfroedd’, apprenticed as a weaver. Edited anthology Blodau Dyfed [‘The Flowers of Dyfed’, OCLW] (1824); the first attempt to anthologize welsh poets regionally; Blodau includes poetry by Ieuan Brydydd Hir (Evan Evans, qv), Eliezer Williams, Daniel Ddu o Geredigion (Daniel Evans), Iaco ab Dewi (James Davies), Edward Richard, and Ioan Siengcin (John Jenkins), all Anglicans; also pub. other titles in Welsh. Ref: OCLW; ODNB/DNB. [W] [—Katie Osborn]Hoyle, William (1831-86), of Rossendale, Lancashire, cotton spinner, temperance Reformer, vegetarian, pub. Daisy ballads and recitations (London and Manchester, 1891). Ref: ODNB; Reilly (1994), 235.Huddleston, Robert (1814-1887), of Moneyreagh, pub. A Collection of Poems and Songs on Rural Subjects (1844); A Collection of Poems and Songs on Different Subjects (1846); and numerous poems in Ulster Magazine (1860-63). Ref ODNB; Hewitt. [I]? Hudson, Thomas (b. 1791), publican-entertainer, comic songwriter/singer and broadside balladeer, stationer, grocer, tea-dealer, music seller; kept the Kean’s head tavern in Covent Garden. Pub. at least fourteen collections of comic songs from c. 1818-32 including Comic Songs (Printed by Gold and Walton for T. Hudson, 1818); Songs (1820); Comic Songs: Collection the Third (1825). Ballad titles show a predictable mixture of stock ‘types’ and topical references, e.g. ‘The Petticoat and Breeches’, ‘Billy Bumpkin’s Peep at the Coronation’, ‘The Dog’s Meat Man’, ‘The Age of New Inventions’. Ref: Hepburn, I, 43; II, 429-30, 554 notes; Charles Cox, Catalogue 68 (2015), items 78-82.Hugh, Alexander (b. 1854), of Kirkcaldy, grocer, pub. poems in the newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 13, 232-4. [S]Hughes, John Ceiriog (1832-87), Welsh railwayman, born at Llanarmon Dyffryn Ceiriog, friend and mentee of R. J. Derfel, ‘Creuddynfab’ (William Williams), and Robert Davies (all qqv); pub. Oriau'r Hwyr (1860), Oriau'r Bore (1862), Cant o Ganeuon (1863), Y Bardd a'r Cerddor (1865), Oriau Eraill (1868), Oriau'r Haf (1870), Oriau Olaf (1888). Author of ‘what is probably the best-loved poem in the Welsh language’, quoted in relation to the Gleision Mine tragedy, September 2011: ‘Aros mae’r mynyddau mawr, / Thuo trostyny mae y gwynt’, ‘The mighty hills unchanging stand, / tireless the winds across them blow’. Ref: Jan Morris, The Guardian, 16 September 2011; OCLW. [W]? Hugman, John, of Halesworth, itinerant tanner, travelled the south-east selling his own books and prints as he went; pub. Original poems, in the moral, heroic, pathetic, and other styles, by a traveller (fourth edition, Cambridge, 1825; seventeenth edition, Halesworth, 1825); total of eighteen editions between 1825 and 1836, mainly published around the south-east (mostly in Suffolk), ‘an interesting example of wide circulation being due not...to the merit of the work but to unprecedented efforts at distribution by the author’ (Johnson); Charles Lamb owned a copy. Ref: Johnson, item 469, Cranbrook, 208-9; inf. Bob Heyes.? Huish, Alexander, Chartist poet, author of ‘The Radical’s Litany’. Ref: Sheckner, 161-2. [C]? Hull, George (b. 1863), of Blackburn, clerk, son of a coal merchant, school educated, author of The heroes of the heart, and other lyrical poems (Preston and London, 1894); (ed) Poets and Poetry of Blackburn (Blackburn, 1902). Ref: Hull, xii-xxxii, Maidment (1987), 170-1, 277-8, Reilly (1994), 236.Humbles, John (fl. 18260, a Bedfordshire peasant, pub. Thoughts on the Creation, Fall, and Regeneration, ed. Jeremiah Holmes Wiffen (1826). Ref DNB and Wikipedia ‘Wiffen’ entries.? Hume, Alexander (1811-1859), of Edinburgh, chairmaker, chorister, musician and poet. Published frequently in Edinburgh's Scottish Press and edited The Lyric Gems of Scotland (1856), ‘to which he made over fifty contributions of his own’ (ODNB). Ref: ODNB; Glasgow Poets, 305-09; Ulster Magazine, Jan 1863. [S]? Hunter, Andrew (fl. 1921), of Airdrie, police sergeant, staff member at the Coatbridge Gas Light Company. Ref: Knox, 121-43, [S] [OP]Hunter, Charles Fergus (b. 1846), apprentice tinsmith, railwayman, pub. poems in The Scotsman. Ref: Edwards 9, 30-2. [S]Hunter, James (b. 1830), calico printer’s tearer, baker, restauranteur, spent time in Canada; poems in Macleod. Ref: Macleod, 219-25. [S]? Hunter, John (1807-85), of Tealing, ‘The Mountain Muse’, mason, teacher, preacher to the Chartist congregation, later a congregationalist minister; chaplain in the Poorhouse, Old Machar. Ref: Reid, Bards, 228-9. [S] [C]Hunter, Robert (b. 1854), of Hawick, powerloom tuner, pub. poems in newspapers and Masonic Magazine. Ref: Edwards, 3, 250-3 [S]Huntington, William (1745-1813), former surname “Hunt,” illegitimate tenth son of a Kentish labourer, worked as a servant and numerous other occupations, Methodist preacher; changed his name from Hunt after an affair went sour. Pub. The Kingdom of Heaven Taken by Prayer (1784); God the Guardian of the Poor and the Bank of Faith (2 pts, 1785–1802); The Naked Bow, or, A Visible Display of the Judgments of God on the Enemies of Truth (1794); and posthumously, Gleanings of the Vintage, 2 vols., 1814; Posthumous Letters, three vols. in 1815 and one in 1822. Collected letters published in Epistles of Faith (2 pts, 1785–97); Living Testimonies (2 pts, 1794–1806); Correspondence between Noctua Aurita and Philomela (1799); The Spiritual Birth. A divine poem (1789), and many sermons and other items. Ref: Unwin 77; ODNB; E. Hopp, The Celebrated Coalheaver (1871). [—Katie Osborn]? Hurn, David, farmer of Holbeach, Lincolnshire, pub. Rural Rhymes, or, a collection of epistolary, humorous and descriptive pieces (Spalding and London, 1813). Ref: Clare, Early Poems, I, 567n102-3, 573n302-3, II, 323-4 and note.Hurrey, John (fl. 1845), of Spalding, son of a fisherman; later became a clerk and a potato salesman in London, before emigrating to Australia where he died shortly after. Pub. The Cottager's Sabbath and other poems (Spalding: Thomas Albin and London: C.A. Bartlett, 1845). Ref inf. Rodney and Pauline Lines, from the Old Lincolnshire Magazine, 1883-5.Hutcheon, Rebecca (b. 1851), of Bowglens, at head of Glen of Drumtochty, in the parish of Fordoun; aged 8 began work as cowherder, and since then did housework, lived in Aberdeen; verses include ‘Childhood’s Days,’ ‘Life—A Journey.’ Ref: Edwards, 3, 223; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Hutchinson, John. (b. 1851), of Links, Kirkcaldy, glass-worker, sailcloth tenter, pub. How to make life worth living, or golden thoughts in prose and verse (R. Symon, 1889; 108 pp). Ref: Edwards, 13, 183-6. [S]Hutton, Mary née Taylor (b. 1794), of Sheffield, wife of a poor penknife cutler, was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, one of the six children of William Taylor, who worked as a servant of Lord Cathcart, and Mary Parry, a Roman-Catholic who was the governess-nurse for the family of Lord Howe. When her family moved to London, Mary’s delicate health forced her to remain in Wakefield. She moved to Sheffield some years later, and there met Michael Hutton, a pen-knife cutler nearly twenty-five years her elder, who had two children from a previous marriage. After a ‘very brief courtship,’ they married in Sheffield. We know very little about Mary's life after her marriage to Michael Hutton, but what little we know of her life and work, we know from two contemporary middle-class male writers. The first is Newsam, and the second is the preface to Hutton’s first work, Sheffield Manor and Other Poems, written by John Holland. ~ In 1830, Hutton wrote a letter to Holland, the author of Flowers from Sheffield Park (1827), appealing to him to publish a volume of her poetry. Before she wrote to Holland, Hutton—who published her first poems in the Sheffield Iris—had already applied to James Montgomery (qv), a local publisher, who had told her he would publish her volume if she could find subscribers. In her letter to Holland, Hutton wrote ‘But, alas! Sir, I could not procure subscribers. Poor, friendless, and unknown, very few would patronize me’ (Sheffield Manor, vi). Holland writes in the preface to Sheffield Manor that he was intrigued by the ardour of Hutton's letter, and that he decided to meet her in person. He found that she was living in Butcher’s Buildings, Norris-Field, ‘the wife of a pen-knife cutler, whose lot, it seems, had constituted no exception to the occasional want of employment and paucity of income, so common with many of his class. A son (not residing with them) and a daughter—the children of a former wife, composed the family’ (ix). Holland describes Hutton’s poems as consisting, ‘for the most part, of allusions, in a style of easy and pleasing versification, and generally correct in sentiment, to scenery and subjects with which the present writer has long been familiar’ (viii). But Hutton also tackled larger issues in her verse, including American slavery, the New Poor Law, and the Russian occupation of Poland. ~ The final record we have of Hutton’s life is the 1851 England census entry, in which Hutton (age 59 and by then widowed) listed her occupation as ‘Poetess.’ Pub. Sheffield Manor, and other poems (Sheffield, 1831); The Happy Isle; and other poems (1836); Cottage Tales and poems (1842, full text available on Google books). Ref: LC 5, 25-42; John Holland, ‘Preface’, Sheffield Manor and Other Poems. Sheffield Manor and Other Poems (Sheffield: J. Blackwell, 1831); Newsam, ; Ashraf (1978), I, 38; Jackson (1993), 170; Ian Haywood, The Literature of Struggle: An Anthology of Chartist Fiction (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1995). Link: wcwp [F] [LC 5] [—Meagan Timney]Hyslop, James (1798-1827), sometimes ‘Hislop’, of Kirkconnel, Dumfriesshire, illegitimate child, self-taught famrworker and shepherd, schoolmaster on board a man-of-war, wrote ‘The Cameronian’s Dream’ (1825) and other poems about the Covenanters; pub. Poems, with a Sketch of his life by the Rev Peter Mearns (Glasgow: Wright, 1887). Ref: Shanks, 129-35; Hood, 424; Edwards, 7, 73-82; Miller, 226-30; Wilson, II, 181-90. [S]Hyslop, John (1837-92), of Kirkland, Dumfriesshire, landworker, engineering apprentice, letter carrier, known as ‘The Postman Poet’, pub. The dream of a masque, and other poems (Kilmarnock, 1882), Memorial volume of John Hyslop, the postman poet, ed. by William Johnson (Kilmarnock, 1895). Ref: Edwards, 4, 281-5 and 16, [lix]; Reilly (1994), 239; Murdoch, 313-16. [S]Hyslop, Mrs Sarah Jane, née Stewart (b. 1845), of Highland ancestry, raised in Loch Earn, Perthshire; educated until age 12, but at the death of both parents became a servant, age 13; sister of John Joseph Smale Stewart (qv); married the Kilmarnock postman-poet John Hyslop (qv), settled in Kilmarnock, and raised their children; poems include ‘Marion Neville: A Tale of Windsor in the Days of Queen Mary of England’. Ref: Edwards, 4, 348-53; Memorial volume of John Hyslop, the postman poet, ed. William Johnson (Kilmarnock, 1895), includes some of her poems and a short biography; inf. Kaye Kossick and Florence Boos. [F] [S]Ibbett, William Joseph, poetical postman, with a particular predilection for private printings—had a press of his own, and used other private presses, a friend of Buxton Forman, pub. Poems by Antaeus (privately published, n.p., 1889), first edn. Ref: inf. Bob Heyes; Charles Cox, Catalogue 42 (2001).? Illingworth, John (b. 1846), of Allerton, Yorkshire, farmer, dialect poet, limited schooling; Holroyd prints ‘Towd Man’s Address to t’ Wife’, a sentimental poem reminiscent of the opening of Bloomfield’s ‘Richard and Kate’, written in an autobiographical style; pub. a pamphlet of four poems, Echoes of the Harp of Ebor (Bradford, 1870); also pub. temperance and dialect poems in local annuals and almanacks. Ref Holroyd, 63; Forshaw, 98-100.Ince, Thomas (1850-1902), of Bingley, Yorkshire, son of a soldier, educated in Wigan Union Workhouse, worked as a collier and labourer, studied medical botany, became a herbalist, moved to Blackburn, pub. Beggar Manuscripts: An Original Miscellany in Verse and Prose (Blackburn, 1888). Ref: Forshaw, 101-6 (includes a print of the poet); Burnett et al (1984), no. 367; Hull, 320-4; Maidment (1987), 270-2, 348-50; Reilly (1994), 240.Inglis, John (1813-87), of Hearthstone, Tweedsmuir, Peeblesshire, shepherd, later Edinburgh businessman, pub. Poems and songs (Edinburgh, 1866). Ref: Edwards, 5, 161-5 and 12, xxii; Reilly (2000), 241. [S]Inglis, John (b. 1857), of Hawick, Roxburghshire, framework knitter, tweed factory worker, emigrated to U.S. but returned, pub. The border land, and other poems (Kelso, 1879). Ref: Reilly (2000), 241. [S]Inglis, Robert Stirling (1835-86), of Heriot, Midlothian, shepherd’s son, shepherd, pub. Whisperings from the Hillside (Edinburgh, 1886; 2nd end 1888). Ref: Edwards, 10, 297-8; Reilly (1994), 241. [S]Ingram, William (1765-1849), of Cuminestown, Aberdeenshire, weaver, schoolmaster, pub. Poems in the English and Scottish Dialects (Aberdeen, 1812). Ref: Edwards, 12, 393-6. [S]Inskip, Thomas (c. 1780-1849), of Kimbolton, Northamptonshire, watchmaker, friend of Robert Bloomfield and John Clare (qqv), wrote ‘Epitaph on Robert Bloomfield,’ Bloomfield, Remains, I, 184-5; Cant, A Satire (1843), and other poems published in the Bedfordshire press; Amateur archaeologist and collector of roman relics, his collection now in Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. His unpublished letters to Clare are in Northamptonshire Central Library, MS NMS 54, and in the BL, Egerton 2250. Inskip died of cholera in Hastings. Ref: MS sources as indicated; Powell, item 261 (this copy contains a verse-letter from Inskip to Clare); Bloomfield Circle; not in ODNB.Ironside, Daniel (b. 1825), of Bonnykelly, New Deer, cattle herder, joiner, religious poet. Ref: Edwards, 10, 400-2. [S]Irwin, Anne (b. 1835), of Slade, Ilfracombe, domestic servant, author of Combe Flowers: Poems, ed. by Elizabeth Marriott (Ilfracombe: John Tait, 1878, 2nd edn 1879); Autumn Berries: poems (Ilfracombe, 1889). Ref: Wright, 268-9, Reilly (1994), 242, Reilly (2000), 242, Bob Heyes. [F]Isacke, John, self-taught lodge-keeper of Stroud; pub. Leisure Hours (Stroud, 1859). Ref: Bob Heyes; Jarndyce, Cat. CLXIX, item 481, offering two manuscript poetry books.Isherwood, Gideon (b. 1860), of Blackburn, plumber, water inspector, later an invalid, pub. poems in the newspapers. Ref: Hull, 414-16.? Jackson, Ferdinando, calico weaver of Rainow, Cheshire, pub. Poems, Descriptive and Miscellaneous (Macclesfield, 1829). Ref: Johnson, item 485.? Jackson, John (fl. 1807-10), of Harrop Wood, near Macclesfield, friend of Bloomfield and other shoemakers, pub. An Address to Time, with other poems (Macclesfield: J. Wilson; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme, 1807); second edition of 1808 has an appendix of letters to friends including Bloomfield, who had sent him a copy of The Farmer’s Boy; copy described by Johnson (487) includes a letter ‘To Mr. G--, Shoemaker, Liverpool’. Also pub. Barythymia, a poem addressed to the Sons and Daughters of Adversity (1810). Ref: Johnson, 486-7; Bloomfield Circle, letters 205, 205a.? James, James (1832-1902), Welsh weaver and co-author with his father of the Welsh national anthem; pub. collections in Welsh. Ref: DNB. [W]? James, Joseph, confectioner, pub. The Workman’s Sabbath and other poems (London: Partridge & Oakey, 1859), 24 pages. Ref: Google Books (Goodridge (1999), item 59 may be another James Joseph).James, Maria (1795-1845), Welsh-speaker, emigrated with her family from Snowdonia to the USA aged seven to join a community of Welsh quarry workers in New York State; worked as a servant, apprentice lacemaker, servant again, to the Garretson family, who appear to have encouraged and patronised her poems, which were published in local magazines and newspapers; pub. Wales and Other Poems (New York: John S. Taylor, 1839; online via Google Books), edited and introduced by A. Potter, DD, of Union College, New York; they ‘offer rare and interesting insights into the experience of a nineteenth-century working-class woman poet’. Also included in Gramich and Brennan. Ref: Gramich and Brennan, 96-102, 399-400. [W] [F]? James, Nicholas, author of ‘The Complaints of Poverty’ (using the pronoun ‘we’ for the poverty-stricken), pub. in his Poems on Several Occasions (Truro, 1742). Ref: Lonsdale (1984), 342-3, 846n.? Japp, Alex H. (b. 1837), of Dun, Brechin, carpenter’s son, draper, attended Edinburgh University and became a journalist, pub. numerous prose works, and poems in newspapers and magazines. Ref: Edwards, 2, 106-11. [S]Jardine, James (b. 1852), of Broadmeadow, Ecclefechan, orphan, tweed factory worker, Hawick tweed merchant. Ref: Edwards, 2, 239-41. [S]Jeffrey, Agnes (b. 1848), of Peebleshire, raised in Stobo, where her father was employed by Montgomery family; at 13 left school and became a domestic servant until she married in 1875. Poems include ‘Jimmie Jenkins,’ ‘Balm and Briar,’ ‘Homely Things,’ and ‘Nae Freen’s Like Auld Freen’s.’ Ref: Edwards, 9, 337-40; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Jeffrey, William Duthie (1845-92), of Fyvie, herd laddie, sawyer, shoemaker. Ref: Edwards, 8, 103-9. [S]Jeffryes, Alexander E. (b. 1874), of Dysart, Fifeshire, house-painter. Ref: Edwards, 14, 219-26. [S]Jennings, James (b. 1772), of Huntspill, Somerset, lacked formal education, worked in a Bristol chemist’s shop, encouraged by Southey, pub. newspaper essays in the Spectator, poems in magazines, and three vols, The Times, A Satirical Rhapsody (1794), Poems, consisting of the Mysteries of Mendip, the magic Ball, Sonnets, Retrospective Wanderings, and other pieces (1810), and The Prospects of Africa, and other Poems (1814). Ref Meyenberg, 214.Jewell, Joseph (1763-1846), of Stanford, Oxfordshire, farmworker, smuggler, ostler, working chemist, mother died at ten, pub. in verse A Short Sketch of a Long Life, accompanied by a Few Useful Hints (Newbury: printed by M.W. Vardy, 1840; Hereford: printed by Joseph Jones, 1846). Ref COPAC; copies in BL, Cardiff U and Society of Friends Library.Jewitt, Arthur (1772-1852), of Sheffield, cutler, schoolmaster, exciseman, better known as a topographer and miscellaneous writer but also a poet, author of ‘Peak Rhapsody’, a celebrated lyric on the beauties of the peak district, later set to music. Ref Burnett et al (1984), no. 384; ODNB; Wikipedia.Job, William, gardener of Bristol, pub. Poems on Various Subjects (1785). Ref: LC 3, 45-50; Alan Richardson, ‘Darkness Visible? Race and Representation in Bristol Abolitionist Poetry, 1770-1810’, in Romanticism and Colonialism: Writing and Empire, ed. Peter Kitson and Timothy Fulford (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 129-47. [LC 3]Jobling, Charlotte (fl. 1881), b. Belfast, lived in Glasgow, sailor’s daughter, pub. poems in the Glasgow Herald; widowed and moved back to Ireland, where she lived near Dublin; poet and folklorist; poems include ‘Overdue,’ ‘Blow Him Home,’ ‘At Her Feet,’ ‘Winifred Lee,’ ‘Liars,’ and the Scots ‘Pedlar’s Cream’. Ref: Edwards, 8 (1885), 296-302; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [I] [S]? Johnson, Mary F. (fl. 1810 d. 1863), of Wroxall Farm, Isle of White, described herself in her volumes as a ‘secluded, unkown and inexperienced female’; pub. Original Sonnets and Other Poems (1810). Ref Meyenberg, 214; A Century of Sonnets: The Romantic Revival, 1750-1850, ed. Paula R. Feldman and Daniel Robinson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 138-9. [F]Johnston, Ellen (c. 1835-1873), daughter of a stonemason who left his family to emigrate to the United States, where he committed suicide; her mother supported herself and her child as a dressmaker and milliner. At age eleven Johnston was forced by her stepfather to begin work in a factory, and she continued as a powerloom weaver for most of her life; pub. Autobiography, Poems and Songs of Ellen Johnston, The Factory Girl (Dundee; Glasgow: W. Love, 1867; second edition 1869). Ref: LC 6, 101-30; ODNB; Wilson, II, 525-6; Burnett et al (1984), no. 389; Swindells, Julia, Victorian Writing and Working Women (Polity Press, 1985); Maidment (1987), 19; Boos (1995); Klaus (1998); ABC, 574-5; Reilly (2000), 249; Bradshaw, 287-8; H. Gustav Klaus, ‘New Light on Ellen Johnston, “The Factory Girl”’, Notes and Queries, 55, no. 4 (2008), 430-3; Boos (2008), 195-219; Simmons, 301-24, 366-90; inf. Florence Boos, Gustav Klaus. Link: wcwp [LC 6] [F] [S]Johnston, James (b. 1849), of Whitburn, plasterer. Ref: Edwards, 3, 335-6. [S]Johnston, James John (b. 1862), of Shetland, seaman's son, clerk, pub. in periodicals. Ref: Edwards, 5 (1883), 238-41. [S]Johnston, James M, a Belfast working man, pub. Jottings in verse (Belfast, 1887). Ref: Reilly (1994), 251. [I]Johnston, John (1781-1880), of Clackleith, Sanquhar, Dumfriesshire, sheep-farmer’s son, soldier, schoolmaster, pub. Lord Nelson: a poem, with a biographical sketch of his [Johnson’s] life by A.B. Todd (London, 1874). Ref: Reilly (2000), 249. [S]Johnstone, Alexander, of Paisley (fl. c. ?1840), gardener, no separate collection. Ref: Brown, II, 384-86. [S]? Johnstone, James, stonemason and verse-writer, father of Ellen Johnston (qv), went to America. Ref: Valentine Cunningham, The Victorians (Blackwell, 2000), 749. [S]? Johnstone, Jeannie (b. c. 1870), of Paisley, gardener’s daughter, After attending the John Neilson Institution, Miss Johnstone began work in a warehouse, and published poems locally. Ref: Brown, II, 526-28; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Johnstone, John Craighouse (1761-1846), agricultural labourer, ?shoemaker, pub. Poems on various subjects but chiefly illustrative of the manners and superstitions of Annandale (Dumfries, 1820), Poems on various subjects, with additional poems and a memoir of the author (1857). Ref: Brown, I, 24-26; Winks, 313; Johnson, item 494. [S]Johnstone, Thomas (1812-70), of Paisley, apprenticed to watchmaker, unsuccessful so became a soldier and served in America, worked in a store in Liverpool and served as drill instructor, pub. posthumous collection, A Soldier’s Thoughts in Verse and Prose, with prefatory note by James M’Naught (Edinburgh, 1871). Ref: Brown, I, 24-26; Reilly (2000), 250. [S]Jones, Christopher, (fl. 1775-82), journeyman woolcomber, author of Sowton. A Village Conference: Occasioned by a Late Law decision (Crediton, 1775); The Miscellaneous Poetic Attempts of...an Uneducated Journeyman Wool-Comber (Exon./London: Freeman/Kearsley, [1786]), ‘by C. or G. Jones’. Ref: LC 2, 303-30; Monthly Review, 74 (1786), 146-7; Critical Review, 61 (1786), 398; Jackson (1985). [LC 2]? Jones, Ebenezer (1820-60), Calvinist parentage; school educated; family reduced to poverty; ‘spasmodic’ poet, Chartist, pub. Studies in Sensation and Event (1843), fuller edition with life pub. 1879. Ref: Kovalev, 127-9; James, 172; Ashraf (1975), 200-8; Maidment (1987), 39; Scheckner, 165-7, 335; Schwab; DNB; Miles, V, 18; Ricks, 162-4. [C]? Jones, Ernest [Charles] (1819-68), ‘spasmodic’ poet, Chartist. Through George Julian Harney (qv) met Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx. Co-edited The Labourer (chartist land plan journal) with Feargus O'Connor. After two-year imprisonment, took sole leadership of journals Notes to the People (1851–2) and?The People's Paper (1852–8). Pub. poems in The Northern Star; The Battle Day and Other Poems (1855). Ref: ODNB; Kovalev, 135-79; James, 172-3; Vicinus (1974), 100-2; Ashraf (1975), 193-99; Burnett et al (1984), 359 (no. 817); Maidment (1987), 44-6, 67-73, 195-6; Rizzo, 242; Sheckner, 168-224, 335-6; Janowitz, esp. 173-94; Miles, IV, 547; Ricks, 326-7. [C]Jones, Henry (1721–1770), born at Beaulieu, near Drogheda, bricklayer poet, patron of Lord Chesterfield, pub. Vectis: The Isle of Wight, a poem, in three cantos (London, 1766; 2nd edn without ‘Vectis’, Isle of Wight: J. Mallet, 1782); Poems on Several Occasions (1749), numerous successful plays, The Relief, or, Day Thoughts, a Poem Occasion'd by ‘The Complaint, or, Night Thoughts’ (1754), “and several loco-descriptive pieces”: Kew Garden (1763), The Isle of Wight (1766), Clifton (1767), and Shrewsbury Quarry (1769). Ref: ODNB; LC 2, 1-40; Tinker, 95-7; Rizzo, 242; Christmas, 130-56; C. R. Johnson, cat. 49 (2006), item 33; Keegan (2008), 70-75. [LC 2] [I]Jones, Henry, Irish shoemaker, pub. Lucy a Dramatic Poem (c. 1775). Ref Christmas, 297-8. [I]? Jones, John (fl. 1610-54), of Gelli Lyfdy in parish Ysgeifiog, Co. Flint, translator and copier in English, Welsh, French, Spanish, and Italian, antiquary, wrote most of his books as a debtor in Fleet Prison in London. Ref: Parry/Bell, 222-3. [W] [OP]Jones, John (b. 1740), of Bristol, farrier’s son, orphaned early and apprenticed to a stuff- weaver after a brief period of schooling. Later found patronage from a Dr Johnstone in Kidderminster and with his help, opened a school. Later became a vestry clerk. Pub. An Elegy on Winter, And Other Poems: To Which is Added, An Inscription to the Memory of the late Lord Lyttelton. By John Jones, School-Master in Kidderminster, Author of Poems on Several Subjects (Birmingham: 1779), which includes ‘Stanzas, addressed to Christopher Jones (qv), a poor Wool-comber, at Crediton, in Devonshire; author of two ingenious poems inserted in the Monthly Magazine’. The introduction includes the following information: ‘It ought not to be omitted that a few years before the death of the late Lord Lyttelton, Mr. Woodhouse, the ingenious author of a poem on the Leasowes, very obligingly presented a poem of our author’s to his Lordship, who having previously made acquaintance with his character by his friend Dr. Johnston, that nobleman expressed a desire to see him, and accordingly soon afterwards he was admitted to the honor of an interview at his seat at Hagley, where he has at all times since met with a most favourable reception, of which he makes a grateful acknowledgement to the present Lord Lyttelton, in his lines written in the Poet’s Walk.—Indeed, it was principally with a view of paying a tribute of gratitude to many kind friends and benefactors, that he yielded to the publication of this short account of his life, and of these Poems. January 12th, 1779’. Ref: COPAC; contributor. [—Bridget Keegan]Jones, John (b. 1774), servant, pub. Attempts in verse...With some account of the writer, written by himself, and an introductory essay on the lives and works of our uneducated poets by Robert Southey, Poet Laureate. Ref: LC 5, 17-24; ODNB; Southey, 1-14, 167-80 (see also Childers’s Introduction); Burnett et al (1984), no. 399; Maidment (1983), 84; Rizzo, 243; Richardson, 248. [LC 5]? Jones, Mary (1707-78), of Oxford, daughter of a cooper, poor woman, eventually postmistress of Oxford, author of The Lass of the Hill (?1740); Miscellanies in Prose and Verse (Oxford, London and Bath, 1750); and sixteen poems which appeared in Poems by Eminent Ladies (1755). Ref: ODNB; CBEL II, 368; Poems by Eminent Ladies (2 vols, 1755, includes life); Rowton, 151-3; Foxon 391; Lonsdale (1989), 155-65; Fullard, 559; Burmester, item 427 and 123 (image); Christmas, 95, 116; Johnson 46, nos. 202-3; Backscheider, 407; Backscheider & Ingrassia, 877. [F]Jones, William (c. 1809-55), of Leicester, Chartist and poet, worked as a glove hand and the 1851 census describes him as a ‘framework knitter and poet.’ His wife was a ‘Day School Teacher’ and his 21-year-old son was a bricklayer. He contributed to the Shakespearean Chartist Hymn Book in 1842 and assisted Thomas Cooper at his Adult Sunday School. In 1850, he wrote an article on ‘The Factory System vs. Frame Charges’ arguing against the iniquities of frame charges. He was initially a supporter of Fergus O’Connor, but like Cooper, distanced himself from him. He published two books of poetry: The Spirit; Or a Dream in the Woodland (London and Leicester, 1849) and Poems: Descriptive, Progressive, and Humorous (Leicester, 1853). He also contributed poems to the local papers and to the national Chartist press. Ref: Ref: Newitt, 23-44; Schwab, 198. [C] [—Ned Newitt]Jones, William Ellis (1796-1848), ‘Gwilym Cawrdaf’, Welsh poet and journeyman printer; pub. ‘To the Most Noble the Marquis of Bute, on the Opening of Bute Dock’ (London 1839); other works appear to be in Welsh and include an interesting romance sometimes described ‘as the first Welsh novel’, as well as at least eleven odes in Welsh. Ref: ODNB. [W]? Jordan, Agnes C, of Leicester, ‘a soldier’s daughter, wife and mother’, pub. Poems; social, military, and domestic (London and Leicester, 1862). Ref: Reilly (2000), 250. [F]Jordan, John (1746-1809), ‘the Stratford poet’, wheelwright ‘of little education’; pub. Welcombe Hills, Near Stratford upon Avon; a Poem, Historical and Descriptive (London: printed for the Author, 1777), with subscription list; Original Collections on Stratford-upon-Avon, by John Jordan (1864) and Original Memoirs and Historical Accounts of the Families of Shakespeare and Hart (1865), both edited by James Orchard Halliwell. Mair writes that Jordan’s poems were a failure, so he took on the identity of a ‘literary rustic with a folk-knowledge of Shakespeare’, and thus ‘Jordan’s Shakespearian Anecdotes and Traditions, some of them probably quite genuine, found their way into the note-books and memoirs of a good many visitors’ to Stratford. Ref: ODNB; John Mair, The Fourth Forger (1938), 16-17, 19; Poole, 169-73; Croft & Beattie II, 26-7 (item 101), includes a full-page reproduction of Jordan’s 1777 title-page with a large vignette of the Welcombe Hills.Jowitt, Jane (b. 1770), poor woman, pub. Memoirs of Jane Jowitt, the poor poetess, aged 74 years...written by herself (Sheffield: J. Pearce, 1844). The memoirs include poetry. Ref: Davis and Joyce, 156. [F] [—Dawn Whatman]Karsch, Anna Louisa (nee Dürbach, 1722-91), Silesian Cowherd, much studied ‘German peasant poet’; poems quoted in German and English in Kord’s study, which offers a short biography (263-5) and lists her pubs including poems in modern anths. (265, 292-3). Ref Kord. [F]? Keats, John (1795-1821), major poet, son of an Ostler, whose humble origins formed a key plank in the savage critical backlash against him. Recent work on Keats, such as the monographs of Nicholas Roe and R.S. White and the Andrew Motion biography, emphasise the importance of class, politics and the habit of conscientious self-education in the poet’s development and life. ~ The exact proximity of Keats to the labouring-class poetic tradition is not easily determined. None of the recent critical commentators on the tradition (such as Klaus, Christmas, Keegan) have included him in their lists, but as far as the critics of Blackwood’s and the Quarterly Review were concerned, he was, like his mentor Leigh Hunt, an ill-educated, lower-class vandal, bent on wrecking the polite precincts of modern letters. John Gibson Lockhart, in a now notorious series of pseudonymous essays in the pages of Blackwood’s in 1817-18, identified Keats with Hunt and others in the circle that gathered in the pages of the Examiner as a ‘Cockney’. This term, which should strictly refer only to persons born within hearing of the bells of St. Mary-le-Bow Church in the London district of Cheapside, traditionally home to some of London’s poorest citizens, was used rather indiscriminately by Lockhart to condemn a band of poets who lacked respect for King and Church and Country, and wanted refinement in both their social and their poetic habits. ~ Keats was born in Moorgate in 1795 and thus was indeed in the technical sense a cockney, but his origins were somewhat removed from the lowest classes of the London poor. Although as Robert Gittings remarks in his 1968 biography of the poet, ‘we have no real knowledge at all of how Keats’s parents lived and worked in the first seven years of his boyhood’, there are enough salient facts to attempt a reconstruction. His father Thomas Keats was employed as a livery-stable manager at the Swan and Hoops inn, which was thriving in the stewardship of John Jennings, the poet’s maternal grandfather. When Thomas died in 1804, Jennings’ legacy to Frances, Keats’s mother, was ?2,000, a sum described as ‘useful’; when John Jennings died a year later, he left ?13,000, from which ?1,000 and an annuity of ?50 was provided for Frances. In short, the Keats family during the poet’s earliest years were financially comfortable, if not affluent. He may have been an ostler’s son, but William Sharp, Keats’s grand-nephew, rightly noted in 1892 that it would be a mistake ‘to assert that, like Jesus of Nazareth, the poet was born in a manger’. ~ Keats’s education was also significantly longer and more thorough than most labouring-class poets of the early nineteenth century experienced. In 1805, Keats’s mother remarried and moved to Edmonton, several miles north of the capital. In these years, he was schooled at the progressive Enfield College. Far from being ill-educated, as Lockhart supposed, Keats enjoyed not just Enfield’s ‘generous and humane community’ but made extensive use of its ‘remarkable’ library and the air of intellectual rigour that went hand-in-hand with its founders’ faith in a rational dissent with a distinctly radical, republican flavour, as Nicholas Roe has most thoroughly demonstrated. Keats was transformed under Clarke’s guidance from a pugnacious youth into a young man driven by a ‘continual drinking in of knowledge’. At 18, he was apprenticed to an apothecary-surgeon, and by 1815, the poet was studying medicine at Guy’s Hospital in London, becoming, a year later, a Licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries, which permitted him to practise surgery. In the subsequent years of his life, cut short by consumption in 1821, he worked for a time as a medical dresser and junior house surgeon. The work was difficult, demanding and by no means well-remunerated, but it was a necessary stage in the apprenticeship for a promising medical career. His selection, from the hundreds of candidates, for the latter post is an indication of the promise that Keats was showing, despite reports that he sometimes struggled with his medical studies. That career was soon abandoned, however. He dedicated himself instead to poetry and to becoming, in his own words, a ‘great poet’. ~ Lockhart and others downplayed Keats’s schooling and professional training when they persisted in treating him as though he were a latterday Chatterton, ‘an uneducated and flimsy stripling’. The diminutive ‘Johnny Keats’ label they applied was intended to infantilise, as was the comment that he was a ‘boy of pretty abilities, which he has done everything in his power to spoil’. ‘It is a better and a wiser thing’, Lockhart counselled, ‘to be a starved apothecary than a starved poet; so back to the shop Mr John, back to “plasters, polls, and ointment boxes”…’. These are phrases redolent of Hannah More’s, to Ann Yearsley, about her milkwoman’s duties as “wife and mother” being prior to her calling as a poet, or Samuel Johnson’s casual dismissal of James Woodhouse (‘he may make an excellent shoemaker, but he can never make a good poet’). ~ In his fourth Cockney article, Lockhart made an explicit connection between Keats and the writers of what was rapidly emerging as a distinctive labouring-class literary tradition: ~ ‘Of all the manias of this mad age, the most incurable, as well as the most common, seems to be one other than the metromanie. The just celebrity of Robert Burns and Miss Baillie has had the melancholy effect of turning the heads of we know not how many farm-servants and unmarried ladies; our very footmen compose tragedies, and there is scarcely a superannuated governess in the island that does not leave a roll of lyrics behind in her handbox. To witness the disease of any human understanding, however feeble, is distressing—but the spectacle of an able mind reduced to a state of insanity is of course ten times more afflicting. It is with such sorrow as this that we have contemplated the case of Mr. John Keats’ ~ Modern critics, most forcefully Marjorie Levinson and Duncan Wu, have shown that Keats was not working-class, as several nineteenth and early twentieth-century commentators, following Lockhart and Byron, had supposed. Rather, Keats is best conceptualised as one troubled by the lack of a definitive social station, being neither wealthy, professional, nor artisanal. It is perhaps a dangerous essentialising of class experience to say, with Levinson, that he was caught between “the Truth of the working-class and the Beauty of the leisure class”, but Keats was certainly conscious of the need to resist any attempts to categorise him with the likes of Samuel Bamford, the weaver poet who had entered Hunt’s circle around the same time: ‘I am a weaver boy to them … the literary fashionables’, he lamented (Letters II: 186). ~ Keats’s professed love for the work of Burns might suggest an identification with the Scottish poet’s own class indeterminacy. In 1818, as part of his preparation for the poetic career and the ‘Life I intend to pursue … to write, to study, and to see all Europe at the lowest expence’, he visited Burns’s grave. It proved to be a strangely underwhelming experience. Still, the ribald sociality sometimes found in Keats’ early letters, usually interpreted as experiments with the Cockneyisms affected by Hunt and his circle, surely owes something to Burns too. In the account of the visit to Burns’ cottage, however, this ribald playfulness is replaced with a tone less social, more aggressive, and untypically superior. The account of the visit is dominated not by memories of Burns, but a most unpoetical character: a drunk man, selling whiskey while superintending the site. The man so disgusts Keats that he dreams of occupying a very different class position, imagining himself as employing ‘Caliph Vatheck’, the cruel vainglorious tyrant of Beckford’s novel, to have the drunkard ‘kicked’. Worse still, ‘his gab hindered my sublimity: the flat dog made me write a flat sonnet’. ~ Later in the letter, Keats laments the premature crushing of Burns’s ‘etherealisizing power of … imagination’. But the Burns he imagines is a travesty: ‘the fate of Burns, poor, unfortunate fellow! his disposition was Southern! How sad it is when a luxurious imagination is obliged, in self-defence, to deaden its delicacy in vulgarity and in things attainable, that it may not have leisure to go mad after things that are not!’ This deadening vulgarity is presumably a reference to Burns’s employment, in his last years, as an exciseman, rather than to Burns’s recurrent concern, in his poems and in his project of collecting the folk songs of Scotland, with his “fellow inmates of hamlet”, the ordinary working people amongst whom he was born and raised. Keats’s relationship with Burns, like that with Wordsworth, was by turns insightful and obscured by a prejudice born of his sense of a need to distinguish himself as a professional poet. ~ An examination of Keats’ poems for evidence of concerns in common with heav’n taught ploughmen, weaver boys and other working poets yields uncertain results. There is an expression, in the Fall of Hyperion’s opening lines, of a sense of disentitlement that is familiar enough. The feast that the poet stumbles upon in the forest is mostly consumed already, though he does not exactly starve; the poet here is, in Richard Cronin’s reading, an ‘interloper’, like ‘the servant who gains entry to a costly banquet after the authentic guests have left, and gluts himself on the rich remains’. Labour in the poems is generally, however, figured as something to be transcended or elided. The ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ famously leaves behind ‘the weariness, the fever, and the fret’, and while ‘The Eve of St Agnes’ begins with the work of the weaving nuns and the Beadsman, performing spiritual labours in exchange for money, such semi-corporeal activities are soon subsumed into the romance. The ‘Ode to Indolence’ expresses a hope that the ‘voice of busy common sense’ may never be heard; and yet perhaps the desire for a life ‘steeped in honeyed indolence’ might have just the faintest echoes of the labour of the bees in it, and moreover, the Hyperion poet also shares a ‘vessel of transparent juice’ with the ‘wandered bee’. Yet even the bee, conventionally deployed since the Georgics of Virgil as a metaphor for human endeavour, belongs in Keats’s poetry to the world of opulent courtly luxury and tranquil sensory pleasures, as in an early poem, ‘Sleep and Poetry’: What is more soothing than the pretty hummer, / That stays one moment in an open flower / And buzzes cheerily from bower to bower’. Later poems, like, ‘To Autumn’ are more ambivalent: the season and the sun are together allotted most of Stanza one’s active verbs ‘to load’, ‘bless’, ‘bend’, ‘fill’, ‘swell’: only the bees, though, get to ‘think’. In Stanza 2, autumn is personified as a reaper and a gleaner, and as the mood turns elegiac in stanza 3, the several recent readings of the poem which align it with Keats’s sympathies for the radical protestors massacred at Peterloo in the month before the poem was written seem plausible. But the ‘Ode to Psyche’ is Keats’s most sustained use of labour-as-trope: the poet will ‘build’ a temple to thought and there, amidst birds and once again bees, ‘A rosy sanctuary will I dress / With the wreathed trellis of a working brain, … With all the gardener Fancy e’er could feign.’ In general, however, Keats is usually faithful to Hunt’s conviction that the poem ‘the essence of poetical enjoyment does not consist in belief’ – in other words, a faith in the materiality of history and human practices – ‘but in a voluntary power to imagine.’ ~ None of this can finally resolve the complicated questions about class position and identification that have beleaguered Keats criticism since Blackwood’s. But the power of an Ostler’s son to imagine in such outrageous fashion, and to voluntarily quit one’s professional training for a career in poetry, testify to significant shifts occurring in the early nineteenth-century aesthetic and the literary marketplace for such aesthetic output, where Keats sought, all too briefly, his professional identity. Ref: For a meticulous reconstruction of Keats’s early years and the formative period at Enfield School, see Nicolas Roe, John Keats and the Culture of Dissent (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997). On Keats’s sense of his own social class position, see Marjorie Levinson, Keats’s Life of Allegory: The Origins of a Style (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); on others’ sense of that position, especially Byron’s, see William Keach, ‘Byron reads Keats’ in Susan Wolfson (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Keats (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). On the political implication of the Cockney school’s style generally, see Jeffrey N. Cox, Poetry and Politics in the Cockney School: Keats, Shelley, Hunt and their Circle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Robin Jarvis, Romantic Writing and Pedestrian Travel (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997); Richard Cronin, The Politics of Romantic Poetry: In Search of the Pure Commonwealth (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000); and Duncan Wu, ‘Keats and the “Cockney school”’, in Susan Wolfson (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Keats (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). Keats has been richly served by biographical studies, of which those of Aileen Ward (1963), W. J. Bate (1963), Robert Gittings (1968), Andrew Motion (2003), R.S. White (2010) and Nicholas Roe (2012) are perhaps the most rewarding. see also Goodridge (1999), item 60; Powell, item 269-70; Miles, III, 1. [—Tim Burke]? Keegan, John (1809-49), ‘Steel Pen’, Irish ballad writer and ‘peasant’; many pieces appeared in Dolman’s Magazine, The Nation, the Irish Penny Magazine, and the Dublin University Magazine, and are in Hayes’s Ballads of Ireland and the compilation The Harp of Erin; was preparing his own collection at the time of his death; collected legends and poems published in Dublin in 1907. Manuscripts of his poem ‘Caoch the piper’ (in MS.8117) and his ‘Commonplace book’ (microfilm n.5225 p.5329) of notes and poems are held at the National Library of Ireland, Dublin. Ref: ODNB; Sutton, 532. [I]Keighley, Arthur Montague (b. 1842), of humble family of twelve, Sunday school education, railway porter, station master at Bredon, pub. The emigrant and other poems, with short essays on the seasons (Keighley and London, 1866). Ref: Reilly (2000), 252-3.Keith, Don (b. 1848), of Stracathro, Brechin, agricultural labourer, spent two years in America, returned and became gamekeeper at Brechin Castle; poems include ‘To a Brither Bar’. Ref: Edwards, 4, 192-5. [S]Kelly, James (1848-79), of Cambusnethan, Wishaw, Lanarkshire, blacksmith’s son, printer, pub. The Printers’ carnival, and other poems (Airdrie: Love and Duncan, 1875); brother to John Liddell Kelly (qv). Ref: Edwards, 1, 204-8; Knox, 144-8 (gives dates as 1846-77); Reilly (2000), 253. [S]Kelly, Joan (fl. 1884), of Irvine, Ayrshire, posthumous child, daughter of a poor sick-nurse; lived with her mother, later a permanent invalid in the poorhouse. According to Kelly, her verses were composed while ‘trying to expell rebellious thoughts from my mind’; pub. Miscellaneous poems (Irvine: Charles Murchland, ‘Irvine Herald’ Office, 1884); Poems include ‘Thoughts Upon Oppressing the Poor,’ ‘To a Young Gentleman Returning to America,’ ‘A Dialogue. Lines Upon a Young Lady Going to India,’ ‘On the Wreck of a Vessel,’ ‘Wee Jock and His Granny,’ and ‘On the Death of a Fair Young Girl.’ According to Edwards her works were reviewed by W. B. R. Wilson, of Dollar, in the Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald. Ref: Edwards, 15, 333-7; Reilly (1994), 256; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]? Kelly, John Liddell (1850-1925), of Cambusnethan, Wishaw, Lanarkshire, blacksmith’s son, newspaper editor, emigrated to New Zealand as a journalist. Ref: Edwards, 1, 204-8; Knox, 149-58. [S]? Kennedy, James, author of Treason!!! Or, Not Treason!!! Alias the Weaver’s Budget (1795: BL 992.h.22(2)). Ref: Lonsdale (1984), 802-4, 856n, ESTC. Involved in Friends of the People in Edinburgh in 1793; Johnson, item 506 poss. relates. [S]Kennedy, James (b. 1848), of Carsegowrie, Forfarshire, farm labourer and agitator, father died young, left school at 12 and got an apprenticeship as a machinist in Dundee, emigrated to USA, travelled widely, lived in New York, pub. poems in periodicals and several vols in America. Ref: Ross, 38-46; Edwards, 6, 213-22. [S]Kennedy, John (1789-1833), born in Kilmarnock, Scottish poet and weaver; published collection titled Fancy's Tour with the Genius of Cruelty, and other Poems in 1826; The Poetical Works of John Kennedy (Ayr, 1818). Ref: DNB, ODNB. [S]Kennedy, Thomas (b. 1823), of Cowgate, Galashiels, Selkirkshire, weaver, pub. Poems (Galashiels, 1889). Ref: Reilly (1994), 258, Murdoch, 207-11. [S]? Kenrick, William (1725?-1779), son of a staymaker, apprentice to a mathematical instrument maker, misc. writer, worked as reviewer, playwright and translator. Pub. The Town (1748), Old Woman's Dunciad (1751), The Pasquinade (1753), Monody to the Memory of … Frederick Prince of Wales (1751), The Whole Duty of Woman (1753), Fun: a Parodi-Tragi-Comical Satire (1752), Epistles to Lorenzo (1756; substantially expanded as Epistles Philosophical and Moral, 1759), and A Scrutiny, or, The Criticks Criticis'd (1759). Ref: ODNB; Sutton, 538-9 (plays and letter).? Kent, John (b. 1860), of Paisley, messenger, compositor, stationer, pub. poems in the newspapers. Ref: Brown, II, 488-97; Edwards, 15, 63-7. [S]? Kenworthy, Charles, of Manchester, a poet apparently of humble origin who pub. by subscription Original Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects (Manchester: Cave and Sever, nd [1847]). The ‘Second Edition, Enlarged’ is ‘Printed by Wm. Francis Jackson, New Bailey Street, and sold by the author, No. 2, Railway Street, Oldham Road’, the title page has a quotation from Beattie, ‘Song was his favourite and first pursuit. / The wild harp rang to his adventurous hand, / And languished to his breath the plaintive flute. / His infant muse, though artless, was not mute—/And Heaven enlarged his heart in riper years; / For Nature gave him strength and fire, to soar / On fancy’s wing’, followe by a subscription list including Sir Elkanah Armitage, John Bright MP and the Rt. Hon. T. M. Gibson MP (two copies each), the Earl of Ellesmere, and the mayors of Manchester and Salford. Keworthy’s ‘Introductory Stanzas’ invites the ‘bards of th’ Aonian mount’ to ‘aid a bard Parnassus’ steep to climb ... Nor let chill Want repress the rapture of his Muse’. There is a poem on the death of Princess Charlotte dated 1817, two poems to the singer Jenny Lind (a subscriber), and among section of memorial poems, one ‘On the Death of Robert Rose, The Bard of Colour’ (Rose was a West Indian-born poet who lived in Salford and was Vice-chairman of one of the ‘Sun Inn’ group, hence the poet’s opening address, ‘Bard of the Western Isles’.) Ref: John Hart Catalogue 69, item 167; 2nd edn of the poems via .Kerr, Alexander (b. 1879), of Riggend, miner, descendant of weavers, freemason, retired from mining due to ill-health. Ref: Knox, 280-1. [S]Kerr, Hugh (1815-93), of Stewarton, Ayrshire, shoemaker, pub. vols. c. 1843 and 1883. Ref: Edwards, 15, 418-20. [S]Kerr, Robert (1811-48), of Midtown, Spottes, the Urr poet, farm labourer, three short poems in ‘Bards of Galloway’ 1888; Trans. Dumfr. Gall. Nat. Hist. Antiq. Soc., 3 ser 21; his works were collected in Maggie o’ the Moss: and other Poems, ed. with a memoir by Malcolm McLelan Harper (Dalbeattie: Thomas Fraser, 1891). Ref: sources as cited; Harper, 252; John Hart catalogue 69, item 168. [S]? Kidd, John G. (b. 1857), of New Galloway, assistant postmaster, moved to Newcastle upon Tyne. Ref: Edwards, 7, 336-8. [S]Kilpatrick, Hugh (‘Eagle Eye’, 1832-1909), Paisley weaver and manufacturer, emigrated to America and returned, pub. The Death of Wallace or the Spectre of Elderslie and Other Poems (Paisley, 1909) and poems in Brown. Ref: Brown, II, 183-86; Leonard, 337-9. [S]King, Daniel (1844-91 or -92), of Glasgow, orphaned herdboy, shipyard foreman-riveter, freemason, pub. The Auchmountain warbler: songs, poems &c. (Paisley, Edinburgh and London); ‘Tongue Discipline’ is in Edwards. Ref: Edwards, 9, 244-8; Leonard, 330-1; Reilly (1994), 260. [S]King, James (1776–1849), of Paisley, trained as weaver, served in military, pub. pieces in periodicals. Ref: Brown, I, 114-20. [S]King, Jessie Margaret, ‘Marguerite’ (b. 1862), of Bankfoot, Perthshire; father died when she was in her teens, and she was forced to work in an office in village, and later joined the staff of the Dundee Advertiser. Pub. poems in the Dundee Evening Telegraph and the People’s Friend. Her poems include ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ ‘O, Wind of the West,’ ‘Life and Death,’ and ‘The Perfidious Sea.’ Ref: Edwards, 11, 270; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]King, John (1779-1837), of Paisley, weaver, periodical publications. Ref: Brown, I, 134-41. [S]King, John, of Lincolnshire and Scarborough, farm labourer in Lincolnshire; as a boy, pub. Rustic Lays (Scarborough, c. 1863); Sprays, Leaflets and Blossoms (London and Scarborough, 1869); Hebeora (London and Scarborough, 1872); Rustic Pictures and Broken Rhymes (London and Scarborough, 1874). Ref: Reilly (2000), 257.King, Robert (b. 1812), of Paisley, weaver, later school teacher. Ref: Brown, I, 481-88. [S]Kinlay, James (b. 1838), of Cupar Fife, house-painter. Ref: Edwards, 14, 226-29. [S]Kirby, Charles, ‘The Wharfedale Poet’ (b. 1843), of Tadcaster, Yorkshire, cattle-trader boy, joiner, asylum inmate in later life, lived in Leeds; pub. Wharfedale Poems (Leeds, 1870); Word Pictures (Leeds, 1874); A Royal Wreath (London and Leeds, 1875). Ref: Reilly (2000), 258.Kirkland, Daniel (b. 1833), of Brechin, weaver. Ref: Edwards, 15, 190-3. [S]? Kirkland, Thomas (d. 1863), master mason, butcher; pub. Nineteen Original Songs (1813). Ref: Brown, I, 235-37. [S]Knight, William (b. 1824), of Keith, shoemaker, later worked in a law office, became a wanderer. Ref: Edwards, 1, 193-6. [S]Knight, William, shoemaker of new Pitsligo, Aberdeenshire, pub. The Valley of the Isla: a descriptive poem (Peterhead, 1864). Ref: Reilly (2000), 260. [S]Knott, John (d. 1840), of Sheffield, author of ‘Tom Topsail’, ‘Ben Block’ and other popular songs; died in the workhouse. ‘Tom Topsail’ is printed in a section of largely unattributed ‘Miscellaneous Songs Related to Sheffield’ in The Songs of Joseph Mather (1862), 109-10; the editor John Wilson attributes the song and regrets in a footnote that such a capable songmaker should have died in poverty. Ref as cited.? Knowles, Herbert (1798-1817), young poet born near Leeds of humble parentage, orphaned, pub. The Three Tabernacles (Lines Written in the Churchyard in Richmond, Yorkshire), (written 1816, pub. posthumously, 1818). Ref: Miles, X, 683.Knox, Anna (b. 1823), of Leith Walk, Edinburgh, gardener’s daughter, received a limited education. An injury caused by a fall rendered her bedridden for 25 years. She moved with her family to Greenock, where her health improved somewhat, and later emigrated with them to New Zealand, but she wished to return and despite the difficulties of doing so, returned to her native land., pub. Effusions from a sick bed: or, Israel in sorrow, Israel in joy, and other poems (Glasgow, 1840; 1886); Poems by Anna Knox (Brechin: D. H. Edwards, 1898); poems include ‘The Sea Foundling,’ ‘The Sailor Boy,’ ‘The Emigrant’s Child’s Grave,’ ‘Slavery,’ ‘Mary’s Love,’ ‘The Covenanter’s Clover,’ ‘Resignation,’ ‘The Old Chest’ and ‘The Reading Wife,’ the latter quite unusual in subject. Ref: Edwards, 14, 361-6; Reilly (2000), 260; Johnson 46, no. 206; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Knox, Isabella Craig (‘Isa’, 1831-1903), of Edinburgh, hosier’s daughter, orphaned in childhood, left school at ten, became a journalist, lived in Edinburgh and London feminist and social campaigner. She won first prize for an ode on Robert Burns and her poem was recited at the Burns Centenary to a crowd of 6,000 at the Crystal Palace. Pub. Poems by Isa (1856); Duchess Agnes. etc. (London, 1864), Songs of Consolation (London, 1874); Poems: an Offering to Lancashire (1863); Duchess Agnes, a Drama, and Other Poems (1864); and Little Folk's History of England (1872). Contributed to Fraser's,?Good Words, and?The Quiver. Ref: ODNB; Reilly (2000), 260; Copsey (2002), 100. [F] [S]Knox, Jane Ogden (fl. 1870), of Fifekeith, Keith, Banffshire, no formal education; her poems are entirely religious. In her preface she comments, ‘Whatever slips the keen-eyed critic may descry--either in metre or in measure, he must needs excuse; for in my earlier days there were no Education Bills; and, what was worse, so far as I was concerned, I got no education. To one labouring under these disadvantages, the indulgence sought may not be unneeded, and in most cases, I presume, will be readily granted’; pub. Religious Poetry, on Various Subjects (Keith: A. Brown, 1870). Ref: Reilly (2000), 260; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Knox, Thomas (1818-79), of Greenlaw, haberdasher, labour agitator, temperance advocate; pub. Rhymed Convictions in Songs, Hymns, and Recitations for Social Meetings, and Recitations for Social Meetings and Firesides (London); Scottish Temperance Songs to Scottish Airs (Paisley, 1880). Ref: Edwards, 9, 107-16; Crockett, 173-78. [S]Knox, William (1789-1825), farmer poet, correspondent and ‘dissolute friend of Scott’, pub. The Lonely Hearth and Other Poems (North Shields, 1818); Songs of Israel (Edinburgh, 1824); The Harp of Zion (1825). Ref: ODNB; Shanks, 135-8; Edwards, 15, 164-6 and 16, [lix]; Johnson, item 518; Sutton, 551 (misc. letters). [S]Kydd, Samuel, of Arbroath, shoemaker, Chartist, ‘known as the chronicler of the Factory Movement’ wrote poems ‘occasionally’, pub. in Cooper’s Journal. [S] [C]Lackington, James (1746-1815), shoemaker poet, oral ballad composer, before enormous success as bookseller; pub. Memoirs of the First Forty-five Years of James Lackington (1791) and The Confessions of J. Lackington (1804), expressing regret for his criticism of Methodism. Ref: ODNB.Lahee, Margaret Rebecca (1831-95), Lancashire dialect poet and prose writer, born in Ireland, apprenticed to a Rochdale milliner and dressmaker, author of immensely popular works like ‘Owd Neddy Fitton’s Visit to Earl of Derby’ and ‘Owd Robin’. Ref Taryn Hakala, ‘M.R. Lahee and the Lancashire Lads: Gender and Class in Victorian Lancashire Dialect Writing’, Philological Quarterly, 92, no. 2 (Spring 2013), 271-88. [F] [I] ? Laidlaw, William (b.1779-1845), of Yarrow, Selkirkshire, farmer’s son, poet, amanuensis and land-stewart to Sir Walter Scott, described in James Hogg's (qv) memoir, author of the song ‘Lucy’s Flittin’’; published in periodicals. Ref: ODNB; Wilson, II, 35-37; Borland, 147-51; Shanks, 138-41: Douglas, 300-01. [S]Laing, Alexander (1787-1857), ‘the Brechin poet’, apprenticed to flax-dresser, and worked as one for 14 years; contributed to miscellanies and newspapers; edited Burns and Tannahill. Manuscripts of Wayside Flowers (MS. 7181) and his poem “Monody on the death of David Robertson” (1854, MS. 14303, f.120) are held at the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh. Manuscripts of letters and miscellaneous poems held at the University of Glasgow (in MSS Robertson 16, 17, and 19). Pub. The Harp of Caledonia (1819); Wayside Flowers (1846, 2nd edn, 1850). Ref: Wilson, II, 93-8; Johnson, items 520-22; Edwards, 2, 273-80; Sutton, 552. [S]Laing, Alexander (b. 1840), of Forres, Morayshire, agricultural worker, nurseryman, pub. in local papers. Ref: Edwards, 6, 147-53. [S]Laing, Allan S. (b. 1857), of Dundee, of a humble family, working from age 10, upholsterer, businessman, pub. poems in the People’s Friend and in Murdoch. Ref: Edwards, 12, 59-65; Murdoch, 427-30. [S]? La Mont, Eugene, popular Chartist poet. Ref: Kovalev, 72-73, Scheckner, 224-5, 337-8. [C]Lamberton, William (b. 1828), of Larch Bank, Kilmaurs, shoemaker, teacher and lay preacher. Ref: Edwards, 10, 375-9. [S]Lamborn, Edward (b. 1787), of Uffington, illegitimate son of an illiterate woman, grew up in poverty, labourer, broadside balladeer, ordered with his family into the Faringdon Poor Law Union workhouse in 1835, author of ‘The New Poor law and the Farmer’s Glory’, an important indictment of the workhouse system, experienced first hand. Ref: Hepburn, I, 22-3, 163-5.Lamont, Duncan (b. 1842), of Lochgilphead, Argyllshire, blacksmith in Greenock, pub. Poems and Songs (Greenock, 1895). Ref: Edwards, 9, 303-10; Reilly (1994), 265. [S]Lake, John, tailor (1792-1836), pub. The Golden Glove, or the Farmer’s Son, a Comedy in five acts, with some poetical sketches (London, 1815); The Retired Lieutenant and The Battle of Loncarty: Poems, by John Lane, Author of The Golden Glove, etc. (London: John Hatchard and Son, 1836); Criticism and Taste, A Satire in Verse (Pall Mall: C. Chappel, 1834). Ref: 1836 vol. online at ; COPAC; Kord, 47; inf. Tim Burke.Lane, William (b. 1744), ‘a poor labouring man’ of Flackwell-Heath, High Wycombe, Bucks., pubs include Poems on the following subjects...with several detached pieces... (Reading and London, 1798, further edition or collection of 1806). Ref: LC 3, 215-32; Johnson, item 524; Jarndyce, item 1427; Johnson 46, nos. 305-6; Keegan (2008), 80-93. [LC 3]Langford, John Alfred (1823-1903), of Birmingham, chairmaker, pub. in Howitt’s Journal and elsewhere; Religion, Scepticism and Infidelity (1850), Religion and Education in Relation to the People (1852), The Lamp of Life (1855), Poems of the Field and Town (1859), and historical works on Birmingham. Ref: Poole, 248-50.Langton, Millicent, of Leicester, Sunday school educated factory worker; pub. Musings of the Work-room (Leicester, 1865). Ref: Reilly (2000), 266. [F]? Lapage, Edward (b. Sept. 3rd 1839), of Bridge St., Bradford, son of George Lapage, wool buyer for mesrs Walker; a woolsorter who durng his apprenticeship attended evening classes at the Bradford Mechanic’s Institute ‘where he made great progress’. Holroyd includes his poem ‘To Romilies Moor’ and tells a sentimental story of Lapage on his deathbed asking to be raised up to see hs beloved moor before he died. Ref Holroyd, 132-3.Latto, William Duncan (1823-99), ‘Tammas Bokdin’, of Ceres, Fife, handloom weaver, teacher, wrote for Peoples’ Journal; pub. The Twa Bulls: A Metrical Tale, for the Times (Dundee, Edinburgh, Fife and Montrose, c. 1860). Ref: Edwards, 3, 37-42; Reilly (2000), 27. [S]Lauder, James (b. 1841), of Leith, Midlothian, blacksmith’s son, street musician in Leith, wrote for The Scotsman; pub. Warblings of a Caged Bird (Leith, 1870). Ref: Edwards, 6, 362-6; Reilly (2000), 267. [S]Law, Samuel (fl. 1772-1783), weaver, of Barewise, Lancashire, author of A Domestic Winter-Piece, or, a Poem exhibiting a full view of the Author’s Dwelling Place in the Winter-Season, in Two Parts (Leeds 1772, Dobell 2993, BL T. 349(4)). Law describes himself as a ‘poor, mean and contemptible Weaver, who did not so much as know the alphabet perfectly well, when my twenty-first annual sun rolled away’. He was self-taught and modelled his poem on Thomson’s Seasons. Ref: LC 2, 265-72; DNB; Dobell; ESTC; E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (1963), 324; Keegan (2003); Croft & Beattie, II, 34 (item 121). [LC 2]Law, William, of Bagshot, forester, pub. A Forest Ramble, with a Description of a Royal Stag Hunt, and Characteristic Sketches of all the Masters of the Staghounds during his Present Majesty’s Reign; with Notices of Several Well-known Characters in the Forest of Windsor (London: J. Pittman, 1818). Ref: C. R. Johnson, cat. 49 (2006), item 36.Lawson, Jessie Kerr (1838-1917), shopkeeper and miscellaneous writer, a ‘woman of enormous energy and determination, born in Edinburgh, died in Toronto, raised by maternal grandparents after her father died, took her mother’s surname; after her husband, a ship’s carpenter, became a semi-invalid, she took her family to Canada where she supported her husband and ten children by writing, and ran a dry goods and millinery shop while her husband William worked in the shipyard at Hamilton. Publications include eight novels, much journalism, and at least one book of poems, Lays and Lyrics (Toronto: William Briggs, 1913); used a number of pseudonyms including ‘Hugh Ainslie’ and (in her journalism) ‘Katherine Leslie’. Ref Gifford & Macmillan, 686; biography on Canada’s Early Women Writers webpage, Simon Fraser University Library. [OP]Laycock, Samuel (1826-93), of Marsden, Yorkshire, worked in a mill from age nine, later a cloth looker, made redundant in the Cotton Famine and wrote the twelve ‘Lyrics of the Cotton Famine’; pub. Lancashire Poems, Tales and Recitations (Manchester and London, 1875); Warblin’s fro’ an Owd Songster (Oldham, London and Manchester, 1893, 3rd enlarged edn, 1894); Collected Writings (2nd edition, Oldham, 1908); Selected Poems, ed. Glyn Hughes (Sunderland: Ceolfrith Press, 1981). Ref: LC 6, 1-32; ODNB; Holroyd, 98-9; Harland, 377-9, 398-400, 459-62, 500-1, 506-8, 510-11, 515-16, 547-52; Andrews, 33-39; Ashraf (1975), 255-7; Maidment (1987), 253-61; Hollingworth (1977), 153; Zlotnick, 206-07; Reilly (1994), 272; Reilly (2000), 268; England, 50. [LC 6]Leapor, Mary (1722-46), born in Marston St Lawrence, Northants, on the estate of Judge Blencowe, where her father, Philip, worked as a gardener. At age five Mary Leapor and her family moved to Brackley, where her father maintained a nursery and worked for local landowners. She was taught to read and write by her parents, but they disapproved of her penchant for scribbling verses when she was ten or eleven. Leapor laboured as her father's housekeeper after her mother’s passing in 1742, but continued to write. The local circulation of Leapor’s verses drew the notice of Bridget Freemantle—daughter of a former rector of Hinton—who was moved to raise a subscription that would accord her more time for writing. However, Leapor died of measles before her Poems upon Several Occasions (1748), was published. Sixteen or seventeen volumes, including part of Pope’s works and Dryden’s Fables were present in her library at the time of her death, but the couplets in which she devised religious verse, moral epistles, fables and epitaphs are typically of a less acerbic quality than Pope’s. Affirmed in the public consciousness as an embodiment of the untutored poet denied the advantages of artistic cultivation, Leapor’s work was widely appreciated following her death. In 1791, William Cowper indicated of another ‘natural’ poet that he had not observed such talent in any disadvantaged poet since Mary Leapor. Pub: Poems Upon Several Occasions, by Mrs. Leapor of Brackley in Northamptonshire (London: J. Roberts, 1748). [Volume 1, ed. Ralph Griffiths.] Poems Upon Several Occasions, by the late Mrs. Leapor of Brackley in Northamptonshire (London: J. Roberts, 1751). ‘The Second and Last Volume’ [ed. Samuel Richardson and Isaac Hawkins Browne]; The Works of Mary Leapor: A Critical Edition, ed. Richard Greene and Ann Messenger (Oxford University Press, 2003). Also included in anthologies: Poems by eminent ladies (Coleman and Thornton, London: 1755, 1757, 1773, 1785, Vol. 2); The Muse in a moral humour: being, a collection of agreeable and instructive tales, fables, pastorals &c. By several hands. (compiled by Francis and John Noble, London 1757-8: Vol. 2); The poetical calendar. Containing a collection of scarce and valuable pieces of poetry: With Variety of originals and translations, by the most eminent hands. Intended as a supplement to Mr. Dodsley’s collection. (‘Written and selected by Francis Fawkes, M. A. and William Woty. In twelve volumes’, London: 1763, second edition, Vol. 8); Lonsdale (1989) and Fairer and Gerrard, Eighteenth-Century Poetry: An Annotated Anthology (2004). Ref: LC 2, 51-74; Radcliffe; Blunden 1936; Hold, 97-103; Christmas, 22, 161-83; Fullard, 560; Greene 1993; Lonsdale (1989), 194-217; Milne 1999, 29-59; Keegan (2003); Rizzo, 242-3, 249-54; Rowton, 132-5; Kord, 265-6; Shiach, 54-6; Backscheider, 407; Backscheider & Ingrassia, 877; Kord. [F] [LC 2] [—Iain Rowley]Learmont, John (c. 1765-1818), of Dalkeith, gardener, began writing in the 1780s. Learmont worked as a gardener for the Duke of Buccleuch at Langholm and began composing poetry in the 1780s ‘as a nobler substitute for a foible that, alas! is but too prevalent in northern regions’ (1791). The ‘Prefatory Address to the Public’ in Poems Pastoral, Satirical, Tragic and Comic (1791) is the chief source of information about Learmont. He highlights his ‘stinted education’ and indicates that the verses were not intended for public scrutiny. A Mr. P—r Sl—ght ‘accidentally gave them a review’ and recommended publication. In his own appraisal of the poems, Learmont states: ‘That they are destitute of deep thought, or poetical decoration, is obvious; but that they also have some natural beauties, the ingenious reader will readily allow’. ~ Keegan (2006), 574, discusses the importance of garden spaces as a site of class conflict in Learmont’s ‘The Position of the Journeyman Gardeners of Scotland, (and we shall take in the North of England for connection’s sake,) to the Nobility and Gentry of these Realms’ (1791). Keegan suggests that Learmont embodies an overt example of labouring-class poetry’s traditional contestation of the rights of certain classes to experience exclusive, privileged views of nature. The opening stanzas function to concentrate the ‘gentlemanly’ viewer’s awareness upon whose labour his aesthetically pleasing scenery depends: ‘Look round amang your balmy bowers,—/ Thae smiling witnesses are ours;— / An’ a family of flowers / Attest our hand… I’ short, whate’er’s sublime or great, / Or worth while seein’ round your seat, / Or renders nature’s dress complete, / To cleek the een, / We do, an’ toil ‘neath streams o’ sweat / Baith morn an’ e’en’. Keegan (2006), 575, sees Learmont’s poems as prefiguring ‘a more explicit expression of the desire for the general human equality symbolised by the prelapsarian garden’ that arose towards the end of the century, noting that the epigraph to his poem reads: ‘THE FATHER OF ALL MEN WAS A GARDENER;. ~ Jack Campin (2001) mentions Learmont as a songwriter associated with the market town of Dalkeith, near Edinbugh. ‘The Woman’, from Learmont’s 1791 poems, was put to a tune, and even anthologized in an edited form as ‘My Goddess Woman’, in Johnson and Burns's (1853) Scots Musical Museum. The poem is effusive in its reverence for ‘Woman’; it begins: ‘Of Nature's Work, (I hold it good) / Stupenduous or common, / There's nought thro' all its limits wide / Can be compared to Woman’, ~ Learmont expected to secure the gardening position at Dalkeith Palace when his elder relative, also John Learmont, retired in 1806. However, he was supposedly sacked because he had ‘studied poetry more than raising garden-stuff’. He lived the rest of his life in Colinton, west of Edinburgh. Poems include ‘An Address to the Plebeians’ in his Poems Pastoral, Satirical, Tragic and Comic (Edinburgh, 1791). Words and tune to ‘The Woman’ available at: . Ref: LC 3, 203-14; Lonsdale (1984), 783-5, 855n; CBEL II, 972; Christmas, 207-8; Keegan (2008), 63-64; Keegan (2006); J. Campin, Music of Dalkeith (2001) . [S] [LC 3] [—Iain Rowley]Leatherland, John A. (1812-74), of Kettering, Northamptonshire, weaver, autoididact, Chartist, pub. Essays and Poems with a brief Autobiographical Memoir (London and Leicester, 1862). Refs: Burnett et al (1984), no. 428; Ashton and Roberts, ch. 4, 58-64; Vincent, 124-5, 176-7, 184; Hold, 104-6; Schwab, 199; Reilly (2000), 270. [C]Ledgerwood, Isabella, (b. 1866), of Kilmaurs, Ayrshire, toll-bar keeper’s daughter who worked in the mills of Clark and Co. and Messrs. Coats until ill health forced her to quit work. Some of her conventional verses are included in Brown. Ref: Brown, II, 516-17; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Ledwidge, Francis Edward (1887–1917), of Janeville, Slane, co. Meath, Ireland, farm worker, pub. Songs from the Field (1915) and posthumous Songs of Peace (1917) and Francis Ledwidge: Complete Poems (1974). Edition of Selected Poems (1993) with a foreword by Seamus Heaney. Ref: ODNB; JCSN, 86 (Dec 2004), 8-9 and 87 (March 2005), 9. [I]? Lee, Helen, of Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire, pub. Bits o’ Things (Manchester, 1893), copy in Manchester Public Library. Ref: Reilly (1994), 274. [F]Lee, John (b. 1797), of Montrose, Angus, soldier’s son, shoemaker, bookseller, clerk printer, pub. Wild flowers in solitude, 2nd edn (Montrose, 1875). Ref: Edwards, 3, 59-63; Reilly (2000), 271. [S]? Lee, Joseph, soldier, Lance-Corporal in 1st/4th Battalion of the Black Watch, pub. Ballads of Battle (London: John Murray, 1916); ‘I Canna See the Sergeant’ later anthologised by John Buchan in his anthology of Scots vernacular poetry The Northern Muse (1924). Ref inf Darren Kirkbride; Google books. [S] [OP]Lee, Thomas (fl. 1795), Nottingham framework-knitter, poet and prose writer, whose works include Poetical Essays, on Curious and Interesting Subjects (Nottingham: C. Sutton, 1795). Ref: Google Books; inf. Dawn Whatman.Leech, Sarah, of Donegal, peasant girl, pub. Poems on Various Subjects (Dublin 1828); frontispiece includes portrait at her spinning wheel. Ref. Hewitt. [F] [I]Lees, Joseph (‘Joseph o’ Randalls’, 1748-1824), of Glodwick, Oldham, Lancs., handloom weaver and schoolteacher, probable co-author or author of the ‘Jone O’ Grinfilt’ Lancashire dialect poems. Ref: Vicinus (1969), 31-5; Hollingworth (1977), 153; Hepburn, II, 386-7; Hollingworth (2013), 291-4.? Lefevre, Jonathan, of Bristol, Chartist poet. Ref: Kovalev, 74-5; Scheckner, 226-7, 338. [C]Leggat, Joseph (b. 1846), of Blackburn, Linlithgowshire, sailor, soldier, coalminer, weaver, taught in early childhood by Robert Tennant (qv), later attended night school. Ref: Edwards, 4, 185-90. [S]? Leigh, Helen of Middlewich, Manchester, author of Miscellany Poems (Manchester, 1788), wife of a country curate and mother of seven children, pub. by subscription. Ref: Lonsdale (1989), 420-2; Dobell 857; BL 11630.d.14(7). [F]? Leighton, Robert (1822-69), of Dundee, largely self-taught orphan, travelling businessman, manager, spent most of the last twenty years of his life in Liverpool, uncle of William Leighton (qv); his poems were praised by Longfellow and Emerson; pub. Poems by Robin (1855); Rhymes and Poems (1861); Poems (Liverpool, Edward Howell, 1866) includes a section of Scottish poems in dialect; Records and Other Poems (1880). Ref: Edwards, 1, 300-5; Murdoch, 180-4; CBEL III, 294; Miles, V, 73; Sutton, 571 (letter from RL in the papers of the Society for the diffusion of Useful Knowledge). [S]? Leighton, William (1841-69), of Dundee, nephew of Robert Leighton (qv), worked in a Liverpool merchant’s office. Pub. ‘Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-Two’, ‘The Seasons’, ‘Baby Died Today’, and ‘Rose’. Ref: ODNB; Edwards, 1, 294-9. [S]Leiper, Andrew (d. c. 1862), of Paisley, weaver, member of the Republican Club, died in the town poorhouse, poems in Brown. Ref: Brown, I, 364-66. [S]Leno, John Bedford (1824-94, sometimes ‘Timothy Whackstraw’), of Uxbridge, Middlesex, Chartist, shoemaker, printer and poet/reciter; edited the journal St. Crispin and pub. The Art of Boot- and Shoe-making. A practical handbook (London, 1885); also pub. Herne’s Oak, and other miscellaneous poems (1853), The Poetic Magazine (periodical publication, 1860-1), King Labour’s Song Book (1861), An essay for the nine hours movement (tract, 1861), Female Labour (tract, 1863), Drury Lane Lyrics, and other poems (1868), Kimburton, A Story of Village Life, and Other Poems (1875-6); The Anti-Tithe Journal (periodical publication, 1881); The Last Idler, and Other Poems (London, 1889); The Aftermath. A Collection of Poems, with Autobiography of the Author (London, 1892). Ref: LC 6, 73-100; Ashraf (1975), 244-54; Maidment (1987), 19; Vincent, 194; Hobsbawm and Scott, 107; Reilly (1994), 279; Reilly (2000), 273-4; Ashton & Roberts, ch. 7, 76-96; Schwab, 41-6 (discussion of ‘Long, long ago’), 200, 214 (pseudonyms list). [LC 6] [C]? Leonard, John, of Gateshead, joiner, son of a gardener, “possibly with private means”, and “well-known radical”, author of the comic song “Winlaton Hopping” and much political verse. Ref: Allan, 128-32; Colls, p. 29, 37; ‘The Bards of Newcastle’: , Eliza A., of Paisley, blacksmith’s wife, pub. Stray leaves (Edinburgh: R. Grant and Son, 1866); the British Library copy is inscribed to the Rev. William Dry, M.A. One poem describes a grandmother’s memories of the faithlessness of friends and acquaintances. The mother of William Leslie (qv), and the daughter of Mrs Macmillan of Elderslie (qv), both also poets. Ref: Brown, II, 498-501; Reilly (2000), 274; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Leslie, Peter (b. 1836), ‘John Pindar’, of Glenvale, Fife, of humble origins, coalminer, soldier, pub. Random Rhymes, ed. by A. M. Houston (Cupar, 1893). Ref: Reilly (1994), 279. [S]? Leslie, William (b. 1862), of Paisley, Glasgow blacksmith’s son, warehouseman, engineer, life insurance agent. Brown records that his mother and grandmother were also poets, and prints a poems of each (‘Dialogue: father and son’ by the grandmother, 499-450, and ‘Margaret’ by the mother’, 501). He does not name them but says the grandmother (Mrs Macmillan, qv) hailed from Elderslie and was married to a David MacMillan who worked as a farm servant; the mother is Eliza A. Leslie (qv). Ref: Brown, II, 498-506. [S]Levack, George W. (b. 1846), of Glasgow, tailor, blacksmith, pub. vol. of poems in 1882. Ref: Edwards, 6, 53-6. [S]Lewis, David, of Knaresborough, gardener, farmer, ‘the first Yorkshire peasant poet to write dialect verse’ (Moorman); pub. in one of the chapbooks Specimens of the Yorkshire Dialect two dialect poems, The Sweeper and the Thieves’ and ‘An elegy on the Death of a Frog’, later collected in his volume The Landscape and Other Poems (York, 1815); a dialogue poem, ‘The Pocket Books’ pub, in later chapbooks. Lewis is very briefly described under the DNB entry for another David Lewis (1683?-1760), but has no entry of his own, and is not easily found. Ref: DNB; Grainge, II, 309; Moorman, xxviii, 20-22.Lewis, Joseph (fl. 1750-74), ivory turner, pub. Lancelot Poverty Struck (1758), Mother Midnight's Comical Pocket-Book (1753? pseudonym “Humphrey Humdrum” but attributed to Lewis), and The Miscellaneous and Whimsical Lucubrations of Lancelot Poverty-Struck (1758). Ref: ODNB.Lewis, Stewart [not Stuart as per Sutton and DNB] (1756-?1818), of Ecclefechan, son of an inn keeper and farmer who died bankrupt when Lewis was a child; tinker and poet; may have also been a tailor; pub. The African Slave; with other poems and songs (Edinburgh, 1816); Fair Helen of Kirconnel Lee. A poem (4th ed., Dumfries, 1817); poems include ‘Ae morn of May’. Ref: DNB; Miller, 167-69; Wilson, II, 526; Sutton, 578 (letter). [S]Lickbarrow, Isabella (1784-1847), Poetical Effusions (Kendal: M. and R. Branthwaite; London: J. Richardson, 1814); A Lament upon the Death of Her Royal Highness the Princess Charlotte. And Alfred, a Vision (Liverpool, 1818). Ref: Curran, Goodridge (1999), item 66, Johnson, item 535, Jackson (1993), 201-2. [F]Lindsay, William (b. 1840), of Kirriemuir, herd laddie, handloom weaver, bleacher, packman, pub. many poems in newspapers and magazines. Ref: Edwards, 1, 328-9. [S]? Linen, James (1815-73), of Kelso, book-binder, emigrated to New York, went to California in the goldrush of 1849, later a lecturer, one of ‘an interesting group of Scottish-American poets’ (Edwards). Ref: Edwards, 7, 137-45. [S]? Linton, William James (‘Abel Reid’, 1812-97, sometimes ‘Master Woodbine’ or ‘Mr Honeysuckle’), wood engraver, Chartist, author of very many works including The English Republic (1851); Claribel and Other Poems (London; Simpkin, Marshall & Co, 1865); Love-lore [poems] (Hamden, Connecticut, 1887); Poems and translations (London, 1889); Broadway ballads, collected for the centenniel commemoration of the Republic 1876, by Abel Reid (Hamden, Connecticut, 1893); Love-lore, and other, early and late, poems (Hamden, Connecticut, 1895); Memories (London, 1895), edited Poetry of America: Selections from one hundred American poets from 1776 to 1876, with an introductory review of colonial poetry, and some specimens from negro melody (1878). Ref: ODNB; Miles, IV, 377; F. B. Smith, Radical Artisan, William James Linton 1812-97 (Manchester, 1973); Robert F. Gleckner, ‘W.J. Linton, a Latter-day Blake’, Bulletin of Research in the Humanities, 85, no. 2 (Summer 1982), 208-27; Vicinus (1974), 98-100; Burnett et al (1984), no. 445; Maidment (1987), 40-1, 62, 73-84, 96 [image]; Kovalev, 180-201; Scheckner, 228-56, 338-40; Schwab, 201-2, 214; Reilly (1994), 283; Reilly (2000), 277; Bradshaw, 417; Johnson 46, nos. 118-21; Sutton, 582-3 (misc. letters). [C]Lister, David (b. 1865), of Ceres, Fife, son of a labourer and a handloom weaver, apprenticed to a chemist, managed a chemist’s shop, presented his work in recitals, wrote for periodicals, taught elocution, pub, Temperance poems for recital: dramatic and humorous (Edinburgh, 1888). Ref: Edwards, 14, 70-76; Reilly (1994), 283. [S]Lister, Thomas (1810-1888), Barnsley cart driver, later a prominent naturalist, pub. The Rustic Wreath: Poems, Moral, Descriptive, & Miscellaneous (Leeds, 1834), presented copy in Clare’s library, gift of the author, sold 3,000 copies; also Temperance Rhymes (1837) and Rhymes of Progress (1862). Ref: LC 5, 55-74; ODNB; Holroyd, 124-5; Andrews, 146-53; [Forshaw, 107-8 includes another Thomas Lister not in this database, a maltster, teacher and preacher poet of Baildon, Yorkshire who spent time in America]; Vicinus (1974), 171; Crossan, 37; Powell, item 283; Johnson, item 541; inf. Bob Heyes. [LC 5]Little, David, of Blackburn (fl. 1861), no biographical data, but the poems clearly indicate impoverishment. Ref: Hull, 134-7.Little, James (b. 1821), soldier, shoemaker, emigrated to US in 1852 then returned, pub. Sparks from Nature’s Fire (1856), The Last March and Other Poems (1857). Ref: Glasgow Poets, 349-50. [S]Little, Janet, later Richmond (1759-1813), servant, known as the ‘Scotch Milkmaid’, born in Nether Bogside, near Ecclefechan, Dumfriesshire, married a labourer at Loudon Castle named John Richmond, a widower 20 years her senior, with five children. Little demonstrated a keen interest in Robert Burns, sending him a letter and rhyming epistle. The parodic appropriation of Standard English through Scottish mimicry is foregrounded within the bilingual text of Little’s Poetical Works. Pub: The Poetical Works of Janet Little, the Scotch Milkmaid (Air[e], 1792). Ref: LC 3, 233-52; ODNB; Miller, 157-58; Jackson, 203-4; Johnson, 542; Lonsdale (1989), 453-5; Milne (1999), 174 210; Rizzo, 243; Kord, 266; Backscheider & Ingrassia, 878-9. [LC 3] [F] [S] [—Iain Rowley]Livingstone, William (1776-1849), of Paisley, weaver, actor, acquaintance of Tannahill; published in periodicals. Ref: Brown, I, 112-13. [S]Llwyd, Richard (1752-1835), ‘The Bard of Snowdon’, ‘began life as a domestic servant but applied himself with great diligence to education and self-improvement’ (Johnson); pub. Beaumaris Bay (Chester, [1800]); Gayton Wake, or Mary Dod (Chester, 1804); Poems. Tales, Odes, Sonnets, Translations from the British (Chester, 1804); The Poetical works of Richard Llwyd, the Bard of Snowdon (London, [1837]); Beaumaris Bay and other Poems, ed Elizabeth Edwards (Nottingham: Trent Editions, 2015). Ref: Radcliffe; Johnson, items 546-9; C. R. Johnson, catalogue no. 46, nos. 307-8; Sutton, 584. [W] [—Katie Osborn]Lochore, Robert (1762-1852), Glasgow shoemaker, Willie’s Vision, or the de’il personified by...the collier [and other pieces] (1796), The foppish taylor; or Fancy disgrac’d (1796), Margret and the Minister. a true tale (1796), A morning walk (1796), Patie and Ralph, an elegiac pastoral on the death of Robert Burns (1797), Tales in Rhyme and Minor Pieces, in the Scottish Dialect (1815). Ref: Wilson, I, 382-6; Johnson, items 550-1, 891. [S]? Lock, Joseph, of Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire, (?)blind poet, known as ‘Sightless Joe’; pub. Thoughts in Rhyme (Bourton-on-the-Water, 1870). Ref: Reilly (2000), 279.? Lockman, John (1698-1771), miscellaneous writer, called ‘l'illustre Lockman’ in France, baptized at St. Paul’s, Covent Garden, pub. ‘occasional complimentary poems’ and poems in newspapers and magazines; also numerous popular translations: A Description of the Temple of Venus at Cnidus (trans from French, 1726); La Henriade (trans Voltaire, 1728); Lettres philosophiques (Letters Concerning the English Nation) (trans Voltaire, 1733); Siecle de Louis XIV (An Essay on the Age of Lewis XIV) (trans Voltaire, 1739), and Oration (trans Charles Poree, 1734). Contributed to the General Dictionary, Historical and Critical (1734-41). He contributed to a ‘General Dictionary’; the original agreement about the book, Lockman’s receipt, and several letters concerning this are owned by the British Library. Ref: ODNB; Sutton, 592.Logan, Alexander (‘The Laureate of the Household’, b. 1833), of Edinburgh, orphaned tin-plate worker, songwriter and dialect poet, brother of Thomas Logan (qv), pub. Auld Reekie Musings: being poems and lyrics (Edinburgh, 1864). Ref: Edwards, 1, 196-9; Reilly (2000), 280-1; Murdoch, 270-4. [S]Logan, J. C. (b. 1839), of Airlie, Forfarshire, farm overseer’s son, railway stationmaster, coal trader in straitened circumstances, pub. in newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 15, 170-3. [S]Logan, Thomas (b. 1835), of Edinburgh, humble circumstances, orphaned, brother of Alexander Logan (qv), lived in New York, returned to be brush factory manager in Dalkeith, Midlothian, pub. The Green Glens of Lothian, and other poems and songs (Edinburgh, 1871). Ref: Reilly (2000), 281; Edwards, 2, 30-3. [S]Loker, Timothy, of Cambridge, of humble circumstances, largely self-taught, under-butler at St. John’s College, pub. Poems and ballads (Cambridge, 1861, 2nd enlarged edn. 1865). Ref: Reilly (2000), 281.Longstaff, William (b. 1849), of Soulby, Westmorland, labourer, worked on farm and railway, finally a signalman, pub. Her Majesty’s royal jubilee, 1887: ode and song, the tribute of a working man (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1887). Ref: Reilly (1994), 287.? Lonsdale, Mark, Cumberland poet, dialect poems included in Ballads in the Cumberland Dialect Chiefly by Robert Anderson (Wigton, 1808). Ref: information of Michael Baron, 2000, Johnson, item 18.Lott, Henry F., a working carpenter, author of One Hundred Sonnets (1850). Ref: Maidment (1987), 214-16; Goodridge (1999), item 67.Love, David (1750-1827), pedlar poet; also worked as a miner; published single sheets and chapbooks; settled in Nottingham and most of his books were published from there, pub. A New and Correct Set of Godly Poems (1782), David Love’s Journey to London and his Return to Nottingham (1800), The Life, Adventures, and Experiences of David Love (Nottingham, 1823-4). Ref: LC 3, 39-42; William Hone, The Table Book (London: William Tegg, 1878), 503-4; Burnett et al (1984), no. 451; Sutton, 594. [LC 3]Loveless, George (1797-1873), agricultural labourer, of Dorset, Chartist, one of the ‘Tolpuddle Martyrs’ and a poet ‘whose lyrics form part of the Trade Union Tradition’. Ref Schwab, 204. [C]Lovett, William (1800-77), artisan, member of the London Workingmen’s Association, Chartist and radical, author of an autobiography, some international Addresses, and a poem ‘worth reading’, Woman, as well as Chartism: a New Organization of the People (1840, co-written with John Collins) and The Life and Struggles of William Lovett, in his Pursuit of Bread, Knowledge, and Freedom (1877). Ref: ODNB; Ashraf (1978), I, 24; Schwab, 204. [C]Lowe, John (1750-98), gardener’s son, apprentice weaver, tutor, see Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song, ed. by R. H. Cromek (1810). Ref: ODNB; Harper, 244; [Johnson, item 555 also possibly relates]; Sutton, 595. [S]Lowery, Robert (1809-63), seaman, tailor, Chartist poet and activist, a major political figure, but also a published poet: ‘The Collier Boy’, pub. in Charter, 23 June 1839. Ref: ODNB; Burnett et al (1984), no. 455; Scheckner, 257, 340. [C]Lucas, John (fl. 1776-81, shoemaker poet, author of Miscellanies in verse and prose (Salisbury, 1776, BL 1162.d.20), The Fall of Pharaoh and Philo’s Apology (1781). Ref: LC 2, 331-52; Ashraf (1978), I, 31-2; Klaus (1985), 7-8, 16-17; ESTC; Christmas, 210-12, 220-3. [LC 2]? Ludwig, Sophie (1764-1815), German forester’s wife, who published single poems. However Joan Thirsk in her review of Kord (Literature and History, 3rd ser., 13/2, 107-9, asserts that she ‘was clearly not of the peasant class’. Ref Kord. [F]Lumsden, James (‘Samuel Mucklebackit’, 1839-1903), of Abbey Mill, Haddington, East Lothian, variously apprentice grocer, millworker, itinerant, farmer, working in the potato trade, journalist, pub. six volumes in the 1880s and 1890s, including Sheep-head and Trotters: being savoury selections, poetic and prosaic, from the bulky literary remains of Samuel Mucklebackit and Thomas Pintail, late Parnassian hill and arable farmers in Lothian (Edinburgh, 1892); The battles Of Dunbar & Prestonpans, And Other selected poems (New and old). By James Lumsden (“Samuel Mucklebackit”), Late of Nether Hailes, East Lothian, Author of "Country Chronicles,” “Sheep-Head and Trotters,” &c. (Haddington: William Sinclair, 63 Market Street, 1896). Ref: Edwards, 11, 339-45; Reilly (1994), 291. [S]Lunn, John, of Pontefract, Yorkshire, barber, ‘wrote many pieces, chiefly of a comic and satirical kind’. Pub. Original Tales in Verse, and Oddities in Prose and Verse; The Duniad [sic, a ‘collection of pieces on the election contest in the borough of Pontefract, 1768’]; Liberty; The Mirror (1771); one of his ‘most amusing’ poems, The Newcastle Rider, or Ducks and Green Peas [c. 1835], briefly extracted in Grainge, ‘also appeared as a farce in one act; which was performed at the theatre in Pontefract, with great applause’. [Note that almost none of these works can be found on COPAC; they appear to be locally distributed chapbooks.] Ref Grainge, I, 279-81. Lyall, John Wallace (b. 1836), of Paisley, weaver’s son, sailor, iron planer, pub. poems in newspapers, Sun-Gleams Through the Mist of Toil: Poems, Songs, Dialogues, Recitations, and Sacred Verses (Brechin and Edinburgh, 1885); pub. temperance text Jack Bentley’s First and Last Glass (1888). Ref: Brown, II, 325-31; Reilly (1994), 292; Edwards, 5, 386-90. [S]Lyle, William (b. 1822), of Edinburgh, left school at 12, apprentice potter in Glasgow, emigrated to Rochester, New York, manager of the Rochester Sewer Pipe Company, achieved success and published vols in America. Ref: Ross, 68-76; Edwards, 6, 28-35. [S]Lyndon, William (b. c. 1862), dockworker’s son, itinerant, of Dungarven, Waterford, lived in Cardiff, London, Liverpool, Scotland, doing seasonal and other labour, pub. ballads and poems. Ref: Edwards, 15, 31-3. [S] [I]Mabon, Agnes Stuart (b. 1841), of Lochtower Farm, Yethom, Roxburghshire, daughter of a farm overseer who died when she was two, when her mother moved to Yetholm and later Jedburgh; attended school until age 13 then sent to work in a mill, remained there until marriage, then reared a family. Mabon was often in weak health. She published in local newspapers and the People’s Friend, and then her own collection, Homely rhymes, etc. from the banks of the Jed (Paisley, Edinburgh and Jedburgh, 1887). Poems include ‘Our Baby,’ ‘My Own True Love,’ ‘The Drunkard’s Wife,’ ‘The Song of the Linnet,’ ‘The Vale of Bowmont,’ and ‘In Cauld, Bleak December’. Ref: Edwards, 9, 207-13; Boos (1995), 68; Reilly (1994), 295; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]M’Anally, Henry, of Castledawson, Londonderry, Irish patriot, shipbuilder in Dumbarton and Partick, later worked for the railway company in Chicago, pub. Effusions After Toil: A Collection of Poems and Lyrics (Glasgow, 1884). Ref: Reilly (1994), 295. [I]Macansh, Alexander (b. 1803), of Dunfermline, a self-educated flax-dresser described as ‘deformed’, i.e physically disabled; wrote for Scottish literary periodicals, pub. Social Curse; Or, Intemperance, a Rhyme; and Other Pieces (1850), A Working-man’s Bye-hours: Consisting of Essays, Lectures, Poems, etc. (Dunfermline, 1866), also co-author of a prose work: Two Essays on the Benefits of Savings’ Banks to the Working-classes by Messrs. Macansh and Cousin, etc. (1852) Ref: Reilly (2000), 287-8; National Library of Scotland online catalogues. [S]M’Arthur, Peter (1805-81), of Barrhead, Renfrewshire, calico printer, pattern designer promoted to department head in Glasgow, pub. Amusements in minstrelsy (Glasgow, 1880). Ref: Edwards, 1, 329-31 and 8 (1886), xxv; Reilly (1994), 296; Murdoch, 156-64. [S]Macaulay, John (b. 1854), of Port-Glasgow, from a poverty-stricken family, blacksmith, pub. in Glasgow Weekly Mail, and pub. Poems and songs (Greenock, 1895). Ref: Edwards, 9, 340-5; Reilly (1994), 296. [S]? M’Auslane, William Thomson (1832-93), of Glasgow, attended a village school and evening classes, clerk and book-keeper, journalist, pub. Summer musings; and, Memories dear (Glasgow, 1889). Ref: Reilly (1994), 296; Edwards, 2, 135-9. [S]? Macbain, Elizabeth, of Dumbarton, notes in her book that she received a limited education, and that her ‘sphere of life’ gave many barriers to ‘the spirit of poetry’; pub. Evening Thoughts (1864). Ref: inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]? MacCodrum, John (Iain) (1693?-1779), born at Aird an Runnair in North Uist. Gaelic bard, son of a peasant. Ref: ODNB. [S]? M’Coll or MacColl, Evan (‘Clarsair nam Beann’, ‘The mountain harper’, 1808-98), of Kenmoor, Lochfyneside, Argylshire, Highland fisherman and farmer, self styled highland peasant, Gaelic poet. His father emigrated to Canada in 1831; he stayed, obtaining a clerkship in Liverpool in 1839, emigrating to Canada a decade later. ~ Born in Kenmore, Scotland, where he became known as ‘Clarsair-nam-beann’ or the ‘Mountain Minstrel’,?MacColl was granted a decent education—though his father could scarcely afford the tutor—and quite possibly acquired a poetic disposition from his mother, who belonged to the Clan Cameron.?Stirred by the standard English classics and Robert Burns’s poems, MacColl began composing verses when barely out of his childhood. ~ MacColl’s youthful employment in farming and fishing did not quell his artistic development.?In 1831, Evan’s family emigrated for Canada, but he remained behind, and five years later published a volume of verse, Mountain Minstrel (1836).?The following year, MacColl became a contributor to the Gaelic Magazine then published in Glasgow, and was also appointed clerk at the Liverpool Custom House.?Another book of verse, Clarsach Nam Beann (1838) or Poems and Songs in Gaelic appeared in 1838. ~ A number of literary critics commended MacColl’s poetry.?Dr Norman McLeod, editor of Good Words, wrote: ‘Wild indeed and sometimes rough are his rhymes and epithets, yet there are thoughts so new and striking—images and comparisons so beautiful and original—feelings so warms and fresh that stamp this Highland peasant as no ordinary man’. ~ In 1850, with his health suffering, MacColl moved to Canada.?He accepted a position in at Provincial Customs of Upper Canada in Kingston, where he worked for the next thirty years.?He wrote numerous poems, mainly lyrical, during this time—two of the most well-known pieces being ‘My Rowan Tree’ and?‘Robin’, the latter a melodious composition that marked the occasion of the Burns Centennial celebration in Kingston. ~ MacColl was among those who contested the notion that the decline of Gaelic language was a natural and inevitable consequence of its alleged inferiority.?In The Scottish-American Journal (13 January 1881) he comments upon the ‘barbarous’ techniques employed to estrange school children from anything other than English as the sole vehicle of speech: ‘It is to be hoped that no such foul, short-sighted means of killing off my good mother-tongue are still allowed to exist in any part of the Highlands. If it must die—though I see no good reason why it should—let it have at least a little fair play in the fight for its life’. ~ In 1880, MacColl retired to Toronto. Biographical sketches reveal he was twice married and had fathered nine children—one of whom, Mary J. MacColl, is noted for her own volume of poems entitled Bide a wee.?Evan MacColl was for a long-time bard of the St Andrew’s Society of Kingston, where he was buried, and his achievements are also honoured though a monument at Kenmore. Pub. Clar-sach Nan Beann, or Poems and Songs in Gaelic (Glasgow, 1837; new edition, 1886); The Mountain Minstrel, or Poems and Songs in English (Glasgow, 1836, also pub. in Gaelic; Edinburgh, Glasgow and London, 1838; new edition 1846; third Canadian edition of his works, Toronto, 1887) includes ‘On the Abolition of Slavery in the British West India Colonies’, and ‘Stanzas on Viewing “The Rejoicings” in a Highland Glen, Occasioned by the Passing of the Reform Bill’; The English Poetical Works of Evan MacColl, with a biographical sketch of the author by A. MacKenzie (Toronto: Hunter, Rose, 1883). Ref: LC 5, 83-8; Ross, 20-8; Wilson, II, 303-8; Johnson, items 561-2; J. Y. Murray, Evan MacColl - The Lochfyneside Bàrd (Crùisgean and An Comunn Gàidhealach Argyll Branch, 1998, available from the Gaelic Books Council); M. Newton, ‘“Becoming Cold-hearted like the Gentiles Around Them”: Scottish Gaelic in the United States 1872-1912’, e-Keltoi, 2 (2009), online at: . [S] [LC 5] [—Iain Rowley]M’Crackett, or M’Craket, Peter (1827-82), of Greenlaw, Berwickshire, Lammermoor shepherd or ‘herd laddie’, draper, teacher, pub. poems in newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 2 (1881), 340-5 and 9 (1886), xvii; Crockett, 187-9. [S]McCreery, John (1768-1832), printer, Irish-born but served his apprenticeship to a Liverpool printer; later worked with Edward Rushton (qv) when the latter became a bookseller. Pub. The Press: A Poem (1803); part 2 was pub. in 1828. Ref Collected Writings of Edward Rushton, ed. P. Baines (Liverpool, 2014), 8-9. [I]M’Culloch, James Sloane (b. 1855), of Burnfoot, ‘descended from a long line of sturdy, noble-minded peasants’, smallholder and stonedyke worker. Ref: Edwards, 7, 212-16. [S] M’Culloch, James Sloane (b. 1885), of Burnfoot, Carsphairn, Galloway, stonedyker with his father and brothers, pub. Poems: Local, Lyrical, and Miscellaneous (Edinburgh, 1885). Ref: Harper, 252; Reilly (1994), 298. [S]M’Donald, Agnes, of Glasgow, blacksmith’s daughter, orphaned, minimum education, wrote for papers including Glasgow Mail, pub. Features of our river, and other poems (Glasgow: Maurice Ogle and Co, 1870). Poems include ‘Twilight,’ ‘Infant Dream,’ ‘The Withered Spray,’ and ‘Epigrams’. Ref: Reilly (2000), 290; Edwards, 15, 155-9; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]MacDonald, Christian (b. 1868), of Callendar, Perthshire, orphaned, machinist in Glasgow. Ref: Edwards, 14, 321-4. [F] [S]MacDonald, Mrs Christina (‘Teenie’), b. in Denny, Stirlingshire and a resident of Glasgow, blind poet, wife of Norman Macdonald, a surfaceman; wrote her poems during her 80’s and they were published after her death; pub. Musings at Eventide (Paisley: Alexander Gardner, 1906). Her poems comment on the ironies and inequities of life, but advocate faith and hopefulness. She was a firm supporter of temperance. Ref: inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]MacDonald, Hugh (1817-60), of Glasgow then Paisley, born in humble circumstances, printer and journalist, pub. Poems and Songs with A Memoir of the Author (Glasgow, 1863), Poetical works (1865). Ref: Edwards, 7, 43-8; Glasgow Poets, 333-36; Brown, II, 93-106; Wilson, II, 398-402; Leonard, 215-18; Reilly (2000), 290; Murdoch, 132-38; Sutton, 611 (letters). [S]MacDonald, James (b. 1810), of Laurencekirk, shoemaker, messenger-at-arms. Ref: Edwards, 7, 356-7. [S]MacDonald, John (b. 1860), of Glasgow, bookbinder, his ‘Lay of Time’ won a local newspaper prize. Ref: Edwards, 1, 98-9. [S]M’Donald, Joseph (b. 1827), of Dundee, herd laddie, soldier, railway policeman. Ref: Edwards, 5, 257-61. [S]? McDonagh, Michael (1822-93), of Greencastle, County Donegal, printer and compositor on the Limerick Reporter, pub. Lays of Erin, and other poems (Limerick, 1882). Ref: Reilly (1994), 299. [I]MacDougall, Allen (1750-1829), apprenticed to tailor; poems written in Scottish Gaelic. Ref: not noted. [S]M’Dougall, William (b. 1800), of Dundee, child millworker, wanderer, commercial traveller, railway clerk, retired in Preston, Lancs. Ref: Edwards, 4, 17-21. [S] M’Ewen, Tom (b. 1846), of Busby, near Glasgow, calico printer’s ‘tearer’, pattern designer, painter and poet. Ref: Edwards, 12, 326-36. [S]MacFadyen, Dugald (b. 1857), ‘Philotas’, of Maryhill, Glasgow, of Irish roots, draper, songwriter, pub. Songs from the city (London, Edinburgh and Dublin, 1887). Ref: Edwards, 1, 246-7; Reilly (1994), 301. [S] [I]Macfarlan, James (1832-62), weaver’s son, pedlar, walked from Glasgow to London to publish a volume of lyrics (1853), contributed to Household Words; other pubs include Poems (1854), Lyrics of Life (1856); poems contributed to All the year round (Glasgow, ?1870); Poetical Works (1882). Ref: LC 5, 301-14; ODNB/DNB; Glasgow Poets, 377-86; Wilson, II, 482-5; CBEL III, 347; Reilly (2000), 291; Murdoch, 248-54; Sutton, 611 (letters). [S] [LC 5]M’Farlane, Samuel (b. c. 1831), of Auchtergaven, Perthshire, small farmer, botanist, pub. poems in newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 6, 394-6. [S]? McGeechan, Patrick (1847-1928), of Airdrie, musician and artist, played in the Airdrie Choral Union; paintings well known in the West of Scotland; died in Glasgow. Ref: Knox, 293-4. [S]MacGill, Patrick (1890-1963), Glenmornan, in the Donegal hills of a poor peasant family, tramped in Ireland and Scotland, farmboy, potato-picker, railway navvy; became a journalist and successful novelist; vols. include Songs of a Navvy (1910). Ref Burnett et al (1984), no. 466. [S] [I] [OP]? McGilvray, Alexander, (1800-71), of Paisley, ‘The Rhyming Baker’, town councillor, wrote squibs, pub. The Town’s House on the Market Day, A Poem in Two Cantos (Paisley, 1840), Poems and Songs Satirical and Descriptive, Bearing on the Political, Moral and Religious Character of Man (Glasgow, 1850). Ref: Brown, I, 335-39; Leonard, 166-75; Reilly (2000), 291. [S]McGonagall, William (c. 1825-1902), of Edinburgh, son of an Irish cotton weaver, handloom weaver in Dundee, amateur Shakespearian actor, gave public readings of his verse, pub. Poetic gems, selected from the works of William McGonagall (Dundee, 1890; second series, 1891); numerous reprints and selections from 1890 to the present day, often sold on the gimmick of his being ‘the world’s worst poet’, while modern parodies of McGonagall’s extraordinary style and cultural potency include Terry Pratchett’s The Wee Free Men and A Hat Full of Sky. Ref: LC 6, 305-18; ODNB; Burnett et al (1984), no. 467; Reilly (1994), 302; see especially Hamish Henderson, ‘McGonagall the What’ in his Alias MacAlias: Writing on Songs, Folk and Literature (Edinburgh: Polygon, 1992), 274-94; Valentine Cunningham, ed., The Victorians: An Anthology of Poetry and Poetics (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 585-8. ([I] [S] [LC 6]McGregor, James (b. 1858), of Perth, son of the poet John M’Gregor (b. 1827), shoemaker, policeman. Ref: Edwards, 14, 152-6. [S]? McGregor, Jane, perfumer of Port Glasgow, pub. Redeeming love, and other poems (Edinburgh, 1862). Ref: Reilly (2000), 291. [F] [S]McGregor, John (1790?-1870), of Paisley, embroiderer. Ref: Brown, I, 251-54. [S]M’Gregor, John (b. 1827), of Perth, handloom weaver. Ref: Edwards, 14, 149-52. [S]McHutchinson, William (1814-79), of Airdrie, stone mason and monumental sculptor, ‘one of Airdrie’s best known bards of last century’, pub. Poems and Songs (1868, enlarged edition, 1877). Ref: Knox, 170-85. [S]MacIndoe, George, (1771-1848), of Paisley, silk weaver, later hotel keeper and publican in Glasgow, pub. Poems and Songs, chiefly in the Scottish dialect (1805), The Wandering Muse, A Miscellany of Original Poetry (Paisley, 1813). Ref: Brown, I, 69-71; Leonard, 55-6. [S]M’Intosh, David (b. 1846), of Hillside, Montrose, mechanic, emigrated to America, pub. in People’s Journal. Ref: Edwards, 2, 329-31. [S]M’Intosh, John (1848-86), of Grantown, Spey, itinerant tailor, pub. in People’s Journal and other periodicals. Ref: Edwards, 5, 203-11. [S]? M’Intosh, William Stevenson (b. 1838), of Edinburgh, apprentice jeweller. Ref: Edwards, 9, 69-72. [S]McIntyre, Duncan Ban (1724-1812), or ‘Donnchadh Ban Mac an t-Saoir’, and known by a Gaelic pen-name, ‘Donnchadh Ban nan Oran’ (‘Fair-haired Duncan of the Songs’); Gaelic poet, forester and soldier for the Earl of Breadalbane, author of Moladh Beinn Dóbhrain (Praise of Ben Dorain); poems first pub. in Edinburgh, 1768. Ref: ODNB; Wilson, I, 227-32, Douglas Mack, ‘James Hogg, John Clare, and Duncan Ban Macintyre: Three British “Peasant Poets”?’, JCSJ, 22 (2003), 17-31. [S]McIntyre, John (1811-72), of Paisley, warper, pub. Favourite Songs (1850), The Emigrants Hope: a collection of Articles in prose and verse, together with a number of original pieces contributed by literary and poetical acquaintances—men of ability and talent—whose names have been before the public these many years (1854). Ref: Brown, I, 449-51. [S]? Mackay, Alexander, butler at Myhall, pub. Original songs and poems, English and Gaelic (Inverness, 1821). Ref: Johnson, item 572. [S]McKay, Archibald (1801-83), Scottish poet apprenticed to a weaver, pub. a satirical poem, Drouthy Tam (1828), popular ‘My First Bawbee’, ‘My Ain Couthie Wife’, and Ingleside Lilts (dnk). Ref: ODNB; Edwards, 2, 375 and 9, xvi; Murdoch, 29-33 [S]Mackay, James (b. 1838), of Leyton, Kincardineshire, miller, pub. in local newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 1, 334. [S]Mackay, Robert (‘Robb Donn’, 1714-78), Gaelic bard, unlettered drover, oral poet and folklorist. Pub. ‘Cead fhir Bhìoguis don fhrìth’ (‘Bighouse's Farewell to the Deer-Forest’), and an ode to Death, ‘S tric thu, Bhàis, cur an cèill dhuinn.’ Ref: ODNB; Wilson, I, 180-3; Ian Grimble, The World of Robb Donn (1979). [S]M’Kay, Thomas (b. 1857), of Paisley, son of a letterpress printer, packing-box maker, consecutively lost sight in both eyes through accidents, ran a shop, poems in Brown. Ref: Brown, II, 469-74. [S]MacKarsie, William (b. 1821), of Falkland, molecatcher from age 12, farmer, pub. Hamely Rhymes on Hamely Subjects (Cupar-Fife, 1886). Ref: Edwards, 14, 253-8. [S]McKay, William (1824-76), baker, pub. in the Airdrie Advertiser, lived in later years in the New Monkland Poorhouse, where he continued to write and where he died. Ref: Knox, 186-92. [S]M’Kean, Hugh (b. 1869), of Boquhan, Killearn, Stirlingshire, baker’s son, joiner, pub. poems in the newspaper. Ref: Edwards, 14, 324-6. [S]Mackellar, Mary, farm worker, left school at fifteen and married a shipmaster, with whom she sailed for some years; pub. Poems and Songs in Gaelic and English (Edinburgh, 1880). She also published The Tourist’s Hand-Book of Gaelic and English Phrases for the Highlands. Mackellar wrote poems in both English and Gaelic, the English ones celebrating the Highlands and mourning the death of children. A couple of semi-humorous poems are in Scots. Ref: Boos (2008), 23; inf. Florence Boos; Sutton, 614 (letters). [F] [S]McKenzie, Andrew (‘Gaelus’, 1780-1839), of Dunover, County Down, farmer’s son, linen weaver, poet, who composed at the loom; corresponded with Robert Anderson (qv), enduring eviction and hardship, became a tract-seller in Belfast; pub. Poems and Songs on Different Subjects (Belfast, 1810), which had 2,000 subscribers (now online through the Ulster Poetry Project); The Masonic Chaplet (1832). Ref: Anderson’s Cumberland Ballads and Songs. Centenary Edition, ed. T. Ellwood (Ulverston: W. Holmes, 1904); Hewitt; ODNB. [I]? M’Kenzie, George (b. 1827), of Paisley, ‘carver, gilder, picture frame-maker’. Ref: Brown, II, 548-52. [S]M’Kenzie, Hugh (b. 1828), of Kilmarnock, shoemaker, Burns memorialist and poet, pub. Lyrical Lays (Kilmarnock, 1866). Ref: Edwards, 8, 176-82. [S]Mackenzie, Peter (b. 1811) of Forres, Scotland, soldier’s son, gardener, ‘butman’ to the ‘Duff Rifles’ at Lhanbrid, amateur astrologer, pub. A Short Account of Some Strange Adventures and Mishaps in the Strange Life of a Strange Man (Elgin: for the author, 1869), which ‘often reverts to the 3rd person and includes many examples of the author’s versifying’. Ref Burnett et al (1984), no. 474. [S] McKenzie, William, quarrier of Carmyllie, Angus, pub. A collection of songs & poems (1871). Ref: Reilly (2000), 293. [S]MacKie, David Bruce (b. 1861), of Dundee, orphan, left school at 14 to be a clerk, pub. poems in the newspapers and magazines. Ref: Edwards, 7, 192-5. [S]McKinley, John of Dunseverick, weaver, ‘only six months at school’, pub. Poetic Sketches Descriptive of the Giant’s Causeway, and the Surrounding Scenery; with some detached pieces (Belfast: Joseph Smyth, 1819, now online through the Ulster Poetry Project; 2nd edn 1821). Ref Hewitt. [I]? Mackintosh, Margaret (fl. 1836), evidence regarding her background is from the volume itself: her preface speaks of her limited education, and in a poetic epistle to a friend she notes that both are poor; her poems are skilful and varied, with a mildly anti-pedantic cast; pub. The Cottager’s Daughter; A Tale, To Which Are Added Miscellaneous and Religious Pieces; and Also a Few Songs. Both in English and in Scotch Poetry (Edinburgh, 1836). Ref: inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]McKowen, James (1814-89), b. Lamberg, near Lisburn, weaver bard, bleachworks finisher. Poems appeared in The Harp of Erin (1867, 2nd edn 1869) and Household Library of Ireland's Poets (1889, named misspelled as 'McKeown'). Ref. Hewitt; ODNB. [I]McLachlan, Alexander (1818-96), of Johnstone, worked in cotton factory, apprentice tailor, emigrated to Canada (‘The Burns of Canada’), farmer, pub. Poems, chiefly in the Scottish dialect (1855); Lyrics (1858); The Emigrant (1861); Balmoral: Lays of the Highlands and Other Poems (Edinburgh: Blackie, n.d., c. 1871); The Poetical Works of Alexander McLachlan (Toronto, 1900). Ref: Ross, 152-60; Wilson, II, 403-6; Lighthall, 115, 168, 456; Leonard, 236-8; Edwards, 2, 258-65; Grian Books web page, visited July 5th 2014. [S]MacLachlan, Alexander (b. 1856), of Greenock, son of Kenneth McLachlan, left school at 11 to be a draper, wrote prose sketches and verses. Ref: Edwards, 5, 40-4. [S]McLachlan, Kenneth (1815-85), of Greenock, Renfrewshire, son of a soldier and shoemaker, calico block-printer, policeman, went deaf, ran a drapery business, pub. The progress of the sciences: a poem (Glasgow and Greenock, 1860), Scenes of the city by night: a poem in six cantos (Glasgow, Edinburgh and London, 1863), Hope’s happy home, and other poems (1869), Beauties of Scotland, and other pieces, with historical notes (London, 1872). Ref: Edwards, 1, 364-8 and 9, xviii; Murdoch, 173-80; Reilly (2000), 294. [S]? MacLagan, Alexander (1811-79), of Perth, farmer’s son, plumber, lived in Edinbugh and London, pub. first vol. of poems in 1841, second in 1850, third, Ragged and Industrial School Rhymes, in 1854, received a Civil List pension, and went on to write patriotic and military verses: Volunteer songs (1863), Balmoral: Lays of the Highlands, and other poems (Blackie, 1871), Ragged school rhymes (1871), National songs and ballads (1878). Ref: Wilson, II, 341-7; Reilly (2000), 294; Murdoch, 147-50. [S]McLardy, James (b. 1824), of Glasgow, learned to be shoemaker like his father, involved in founding boot and shoe factories, later emigrated to US, individual works never collected or published separately but some appeared in Paisley Literary Miscellany. Ref: Brown, II, 189-92. [S]M’Laren, John Wilson (b. 1861), of Grassmarket, Edinburgh (‘The Laddie Bard’), seaman’s son, orphan, messenger, bootmaker, newsagent, compositor, pub. Rhymes frae the chimla-lug (Edinburgh, 1881); Scots poems and ballants (Edinburgh, 1892). Ref: Reilly (1994), 308; Edwards, 2, 346-9. [S]McLaren, William (1772-1832), of Paisley, poet and weaver, acquainted with Tannahill, whom he helped to publish, pub. ‘Address delivered at the celebration of the birth of Burns, at the first general meeting of the Paisley Burns Anniversary Society’ (1815), Emma, or the Cruel Father: A Poetical Tale, with other Poems and Songs (1817), Isabella, or the Robbers: a Poetical Tale of the Olden Times, and other Poems (1827), many periodical publications. Ref: Brown, I, 78-83; Johnson 46, no. 309; Sutton, 618 (letter). [S]McLauchlan, Thomas (b. 1858), of Glasgow, brushmaker, wrote humorous sketches. Ref: Edwards, 1, 156. [S]M’Lay, John (b. 1799), of Airdrie, collier. Ref: Edwards, 12, 388-92. [S]M’Lean, Andrew (b. 1848), of Renton, Dumbartonshire, apprentice joiner, worked his passage across the Atlantic, joined the US Navy, served in the Civil War, became Managing Editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Ref: Ross, 84-9; Edwards, 6, 135-9. [S]MacLean, Hugh Archibald, engineer, postal worker. Ref: Edwards 10, 84-7. [S]McLennan, Anne (1840-83), of Resolis, Ross & Cromarty, worked as a domestic servant and later as a Bible-woman, pub. Poems, sacred and secular (Edinburgh: Printed for private circulation, 1884), a short paperbound leaflet of hymns and religious verses. Ref: Reilly (1994), 308; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]M’Leod, Ewen (b. 1809), of Colbost, Isle of Skye, Gaelic songwriter and English poet, farmer’s son, apprentice shoemaker, then worked for a publishing house travelling in England and Scotland, pub. prose and verse in newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 15, 133-6. [S]M’Lintock, Agnes C. (d. 1878), of Gourock or Greenock, Renfrewshire, servant at Glasgow, lived in humble circumstances, died of consumption, pub. The Broken Plough, and other poems (Glasgow and Edinburgh: C. Glass and Co., 1877); her poems are very religious. Ref: Macleod, 264-65; Edwards, 13, 338-9; Reilly (2000), 295; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]McManus, Cornelius (b. 1863), of Brindle, Lancs, working man, author of ‘John Barleycorn’s Diary’ and other poems and stories. Ref: Hull, 424-9, Maidment (1987), 179-80.Macmillan, Daniel (b. 1846), of Dalintobel, Campbelltown, Argyllshire, herder, ironmonger, manufacturer. Ref: Edwards, 14, 300-5; Murdoch, 282-5. [S]? Macmillan, Mrs, of Elderslie, the wife of a farm servant, David MacMillan, is mentioned in Brown’s Paisley Poets, and one poem by her (‘Dialogue: Father and Son’) is printed; mother of Eliza A. Leslie (qv) and grandmother of William Leslie (qv), both poets. Ref: Brown, II, 498-501; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]MacMorine, Mary, a servant maid, pub. Poems, Chiefly on Religious Subjects, in two parts (Edinburgh: J. Pillans & Sons, 1799). The largely biblical content ties in with her apologetic preface that she has no grand ideas to rise above her station but releases her poetry to do some good. Her life experiences, such as the loss of her children and how she deals with that loss is interlaced with the biblical content, as though to draw comfort from the scriptures. Pieces like ‘On The Dumfries Infirmary’ (pp.296-297) seem to contrast the treatment of the poor with the upper classes, highlighting injustice through emotional language. It begins where she takes her friend from the infirmary to ‘mark the river how it glides.’ The journey could equally be a form of spiritual journey or escapism for, after seeing the ‘stately mansion,’ that is ‘Raised on yon rising ground/ Where sickness finds relief,’ we are led to think of a heavenly kingdom. The illnesses cured were ‘gout’ and ‘stones,’ which were considered, then, to be the result of rich living. She contrasts their care and attention with ‘the dark abodes of woe, / Where naught but wild despair is heard,/ Eyes rolling to and fro.’ ‘Here poor Maria shed her tears, /And Annie wept in vain! / Here blooming Marg’ret hapless sigh’d,/ And clink’d her heavy chain!’ Whether they are in Hell, whether mad, whether depressed, whether restricted through illness and whether they speak for the poor, for women, for all mankind, is a matter of opinion. MacMorine’s seemingly simple poems work on many different levels and repay attention. Nevertheless, she expected criticism, and ehe ends by telling her Muse: ‘How will the haughty critic sneer/ And scorn thy homely phrase? / How durst thou grate the poet’s ear/ With rude unpleasant lays?’ [—Dawn Whatman] [F] [S]M’Murdo, George (b. 1843), of Muirkirk, Ayrshire, coalminer, pub. Poems and miscellaneous pieces (Ardrossan, 1882). Ref: Edwards, 5, 220-4; Reilly (1994), 309. [S]? MacNamara, Francis (1811-61), of Cashel, Ireland, ‘Frank the Poet’, Irish poet transported to Australia in 1832. ‘Most of his work has been collected from oral sources either from prisoners who remembered his compositions or much later field recordings of ballads by Australian folklorists. His most famous work is A Convict’s Tour To Hell, an epic world turned upside down poem’ (Mark Gregory, e-mail). Ref: inf. Mark Gregory, Macquarie University; John Meredith and Rex Whalan, Frank the Poet (Melbourne: Red Rooster Press, 1979). MacNamara now has a dedicated web page, ; he also features in the following pages: ; ; ; . [I]McNaughton, Peter, ‘Bail ’An Eas’ (1814-89), of Middleton of Tulliepowrie, farmboy of a large family, ploughman, merchant; the father read to them, the mother sang Gaelic hymns, became a leading Gaelic scholar, translated much from Gaelic to English, made a metrical version of Ossian. Ref: Edwards, 4, 265-74. [S]M’Neil or McNeil, Duncan McFarlane (b. 1830), of Paisley, weaver’s drawboy, baker, pub. ‘When I was a Drawboy’ and other poems in his The Reformed Drunkard or the Adventure on the Muir with Other Poems and Songs (Paisley, 1860, Glasgow, 1899). Ref: Edwards, 6, 318-21; Brown, II, 287-92; Leonard, 219-23; Reilly (2000), 296. [S]M’Neill, Kate (b. 1858), of Houston, Renfrewshire, daughter of a working man; when she was eight her family moved to Inverkip, and then Glasgow; attended school from age 6 to 14; nursed her mother, an invalid, for 16 years until the latter’s death. Her verses, which include ‘Mary at Jesus’ Feet,’ ‘Mother’s Death,’ ‘Night,’ ‘Inverkip,’ are sentimental and religious. Ref: Edwards, 6, 228-32; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]M’Neill, Peter (b. 1839), of Tranent, East Lothian, coal miner from age nine, evening school, post messenger, bookseller, wrote poems from age 16, sold hand-written copies of early work through the local bookseller, pub. Youthful Musings (1863), Poems and Songs (1864), Archie Tamson, the Parish Beadle (1867, prose work), Adventures of Geordie Borthwick, a Strolling Player (1869), Sandy Glen and other sketches (1871), The Battle of Preston; Gaffer Gray: or, Knox and his times, and other poems and songs (Tranent and Edinburgh, ?1878, 1882). Ref: Edwards, 5, 292-7; Reilly (2000), 296. [S]M’Nicol, Duncan (b. 1851), of Luss, Dunbartonshire, teacher, gardener, handyman, settled on Rothesay as a cabman, pub. Bute, and other poems (Glasgow, 1897), Glen fruin, and other poems (Rothesay, 1885). Ref: Edwards, 3, 279-82; Reilly (1994), 310. [S]M’Owen, J., of Sheffield, Chartist poet, pub. ‘only a few poems in The Northern Star’. Ref: Kovalev, 115; Scheckner, 292, 341; Schwab, 208. [C]? M’Phail, Duncan (b. 1844), of Paisley, handloom weaver’s son, draper, counting-house manager, poems in Brown. Ref: Brown, II, 395-401. [S]MacPhail, Marion (b. 1817), of Dundonald, western Ayrshire, became blind and deaf from a disease at age 13, moved to Glasgow, and was able to work as laundress, composing verses to entertain herself; pub. Religious Poems (Glasgow, printed by Charles Murchland, of Irvine, 1882), with an introduction by Rev. Fergus Fergusson, D. D. Poems include ‘Submission,’ ‘Jesus,’ and ‘The Bible’. Ref: Edwards, 7, 86-9; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]MacPherson, Colin (b. 1826), of Keith, Banffshire, herder, shoemaker, packman, potato merchant, pub. The farmer’s friend: the errors in the present method of rearing and breeding of cattle exposed, the causes of disease and plagues in cattle traced to the injurious system of gross stall feeding, and inadequate housing and breeding from too young and unmatured stock, spurious manures, their baneful effects on cattle, crops, and soil, &c (Dundee, 1878). This is a book of poems, but he also wrote prose articles on diseases in potato, described by Reilly as ‘useful’. Ref: Edwards, 3, 33-6, Reilly (2000), 297. [S]MacPherson, Daniel (c. 1810-86), of Alvie, Badenoch, servant, police officer in Edinburgh, colliery engineer on Tyneside. Ref: Edwards, 10, 26-331. MacPherson, Mary (Mairi Nic a Phearsain), ‘[S]hor nan Oran’, ‘Big Mary of the Songs’ (1821-98), ‘The Skye Poetess’, was born in Skeabost, Isle of Skye; moved to Inverness in 1848, where she married Isaac Macpherson, a shoemaker. He died after twenty-five years of marriage, leaving her with four surviving children. She worked as a nurse first in the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, and later elsewhere, until in 1882 she returned to Skye as a crofter. She began to write poems in her native Gaelic in 1872 when seeing the injustices wreaked on the Highlanders in Inverness. She was fluent in reading English and Gaelic but unable to write. Mr. Lachland Macdonald of Skeabost gave her life tenancy of a cottage and paid for publication of her poems in a large volume (Inverness, c. 1893), containing 6,000 lines, all taken down from her recitation by John Whyte. Her poems include praises of Skye, elegies on departed country-persons, and a series of denunciations of the landowners who forced evictions, and the politicians who supported them. She also remembered poems by many other Highland bards, sang songs, and wove tartans and practiced other Highland crafts. Her poems received wide circulation and were credited with influencing local elections, and would seem to constitute a genuine link between oral and written traditions. Ref: Edwards, 15, 42-5; Boos (1998); Boos (2008), 171-84, includes photographs of the author; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]MacPherson, Rachel S. (b. 1861), of Huntly, milliner in a drapery establishment in Aberchirder, Banffshire, pub. in Aberdeenshire newspapers. Poems include ‘A Word to the Bairnies’ and ‘When Skies Were Blue’. Ref: Edwards, 2, 203-5; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]McPherson, William (b. 1842), of Paisley, farm labourer, joiner, ship’s carpenter, pub. pieces in newspapers. Ref: Brown, II, 387-90. [S]M’Queen, James (b. c. 1862), of Edinkillie, Moray, cartwright’s son and miller’s grandson, uneducated outworker, music tutor and musician, pub. Beauties of Morayland and other poems and songs (Elgin, 1888). Ref: Edwards, 13, 45-9. [S]MacQueen, Mary (Mrs. Storie, 1786-1854), from ‘a travelling family’; married labourer William Storie in 1821. They emigrated to Canada in 1825, leaving Loch Winnoch to settle in ‘MacNam by Hull in upper Canada’ (Kerrigan). MacQueen learnt from an oral tradition passed down to her by her grandmother; fourteen of her songs appear in Crawfurd. Dunnigan sees ‘The Thrie Ravens’ as loosely connected with ‘The Twa Corbies’; MacQueen’s birds symbolise death. In ‘Earl Richard’, the jealous woman who has murdered her knight has ‘a wee bird’ telling her guilty secret to all who would hear it. In both cases, traditional ballads have attached morals, promoting loyalty or warning transgressors be wary, lest a ‘little bird’ see and tell the haunting secret. :Ref: An Anthology of Scottish Women Poets, ed. Katherine Kerrigan (Edinburgh: Edinbugh University Press, 1991); Sarah M. Dunnigan, Scottish Ballads (Glasgow: Association for Scottish Literary Studies, 2005); Andrew Crawfurd’s Collection of Ballads and Songs, Vol. I, ed. Emily B. Lyle (Scottish Text Society, 1975); The STS also published a cassette of Mary MacQueen’s Ballads, sung by Jo Miller, including four of the songs that appear in Crawfurd, ‘Bob Norris’, ‘Lady Jean’, ‘Earl Richard’ and ‘The Thrie Ravens.’ [F] [S] [Dawn Whatman]MacQueen, Thomas, journeyman mason of Bakip, pub. Poems and songs (Glasgow, 1826); My gloaming amusements, a variety of poems (Beith, 1831); The Exile, a Poem in seven books (Glasgow, 1836). Ref: Johnson, items 576-8. [Edwards, 2, 323-5 includes a ‘Thomas M’Queen’ who d. in 1861, having emigrated to Canada and published 3 vols from 1836-50; possibly the same poet; and Ashraf, I, 35, mentions ‘Thomas MacQueen’s Moorland Minstrel’ (Glasgow, 1840).] [S]M’Queen, William (1841-85), of Pollockshaws, warehouse worker, ship’s steward, powerloom factory manager; pub. Songs and Rhymes (1878). Ref: Edwards 1, 30-12. [S]M’Vittie, James (b. 1833), of Langhorn, Dumfriesshire, crofter-shepherd’s son, cotton weaver, wool spinner, revivalist and temperance reformer; pub. In memoriam, and songs of cheer from the cradle to the grave (Glasgow, 1893). Ref: Edwards, 11, 345-52; Reilly (1994), 310. [S]M’Whirter, David, of the Isle of Whithorn, Wigtownshire, pub. A Ploughboy’s musings: being a selection of English and humorous Scotch poems (Whithorn, 1883). Ref: Reilly (1994), 310; Whithorn web page . [S]Magill, Patrick (b. 1891), of Glenties, Donegal, farmhand, moved to Scotland, worked as ‘farmhand, drainer, tramp, hammerman, navvy, plate-layer and wrestler’, pub. Gleanings from a Navvy’s Scrapbook which sold 8,000 copies, Soldier Songs (London, 1917), Songs of the Dead End (London, 1920). Ref: Leonard, 360-6. [I] [S] [OP]Mahon, James (b. 1862), ‘Dick’, of Ancrum, Jedburgh, blacksmith’s son, factory worker. Ref: Edwards, 7, 221-4. [S]Mailing, Edith, of a poor family, father taught her to read, m. at 17, two children d., pub. Poems, with a sketch of her life, in her own words (London, 1875). Ref: Reilly (2000), 299. [F]? Malins, Joseph (1844-1926), of Worcester, apprentice decorative painter, temperance advocate, pub. Professor Alcoholico: a temperance poem (Birmingham, 1876), Popular temperance recitations (Maidstone, 1890). Ref: Reilly (1994), 312; Reilly (2000), 299-300.? Mallet, Josiah Reddie, of Harlyn Bay, pub. A Life’s History, told in homely verse, and Miscellaneous Poems (London: Richard Bentley and Sons, 1895). Ref: Reilly (1994), 312; Charles Hart Catalogue 51, item 179; MBP3.? Mangan, Clarence (1803-49), Irish poet, lawyer’s clerk, an important figure in Irish literary history. Scrivener, autodidact, he worked in numerous solicitors’ offices, finally supporting himself writing for numerous magazines. Part of the ‘diarians’ group with James Tighe and Laurence Bligh. He suffered severe mood swings and hypochondria, and often from infatuation and unrequited love. Pub first ‘ephemeral poem’ in 1818, first nationalist poem in 1826 (‘To my Native Land’), The Friend (trans from German, 1830), many humorous and nationalist poems, and an unfinished Autobiography (written in 1848, published in 1960). Contributed significantly to The Nation and Irish Monthly National. ODNB also names numerous individual poem titles. Collected works edited by his friend John Mitchel published 1859, followed by a centenary edition by D. J. O’Donoghue in 1903-4, and The Collected Works of James Clarence Mangan (4 vols, 1997) edited by Jacques Chuto, Rudolf Patrick Holzapfel, and Ellen Shannan-Mangan. Sutton notes him as ‘James Clarence Mangan’. Ref: ODNB; Ashraf (1975), 210-13; Scheckner, 264; Miles, III, 453; Ricks, 94-6; Sutton, 624. [I]Manley, Richard, journeyman sadler, pub. Miscellaneous Pieces, in Verse, Moral and Religious, by Richard Manley, of Southmolton, Devon (Southmolton: W. Paramore, 1830). Ref: inf. Bob Heyes.Manson, James (1792-1863), clothier, journalist, violincellist, blind in later life, pub. Lyrics & ballads (Glasgow, 1863). Ref: Reilly (2000), 300. [S]Marsden, Joshua (1777-1837), b. in Liverpool, went to sea as a youth, was dissolute, survived two shipwrecks and had religious conversion at age 20, became a missionary in America; pub. Amusements of a Mission, or Leisure Hours (1812) and a conversion narrative/autobiography, Sketches of the Early Life of a Sailor, now a preacher of the Gospel (nd). Ref: Basker 647-59; Burnett et al (1984), no. 493a.? Marshall, Charles (1795-1882), of Paisley, shoemaker poet, later a minister in Dunfermline, pub. Lays and Lectures for Scotia’s Daughters of Industry (Edinburgh, 1853), Homely Words and Songs for Working Men and Women (Edinburgh, 1856), The Watchman’s round, in the way of life, and the way of death (Edinburgh, 1868). Ref: Edwards, 9, xvi; Leonard, 199-202. [S]Marshall, James (b. 1829), of Burrelton, Cargill, Perthshire, nurseryman and seedsman. Ref: Edwards, 10, 163-7. [S]Marshall, Thomas (d, 1866), of Newcastle upon Tyne, brush-maker, songwriter, pub. a chapbook of eleven songs, Collection of Original Local Songs by Thomas Marshall (Newcastle upon Tyne: printed for the author by Wm Fordyce, 1829). Ref: Allan, 250-6; Wikipedia (under ‘A Collection of Original Songs’, and ‘Geordie Songwriters’.? Martin, Tobias (1747-1828), Cornish miner and mine agent, pub. The Remains of the late Tobias Martin of Breage, in Cornwall, mine agent (Helston, 1831). Ref: Johnson, item 592.? Martin, William (1772 –1851), natural philosopher and poet; worked as ropemaker and served in militia; 151 entries in NCSTC; Harlequin’s Invasion (1811); A new philosophical song or Poem book, called the Northumberland Bard (1827).Massey, Gerald (1828-1907), of Gamble Wharf, Tring, Hertfordshire, straw-plaiter and errand boy, later a Chartist and popular lecturer. ~ Massey was the eldest son of William Massey, a canal boatman, and his wife Mary. He was born (May 29, 1828) into a life of poverty at Gamnel Wharf, Tring, in Hertfordshire. Put to work in the town’s silk mill at the age of eight, Massey later turned his hand to the local cottage industry of straw-plaiting for the manufacture of straw hats. ~ At the age of 15 Massey found work as an errand boy in London, and it was there that he joined the Christian Socialists, embracing their aims of co-operation but at the same time becoming more actively involved within the Chartist movement, where he aligned himself strongly with George Julian Harney’s views on social rights. Self taught, as were many artisan writers of that time, by the age of 19 Massey was composing both lyrical verse: (‘Spring is coming; lovely Spring! / Soon her liquid silvery voice / Will through waving woods be ringing, / In her bow’r of roses singing, / Where the limpid streams rejoice...’) and poems of political and social protest: (‘...we are crush’d and trodden under / By imps of power, who long have torn / The fair rose of toilworn pleasure, / Flinging us the piercing thorn...’) ~ It was at Tring that his earliest poetry collection, Original Poems and Chansons, was published at a shilling a copy. But it was not until 1854, when his third collection – including his most cited poem, “The Ballad of Babe Christabel” ― was published that Massey attracted the attention of Hepworth Dixon, Editor of the widely read literary periodical, the Athen?um. Favourable reviews in that and other journals and newspapers assured Massey’s entry into literary society. Dixon also introduced him to Lady Marian Alford, who was attracted to Massey’s poetry. She was to assist him with her patronage over a period of some 25 often difficult years, including housing his family on a farm on her family’s estate at Ashridge, near Berkhamsted. ~ By his early twenties Massey had already been on the editorial staff of several radical newspapers, including The Red Republican, The Friend of the People and The Star of Freedom, to which he contributed republican articles and fiery poetry aimed at the working man: ‘...Our fathers are praying for pauper-pay, /Our mothers with death's kiss are white! / Our sons are the rich man’s serfs by day, /And our daughters his slaves by night!...’ In 1855, he moved to Edinburgh to take up an editorial post with the Edinburgh News, but the appointment was short-lived. By 1857, redundancy coupled with the death of two of his children and his wife’s growing depressive illness forced his return to England. Here he gained a foothold as a poetry reviewer for the Athen?um, a post that he held for the next 10 years. He also commenced lecturing. ~ For many years Massey’s main livelihood was as a travelling lecturer, initially speaking on literary subjects. The press often reported his talks as being crowded and well received: ‘...the lecture proceeded with that rippling eloquence of which Massey was such a master. His voice – always full, musical and mellow – had lost none of its resonance, and his hearers were alternately dissolved in tears or shaking with laughter. Tender glances from bright eyes were thrown upon him, and before he had progressed half and hour it required no particularly acute observer to discover that half of the young ladies in the hall adored him. When he began to recite the “Bridge of Sighs” [Thomas Hood] you could have heard a pin drop...’ ~ Massey’s later lectures tended to focus on spiritualism ― which had a wide following during the nineteenth century and to which he was an adherent ― and on subjects relating to mythology and religion. Unsurprisingly, his talks touching on religion sometimes met with loud controversy: ‘…Gerald Massey delivered two lectures, on Spiritualism, to large and intelligent audiences at Barnard Castle; the subject was handled in a masterly style, orthodox theology was fought on its own ground, several ministers were there to hear it, and such was the artillery brought against the old creeds that the most independent thinkers declare that its foundations are terribly shaken; raving priests and foaming bigots raised such an uproar with the old cry, “the church is in danger;” and an attempt was made to get Mr. Massey out of the town before completing his engagement...’ ~ Besides lecturing throughout Britain, Massey made three overseas lecture tours, each taking in the U.S.A., while his 1883-85 tour extended to Australia and New Zealand. ~ Massey took a great interest in Shakespeare’s Sonnets, and following much research he published his theories on the identities of those involved. Shakspeare’s Sonnets never before interpreted (1866) is an interesting, readable volume that he later updated (1872 and 1888). In Massey’s view some sonnets are dramatic and others personal, while the evidence points to Lady Penelope Rich (the ‘Stella’ of Sir Philip Sidney’s love poem Astrophel and Stella) as Shakespeare’s ‘Dark Lady’, while Shakespeare himself; Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton and his wife, Elizabeth Vernon; and William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, are the other participants. ~ Massey’s last significant poetry, A tale of eternity and other poems appeared in 1870. It was then that he commenced his study of the origin and development of western religions, work that was to absorb him for the remainder of his life. ~ Massey’s conclusions―based on an enormous amount of research into the development of myth, symbol, language and religion―were published in three books (A Book of the Beginnings; The Natural Genesis; and Ancient Egypt) in which he braved much censure and ridicule to advance new theories on human and religious origins. He identified Ancient Egypt as the origin of civilisation, demonstrating that close parallels exist between Egyptian, Hebrew, Gnostic and Christian religious structures ― this inevitably places a question mark against the strict historical veracity of the Gospels. ~ Massey’s ‘Darwinian’ ideas were sufficient to condemn him in the eyes of many critics. But the Quarterly Journal of Science commented that if his work could be presented in a condensed form, it would represent a valuable – almost necessary—companion to Darwin’s Descent of Man, the one complementing and supporting the other. ~ Massey ranks among the more significant of minor Victorian poets, his early ‘radical’ poetry also being of interest to social historians. His essays on literary subjects present well-studied and perceptive observations on the authors, poets and literary subjects of the age. Since his death (October 29, 1907), ongoing research in genetics, archaeological anthropology, philology and astro-mythology has, largely, vindicated many of Massey’s evolutionary theories, and it is in this field that Massey’s most enduring reputation is likely to rest. ~ Pub: Poems and Chansons (1848); Voices of Freedom and Lyrics of Love! (1850, 1851); The Ballad of Babe Christabel, with other Lyrical Poems (1854); Poems and Ballads by Gerald Massey, containing the Ballad of Babe Christabel (1855); Complete Poetical Works (Boston, 1857); Havelock’s March and Other Poems (London: Trubner and Co., 1861); A Tale of Eternity and Other Poems (London: Strahan & Co. 1870); My lyrical life: poems old and new (London, 1889, various editions and series; John Hart Catalogue 69, item 189, lis the author’s copy of series one and two, with ‘about 50 corrections to the poems’, mostly minor); may have written Chartist poetry under the Pseudonym ‘Bandiera’ (Sheckner, 116-18, 330). Much of Massey’s work is reproduced (together with a wealth of biographical and contextual detail) on the Gerald Massey home page: . Ref: LC 5, 267-88; ODNB; David Shaw, Gerald Massey: Chartist, Poet, Radical and Freethinker (Buckland, 1955); NCBEL III, 538; Vicinus (1974), 102-7, Cross, 128, 156-61; Maidment (1983), 79; Maidment (1987), 55-6, 167-9, 201-3, 312-14; Kovalev, 202-9; Scheckner, 265-84, 340-1; Schwab, 205-6Zlotnick, 175; Miles, V, 315; Reilly (1994), 318; Reilly (2000), 305-6; Ricks, 560-1. [LC 5] [C] [—David Shaw and Ian Petticrew]Massie, Joseph C. (1868-88), of Forfar, factory worker in the textile industry, pub. as ‘Adonais’ and ‘The Factory Boy’. Ref: Edwards 9, 55-9 and 12, x. [S]Masters, Mary (c. 1694-1755), of Otley, Yorkshire, of humble origins (her father was a schoolmaster at Norwich), and her family discouraged her learning but at that time and later in her life she adeptly defended her poetry. Pub. Poems on Several Occasions (1733), and Familiar Letters and Poems on Several Occasions (1755), both by subscription. Ref: LC 1, 233-54; ODNB; Rowton, 139-40; Grainge, 1, 205-6; Christmas, 31; Kord, 366-7; Backscheider, 407-8; Backscheider & Ingrassia, 879-80; Sutton, 634 (letters). [LC 1] [F]Mather, Joseph (1737-1804), of Sheffield, filesmith who ‘could neither read nor write’, and who ‘appears to have led a life of dissipational singing his songs in public houses’. Despite his disapproval, Grainge is compelled to admit that Mather’s ‘indelicate’ songs form ‘a correct representation of the state of manners, morals, and political feelings of the working classes in Sheffield during the latter half of the eightenth century’ (283); pub. A Collection of Songs, Poems, Satires, &c. (Sheffield, 1811), Songs, ed. by J. Wilson (Sheffield, 1862), with a useful ‘Memoir’. Ref: Newsam, 96-7; Grainge, I, 283-4; Armitage, W.H.G., ‘Joseph Mather: poet of the filesmiths’, Notes & Queries, 22 (July 1950); Vicinus (1969), 22-3, NCBEL II; Lonsdale (1984), 788-91, 855n; Hobday; Basker, 411; Charles Hobday, ‘Two sansculotte poets: John Freeth and Joseph Mather’, in Writing and Radicalism, ed John Lucas (London and New York: Longman, 1996), 61-83; biography at Sheffield Voices: ; inf. Yann Lovelock.Mathieson, George S. (b. 1857), of Helmsdale, Sutherland, grandfather removed from Sutherland in the clearances, father a shoemaker, he was a crofter and a book delivery agent, pub. A Poetical Scroll Book. Ref: Edwards, 4, 99-101. [S]Matthews, Alfred T. (b. c. 1860), of Broughton-Ferry, painter, bleacher’s son, worked in a warping mill. Ref: Edwards, 13, 270-8. [S]Matthewson, James (b. 1846), of Dalbeattie, granite hewer, pub. poems in Harper, in local papers (pseud. ‘Dub-o’-Hass’ and ‘Dauvid Millhench’); also pub. ‘Chronicles of a Galloway Peasant’ in ten parts in the Kircudbrightshire Advertiser, and ‘The Wife o’ Powbraid’, pub. as a serial in the Dalbeattie and Colvend Visitor’s Guide (1886). Ref: Harper, 242. [S]Mauchline, James (b. 1817), of Gifford Park, Edinburgh, soldier poet. Ref: Edwards, 14, 318-20 [S]Maxwell, Alexander (1791-1859), of Dundee, cow herder, joiner, works manager. Ref: Edwards, 10, 402-6. [S]? Maxwell, George (b. 1832), of Dundee, shop-worker, book keeper. Ref: Edwards, 8, 399-403. [S]Maxwell, James (1720-1800), ‘Poet in Paisley’, Paisley weaver and poet, has a total of 46 ESTC entries, pubs. include Divine Miscellanies; or Sacred Poems (1756/7); Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1759), Animadversions on Some Poets and Poetasters of the Present Age (1788); The Divine Origin of Poetry Asserted and Proved, The Abuse of it Reproved, and Poetasters Threatened. To Which is Added a Meditation on May, or, The Brief History of a Modern Poet. Two Moral Essays (Paisley, 1790); A Brief Narrative; or Some Remarks on the Life of James Maxwell, Poet, in Paisley. Written by himself (1795). Ref: ODNB; LC 2, 75-96; Brown, I, 14-26; Leonard, 1-4. [LC 2] [S]? Maxwell, John, of York (fl. 1743-57), blind poet, author of poems published by Thomas Gent (qv) including ‘The Reflector: A Poem’ (1743) and ‘The Polite Assemble, or the Charms of Solitude Displayed’ (1757). Ref Grainge, I, 207; briefly mentioned by Chris Mounsey in ‘Thomas Gills: An Eighteenth-Century Blind Poet and the Language of Charity’, in The Idea of Disability in the Eighteenth Century, ed Chris Mounsey (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2014), 223-45 (242).May, Henry (fl. 1761), day-labourer in Richmond Gardens, ‘unlettered bard’, pub. Poetic Essays (1761). Ref Gents. Mag., Jan. 1761, p. 55; inf. Bill Christmas.Maybee, Robert (1810-91), of the Scilly Isles, ‘The Scillonian Poet’, son of a windmill keeper, miscellaneous trader, oral poet, pub. Sixty-eight Years’ Experience on the Scilly Islands (Penzance, 1884). Ref: LC 6, 325-38; ODNB; Wright, 327-8; Burnett et al (1984), no. 502; Ashton & Roberts, ch. 5, 65-69; Vincent, 207. [LC 6]? Mayne, John (1759-1836), of Dumfries, printer, journalist, pub. Siller Gun (1777), Hallowe'en (1780) and poems in Glasgow Magazine, The Star, and Gentleman's Magazine (1807-1817). Libraries own manuscripts of several of his poems and letters, including: “Rosabell” (1806) at the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, and “Sweet sounds! I love to hear the parish bells” (sonnet) at the Hornby Library, Liverpool City Libraries. Ref: ODNB; Glasgow Poets, 64-89; Miller, 160-67; Sutton, 638-9; ‘Electric Scotland’ web page . [S]? Mead, Edward (‘Commodore’), of Birmingham, popular Chartist lecturer and poet, author of ‘The Steam King’ (Northern Star, 11 February 1843). Ref: Ashraf (1978), I. 42-3; Kovalev, 91-5; Maidment (1987), 41-2; Scheckner, 287-91, 341; Schwab, 52-55, 207. [C]? Meek, George (b. 1868), of Eastbourne, worker, songwriter and socialist, father a plasterer, mother a Midland woman ‘of a family of peasants’; Meek organised Clarion groups on the south coast in the late nineteenth century; pub. an autobiography, George Meek: Bath Chair Man (London: Constable & Co, 1910), with an Introduction by H.G. Wells (second impression, London: Constable, 1910). Ref: Burnett et al (1984), no. 505; Chris Waters, British Socialists and the Politics of Popular Culture 1884-1914.Meek, Robert (b. 1836), of Leith, message boy, public weigher. Ref: Edwards, 6, 209-13. [S]? Mellor, John William, Lancashire dialect poet, pub. Stories and Rhymes (Manchester, 1869). Ref: Reilly (2000), 309-10.Mennon, Robert (1797-1885), of Ayton, Berwickshire, slater, plasterer and glazier, later lived in London, pub. Poems: moral and religious (Edinburgh, ?1860, ?1885). Ref: Edwards, 3, 130-6 and 9, xv; Crockett, 133-6; Reilly (1994), 322, Reilly (2000), 310. [S]Menzies, George (1797-1847), of Arbuthnott, Kincardineshire, gardener, teacher, editor. Ref: Edwards, 11, 48-57. [S]Menzies, John (b. 16 July 1811), of Airntully, Kingclaven, ploughman, soldier, pub. Reminiscences of an Old Soldier. Ref: Edwards, 12, 370-8. [S]Mercer, George, of Liverpool, labouring-class, poor education, unable to work due to rheumatism, pub. Will Barton o’ the Mill, and other poems (London, 1860). Ref: Reilly (2000), 311.? Merry, John (1756-1821), of Moulton, Northamptonshire, miller, ‘The bard of Moulton Mill’, posthumumously pub. Miscellaneous pieces; in verse (Bedford: C. B. Merry, 1823), wrote to Clare; a good occasional poet. Ref: Hold, 115-16; inf. Bob Heyes; Johnson, item 604; Johnson 46, no. 313.? Messing, Stephen, of Rutland, poet of humble origins ('a plain education in a country village'), pub. Rural Walks (1819), Poems on Various Subjects (1821); he is linked to Clare, who owned his books, via the printer Drakard and the subscriber Revd Thomas Mounsey. Ref: Crossan, 37; Powell, item 300; inf. Greg Crossan.? Methven, James (b. 1832), of Glasgow, pedlar from an early age, son of wandering pedlars, six weeks of formal schooling, spent most of his life travelling, pub. two volumes of poetry and an autobiography, ‘Adventures of An Author. Written by Himself’, The Commonwealth, Jan 3rd 1857. Hawked his own books so the to volumes will probably have ben chapbooks; Burnett et al describe his name as a pseudonym so these poetry vols may prove difficult to identify. Ref Burnett et al (1984), no. 509. [S]? Meyler, William (d. 1821), printer, pub. Poetical amusement on the journey of life... (Bath, 1806); this vol. contains an epilogue to Yearsley’s Earl Godwin. Ref: Johnson, item 607.? Millar, Agnes, the daughter of a minister ‘in reduced circumstances’; pub. Essays, Moral and Religious (1840). Ref: inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Millar, Thomas (b. 1865), of Dunfermiline, passenger guard’s son, upholsterer. Ref: Edwards, 11, 318-22. [S]Miller, Hugh, the Elder (1802-56), stonemason, later a distinguished geologist, his wife Lydia Fraser (qv) authored children's books. Pub. Poems written in the leisure hours of a journeyman mason (Inverness: R. Carruthers, 1829). He also compiled his Miscellaneous Writings (includes poems, essays, notes, drawings and exercises, and chapters 4-7 of “Scenes and legends of the north of Scotland”; manuscript owned by the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, which also has some notebooks and a number of letters). Ref: Edwards, 3, 312-18; Wilson, II, 250-4, NCSTC (58 entries), Johnson, item 610, DNB, Peter Bayne, The Life and Letters of Hugh Miller (2 vols, 1871); Sutton, 642-3. [S]Miller, John, surgeon’s mate, pub. Poems on Several Occasions (1754). Ref: ESTC.Miller, John (b. 1840), of Goukha’, near Dunfermline, Fifeshire, builder and contractor. Ref: Edwards, 11, 332-9. [S]Miller, Thomas (1807-74), 'The Basket Maker', of Gainsborough, later Nottingham, basket-maker poet, pub. Elegy on the Death of Lord Byron’s Mary (London and Nottingham, nd, c. 1832), A Day in the Woods: A Connected Series of Tales and Poems (1836); Poems (1841); Songs of the Sea Nymphs (1832); A Day in the Woods (1836); Beauties of the Country (1837); at least five novels; Rural Sketches (1839); Our Old Town (1847). Ref: LC 5, 89-106; ODNB; Cross, 127, 133-41; James, 171; Maidment (1987), 141-43; Ashton & Roberts, ch. 2, 32-45; Johnson, item 611; Miles, X, xiv; Burmester, item 370; Sutton, 643-4 (letters and prose). [LC 5]Miller, Thomas (b. 1831), of Dunse, Berwickshire, herder, printer, lyricist and successful song-writer. Ref: Crockett, 248-9; Murdoch, 245-8; Edwards, 5, 146-55. [S]Miller, William (1797-1862), ‘Radical Wull’, weaver from Airdrie, local leader during 1819-20 agitation, voiced ‘radical hopes’ in his poem ‘Aurora Borealis’. Ref. Knox, 96-109; inf. Bridget Keegan. [S]Miller, William (1810-72), of Glasgow, woodturner, popular children’s poet, ‘The Laureate of the Nursery’, author of ‘Wee Willie Winkie’, pub. Scottish Nursery Rhymes and Other Songs (1863); possibly unpublished Poems and Songs (184?) and Poems and Songs (1868-72). Ref: ODNB; Glasgow Poets, 301-04; Edwards, 3, 142-7; Wilson, II, 334-40, Douglas, 310; Ricks, 98; Murdoch, 33-8; Sutton, 644. [S]Millhouse, Robert (1788-1839), of Sneinton, Nottingham, stocking maker, second child in a family of ten, put to work at six and set to a stocking-frame at ten, educated only through Sunday school, spent time in the militia, pub. The Song of the Patriot, Sonnets and Songs (1826); The Destinies of Man (London, 1832); Sherwood Forest and other poems (London, 1827); Vicissitude (Nottingham, 1821). His Sherwood Forest paints Robin Hood ‘as a Byronic hero’ (Collins) Ref: LC 4, 169-76; OBNB; William Hone, The Table Book (London: William Tegg, 1878), 495-99; Mellors; James, 171-3; Johnson, items 612-16, 738; Radcliffe; Sutton, 644 (letters). Links: . [LC 4]Mills, Thomas, pub. The Unlettered Muse (Hoxton: printed for the author by F. Nicholls, 1830). Ref: inf. Scott McEathron.? Milne, Alexander (b. 1869), of Aberdeen, of a working-class family, clerk. Ref: Edwards, 14, 141-3. [S]? Milne, Christian (née Ross, 1773-after 1816), wife of a journeyman ship-carpenter, of Footdee, Aberdeen, born in Inverness. Subsequent to the death of her mother and eight of her siblings, Milne relocated to Edinburgh with her father, helping him combat consumption and bouts of depression as well as supporting him monetarily by working as a servant. Milne’s autobiographical introductory sections and poems render a toilsome past from the refuge of a seemingly happy marriage in Aberdeen, where she embraced her roles as a writer, as the wife of a ship’s carpenter, Patrick Milne, and as the mother of four children. Simple Poems on Simple Subjects (1805) includes autobiographical poems, pacifist poems recast as ballad tales, fictional narratives, and songs. Most of the poems take the form of pentameter couplets, tetrameter couplets, or stanzas of ‘common meter’, or hymn meter. Poems such as ‘The Inconstant Lover’ and ‘To Peace’ dichotomise the pugnacious claims of British imperialism and the pastoral harmony of Scotland, but the precise nature of Milne’s anti-war politics—in some instances advancing a simple jingoism, at other times being framed in personal, sentimental and domestic terms—seems difficult to pin down without referring to the overall ‘double-voicedness’ of her poetry. Pub: Simple Poems on Simple Subjects (Aberdeen: J. Chalmers and Co. 1805), available online at: . Ref: Johnson, item 619; Jackson, 219; Kord, 267-8; Bridget Keegan, ‘“The Mean Unletter’d—Female Bard of Aberdeen”: The Complexities of Christian Milne’s Simple Poems on Simple Subjects’, in Scottish Women Poets of the Romantic period, online subscription publication; Kathryn S. Meehan, ‘“When My Pen Begins to Run”: Class, Gender, and Nation in the Poetry of Christian Milne’, MA thesis, Florida State University, 2004, available online at: . [—Iain Rowley] [F] [S] Milne, John (1792-1871), of Dunottar, Kincardineshire, orphaned son of a seaman, shoemaker at Glenlivat, Banffshire, Aberdonian Postman, pub. The widow and her son (1830); The Widow and Her Son; or, the runaway. A Borough Tale of 1782, in four cantos. With the Autobiography of the Author, including his post office reminiscences for the greater part of thirty years, 2nd edn with notes and other msicellaneous productions (Aberdeen: J. Alexander, 1851) and other vols; Selections from the songs and poems of the late John Milne (Aberdeen, 1871). Ref: Reilly (2000), 315, Edwards, 2, 362-7; Charles Cox, Catalogue 51 (2005), item 189. [S]Milne, Robert Conway (b. 1859) of Kirkintilloch, Dumbartonshire, bobbin laddie, later a teacher and deacon, pub. poems in the newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 15, 78-82. [S]Milne, William (b. 1829), of Little Haughmuir, Brechin, farm servant, railwayman, traffic agent, pub. in newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 15, 277-81 [S]? Mitchell, Alexander (b. 1804) of Earlston, Berwickshire, self-taught businessman, founded and chaired Dalkeith Scientific Association, pub. The English Lakes: an excursion (Edinburgh, 1862; further edns with ‘other poems’ 1873 and 1888). Ref: Reilly (2000), 317. [S]? Mitchell, Alexander, ‘The Bridge of Dee Poet’, pub. Musings in verse, and a sketch of the author’s life, by George Mitchell, together with, Select poems, by Alexander Mitchell, the Bridge of Dee poet, 2nd edn (Aberdeen, 1869). Ref: Reilly (2000), 317. [S]? Mitchell, David Gibb (b. 1863), of Glendye, Strachan, Kincardineshire, bracken-cutter boy, fieldworker, railway clerk, studied at St. Andrew’s University. Ref: Edwards, 11, 33. [S]Mitchell, James (1866-1923), of Airdrie, miner from age 12 to 25, then in poor heatlh worked in National Telephone Company in Edinburgh, retiring to Airdrie, pub. poems in the Glasgow and Weekly Herald and the Airdrie Advertiser, and 2 vols, Lyrical Poems (Airdrie: Baird & Hamilton, 1902) and The Warning Bell and other War Poems (Leith: George McKay, 1915); both well received and ‘had a large circulation’. Ref: Knox, 272-5. [S]Mitchell, John (1786-1856), of Paisley, shoemaker, father of poets Jessie Mitchell Taylor (qv) and John Struthers Mitchell (qv); pub. A Night on the Banks of the Doon, and other poems (Paisley 1838); The Third Class Train, Respectfully Inscribed to the Weavers of Paisley by a Third Class Man (Paisley, 1840); The Wee Steeple’s Ghaist, and other Poems and Songs (Paisley: Murray and Stewart, 1840); A Braid Glower at the Clergy by Ane not o’ Themsel’s (Glasgow, 1843); One Hundred Original Songs (1845); Cautious Tam or How to Look a Foe in the Face (Paisley, 1847); My Grey Goose Quill, and other Poems and Songs (1852); also wrote ‘Nick’s Tour, or the Cobbler Triumphant’, ‘Lines on the Celebration of Thomas Paine’s Birthday’. Ref: Brown, I, 176-80; Leonard, 124-56, 371; Johnson, item 622; Johnson 46, no. 316; Grian Books web page, visited July 7th 2014. [S]Mitchell, John (1807-45), of Aberdeen, but born in Peterborough, six months schooling, taught by his workmates, lost a leg in an accident at 20; shoemaker, Chartist, opponent of the Corn laws and temperance advocate; pub. Poems, Radical Rhymes, Tales etc. etc. (1840) and The Wreath of Temperance (1841). Ref Schwab, 207-8; Klaus (2013), 150-1. [S]Mitchell, John Struthers (b. 1818), of Paisley, son of John Mitchell (qv), boot and shoemaker like his father, poems in Brown. Ref: Brown, II, 107-11. [S]Mitchelson, Alexander (b. 1849), of Dundee, ropemaker from age of 8, apprenticed as a pastry cook at 15. Ref: Edwards 1, 322-3. [S]Mitford, John (1782-1831), ‘Alfred Burton’, sailor, committed to lunatic asylum for period, lived hand-to-mouth, pub. Poems of a British Sailer (1818), ‘The king is a true British sailor’, ‘A Peep into W...r Castle after a Lost Mutton—Poem’ (1820), and ‘My Cousin in the Army’ (c.1825); and under his pseudonym, Alfred Burton, he published The Adventures of Johnny Newcome in the Navy, a Poem in Four Cantos (1818, 2nd edn 1819). Ref: ODNB; LC 4, 125-38; DNB. [LC 4]Mitford, William (1788-51), of Preston, North Shields, orphan, shoemaker, publican, songwriter, songs include ‘Cappy’, ‘The Pitman’s Courtship’; eleven songs in The Budget or Newcastle Songster (Newcastle upon Tyne: Marshall, 1816). Ref: Allan, 132-6; Harker (1999), 98-103; family history posting by Fee Mitford, 2004: , William R. (b. 1842), ‘William Armour’, of Bridgefoot of Ironside, Aberdeenshire, draper, cashier, pub. a monthly Poetical Portfolio, fiction and poetry. Ref: Edwards 1, 61-6. [S]Mollison, James, working-class poet, author of Poems (Paisley 1901). Ref: Grian Books catalogue, 6 July 2006. [S] [OP]Montgomery, James (1771-1854), of Ayrshire and Ulster, settled in Sheffield, poet, also worked as baker, radical editor; associated with Methodists; acquaintance of and correspondent with Bloomfield (qv), Clare (qv), and Robert Southey (among many others, for Montgomery appears to have been a prolific letter-writer); 112 NCSTC entries and numerous items, including more than thirty poems or poem collections, in Sutton’s Location Register; The West Indies and Other Poems (1810); The World Before the Flood (1812); Greenland (1819); The Pelican Island (1826); The Ocean (1805); The Wanderer of Switzerland and other Poems (1806, received high praise from Southey and Byron); and contributed to the Eclectic Review. Ref: ODNB; Howitt, 556-77; Wilson, I, pp 485-98; Holroyd, 18-20, 114-15; Cross, 142; James, 171; Meyenberg, 217; Johnson, items 49, 115, 149, 451, 470, 608, 626, 637, 738, 748, 766, 937; Goodridge (1999), item 78; DNB; LION; Miles, X, 1; Powell, item 153; Jarndyce. items 1446-57; Basker, 611-16; Sutton, 655-6. [S] [I]? Montgomery, John Wilson (?1835-1911), ‘The Sweet Bard of Bailieborough’, of Billis, County Cavan, farmer’s son, police officer, master of the Bailieborough workhouse, County Cavan, pub. Rhymes Ulidian (Downpatrick, 1877), Fireside Lyrics (Downpatrick, 1887). Ref: Reilly (1994), 332, Reilly (2000), 320-1. [I]Mooney, John (b. 1862), from a family of itinerant rag-gatherers, agricultural clerk, pub. Songs of the Norse, and other poems (Kirkwall, 1883). Ref: Edwards, 10, 135-9. [S]Moor, T., shoemaker of Denton Chare, Newcastle upon Tyne, singer and songwriter, wrote ‘the Skipper’s Dream’. Ref: Allan, 312-13.? Moorcock, Rachel (1829-70), of Lane End, Bucks., attended Methodist Sunday school, suffered from poor health, pub. Memoirs of Joseph, Sarah and Rachel Moorcock, by Benjamin North, with the poetical works of Rachel Moorcock (London, 1872). Ref: Reilly (2000), 317. [F]? Moore, Dugald (1805-41), of Glasgow, of humble parentage, apprenticed to a stationer, became a bookseller, pub. The African, and Other Poems (1829), The Bridal Night and other Poems (1831), and The bard of the north, a series of poetical tales, illustrative of highland scenery and character (1833), and several other volumes. Ref: ODNB; Glasgow Poets, 276-80; Wilson, II, 267-9; Sutton, 659 (letters). [S]? Moore, Jane Elizabeth (b. 1738), a clerk in her father’s business, involved with freemasons. Contributed poems to the Sentimental and Masonic Magazine (1792-5). Pub Miscellaneous Poems, on Various Subjects (1796, by subscription; 2nd edn 1797). Ref: Carpenter, 530; ODNB. [F]? Moorhouse, William Vincent, The Thrasher [i.e. thresher] and other poems (Wellington, Shropshire, 1828), published by subscription for the benefit of the author who, aged twenty, lost his left hand by the ‘bursting of a gun’. Ref: Johnson, item 634, Jarndyce, item 1460 and 1460 (image).? Morgan, John, author of A Poem on the Taylor Craft: Shewing the Arise thereof from the first Creation of the World, and Progress ever since. Wherein the Greatness, Exquisiteness, Excellency sand Antiquity of said trade is Handle. Divided into eight sections, shown from various texts of scripture. ... By J. M. a well-wisher of the said incorporations (Edinburgh: Robert Brown, 1733), pp. 41. Ref: Foxon, M445; COPAC (copy in NLS); not on ECCO. [S]? Morgan, John (b. ?1790s), of Plymouth, apparently of humble origins, important broadside balladeer and stationer who eked a scant living from poetry balladry in London from the 1830s, working for Catnach; later interviewed by Mayhew and by Charles Hindley. Ref: Hepburn, I, 49-54.Morison, Joseph (b. 1838), of Londonderry, Scottish parentage, joiner in Glasgow. Ref: Edwards, 9, 45-8. [S] [I]Morley, Thomas (fl. 1801), described in a review as a ‘plebeian satirist’, chastised for his critique of the upper-classes, and linked to Duck and John Bancks; pub. The Mechanic (Southampton, 1801, 2nd edn with additions London). Ref: inf. William Christmas; Monthly Review, 37, 212.? Morris, Andrew (b. 1842), ‘Amos’, of Shott’s Iron Works, West Lothian, miner’s son, pub. in the West Lothian Courier as ‘Amos’. Ref: Bisset, 217-25; Edwards, 12, 401-5. [S]Morris, Edward, (1607-1689), farmer and cattle-drover, of Perthillwydion near Cerrig-y-Drudion in Denbighsire, buried in Essex; wrote in Welsh and spoke English; friend of Huw Morys, who among others wrote an elegy to him; pub. many carol poems (often in the three-beat measure) as well as traditional strict meter poetry, in accomplished imitation of the old masters. He wrote many “tender and melodious” love songs, which the OCLW calls “among the best of their kind.” His prolific output of carols shows that he embraced free meter canu rhydd poetry popular in the day, although according to the ODNB, Morris “became one of the greatest practitioners of strict-meter poetry”, deftly wielding Welsh conventions of cymeriad and cynghanedd in his strict-meter poems. Pub. [English titles are translations] Carols: ‘A Consideration of man’s manner of life,’ ‘The world’s judgment between rich and poor,’ ‘A carol against the frequenting of taverns,’ ‘Carol Ciwpid’ [‘Cupid’s Carol’], ‘A carol to send the summer to his beloved’; a translation of J. Rawlet's Christian Monitor into Welsh, as Y rhybuddiwr Christnogawl (1689; 2nd edn, 1699; 3rd edn, 1706; two more edns). Ref: OCLW; ODNB; Parry/Bell, 225-226. [W] [OP] [—Katie Osborn]Morris, Eliza Fanny (1821-74), of East London, tailor’s daughter, m. a schoolmaster, lived in Oxford and Malvern, pub. Life lyrics (London and Worcester, 1866), Life and poems, written and edited by her husband (London and Malvern, 1876). Ref: Reilly (2000), 324. [F]Morrison, David H. (1824-72), of Airdrie, Lanarkshire, ‘The Moffat Bard’, weaver from age ten, miner from age fifteen, later worked in the Moffat Paper Mills, Airdire until his death, pub. Poems and songs (Airdrie, 1870), Ref: Knox, 290-2; Reilly (2000), 325. [S]? Morrison, James (b. c. 1800), of Newcastle upon Tyne, painter (nephew of the eminent self-taught missionary and scholar Dr Morrison) and songwriter, author of ‘The Newcastle Noodles’ and ‘Burdon’s Address’, moved to Edinburgh in 1830. Ref: Allan, 198-202; Colls, pp. 34, 35, 37, 68.? Morton, Jessie D.M. (b. ?1824), of Dalkeith, Midlothian, bookseller’s daughter, shopkeeper, pub. Clarkson Gray, and other poems (Edinburgh, 1866, 2nd edn London, Edinburgh and Glasgow, 1867). Ref: Edwards, 1, 353-5; Reilly (2000), 326; Murdoch, 337-43. [Edwards gives birthdate as about 1824, Murdoch about 1825; Reilly has 1842, but it seems likely her last two digits were accidentally transposed] [F] [S]Morton, Thomas (b. 1861), of Edinburgh, gardener. Ref: Edwards, 12, 105-10. [S]Morus [Morris, Morys], Huw, (‘Eos Ceiriog’, 1622-1709), of Pontymeibion, Llansilin, Denbighshire; apprentice tanner, farmer and poet; wrote cywyddau and profuse carols; most prolific Welsh poet of the seventeenth century; staunch Royalist, critical of leading Welsh Puritans. Morus’s poetry gives important insight into the daily life and customs of common Welsh people in his time. Bell spends many pages tracing his mastery of strict-meter poetry and showing the influence of old masters on even Morus's carols. Pub. Eos Ceiriog, sef casgliad o bêr ganiadau Huw Morys (two vols, 1823, ed. Walter Davis [‘Gwallter Mechain’]). Ref: OCLW, Bell (?). [W] [OP] [—Katie Osborn]Mowat, George Houston (b. 1846), of Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, tailor, poet and songwriter. Ref: Edwards, 14, 110-16. [S]Muir, Hugh (b. 1846), of Edinburgh, coalminer, bobbin-turner, musician, pub. Hamely echoes from an auld town [poems] (Glasgow, 1899); Reminiscences and sketches: being a topographical history of Rutherglen and suburbs (Glasgow, 1890). Ref: Edwards, 10, 174-9; Reilly (1994), 341. [S]Muir, Janet Kelso (?1840-88), of Glasgow, orphaned, lived most of her life in Kilmarnock. She was educated to age eleven, then employed in a millinery shop, and later began a millinery business of her own; pub. Lyrics and poems of nature and life (Paisley and London, 1878). There is an advert for this in the back of Agnes Mabon’s volume (qv). Poems include ‘The Lone Churchyard,’ ‘The Ruined Mill,’ ‘Old Letters,’ and ‘Sabbath Bells.’ Ref: Edwards, 2, 381-4 and 12, xx-xxi; Reilly (2000), 329; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Muir, William (1766-1817), journeyman saddler, pub. Poems on Various Subjects (Edinburgh, 1818), died in a fall; monument raised at the churchyard at Clachan of Campsie. Ref: Johnson, item 641; Macleod, 266-6; Edwards, 2, 49-51. [S]Mullan, Luke, weaver and poet, freemason, brother in law of prominent United Irishman Jemmy Hope, correspondent of Samuel Thomson (qv) and member of his circle; emigrated to Britain. Ref Jennifer Orr, ‘To Mr Robert Burns: Verse Epistles from an Irish Poetical Circle’, in Burns Lives! (undated online publication on the Electric Scotland web page); ‘Constructing the Ulster Labouring-Class Poet: The Case of Samuel Thomson’, in Class and the Canon: Constructing Labouring-Class Poetry and Poetics, 1780-1900, ed. Kirstie Blair and Mina Gorji (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 34-54, and Jennifer Orr (ed), The Correspondence of Samuel Thomson (1766-1816): Fostering an Irish Writers’ Circle (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2012). [I]Murdoch, Alexander G. (?1840s-1891), of Glasgow, ‘by trade a working engineer’ who had ‘the disadvantage of a scanty education’ (Wilson), later a full-time writer, pub. Lilts in the Doric Lyre: a collection of humorous poems and versified sketches of Scottish manners and character (1872), The Laird’s lykewake, and other poems, with an introductory preface by George Gilfillan (London, 1877); Rhymes and Lyrics (Kilmarnock: James McKie, 1879); The Scottish Poets Recent and Living (Glasgow and London, 1883); the sources vary on his birth year. Ref: Edwards, 1, 177-84 and 16, [lix]; Glasgow Poets, 422-26; Wilson, II, 532-3; Reilly (2000), 330; Murdoch. [S]Murdoch, James (b. 1806), of Elgin, Morayshire, son of a butcher and a servant, herder, packman, itinerant cutler and poet, pub. The Autobiography and Poems of James Murdoch, known as ‘Cutler Jamie’ (Elgin, 1863). Ref: Vincent, 199, 207; Burnett et al (1984), 527; Reilly (2000), 330-1. [S]Murdoch, William (b. 1822 or 1823), of Paisley, son of a shoemaker, trained as one and went to night school, started writing poems aged 16, active member of Literary and Convivial Association, ‘whose weekly meetings were attended by local versifiers, debaters, humorists, and other literati, all belonging to the well-to-do working classes. William Murdoch’s place of business became a rendez-vous of many gifted men like himself.’ Pieces appeared in local newspapers and were signed under name of ‘Chodrum’ (his name reversed), went to Canada, pub. Poems and Songs (1860; enlarged 2nd edn 1872). Ref: Brown, II, 174-79; Wilson, II, 441-4. [S]Murie, George (b. 1845), of Calder Braes, Monkland, miner, draper. Ref: Edwards, 5, 264-71 [S]Murison, Alexander (b. 1859), of Pitsligo, Aberdenshire, shoemaker, spent two years in Australia, returned from poor health. Ref: Edwards, 8, 311-17. [S]? Murphy, Henry (fl. 1790), of Dublin, blind from the age of five, brother-in-law to Abraham Newland, ‘a well known Dublin merchant’ who appears on his subscription list. Pub. The Conquest of Quebec. An Epic Poem. In eight books (Dublin: Printed for the Author by W. Porter, 1790). Ref Croft & Beattie, II, 62 (item 212); ESTC. [I]Murray, Alick (b. 1856), of Peterwell, Aberdeenshire, gardener, pub. Poems (Edinburgh: Bishop & Collins, 1885). Ref: Edwards, 9, 213-17; Reilly (1994), 343. [S]Murray, David Scott (b. 1853), of Selkirk, shoemaker’s son, insurance agent, pub. in newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 9, 354-8. [S]Murray, George (1819-68), of Peterhead, shoemaker poet, pub. Islaford and other poems (London and Aberdeen, 1845), Literary Remains of George Murray (London and Aberdeen, 1860). Ref: BL 1466.b.23. [S]Murray, Thomas (b. 1835), of Eskdalemuir, Dumfriesshire, shepherd, pub. poems in the Galloway Gazette. Ref: Edwards, 8, 268-73. [S]? Murray, William (b. 1834) of Breadalbane, Perthshire, son of a head gardener, emigrated to Canada, worked in a mercantile house in Toronto. Ref: Ross, 161-70. [S]Murray, William (b. 1855), of Brechin, farm worker. Ref: Edwards, 12, 56-9. [S]Mutrie, Robert (1832-80), of Paisley, weaver, pub. poems in local press, author of ‘The Shilling in the Puir Man’s Pouch’, in his Poems and Songs Dedicated to the West-End Callans Association (Paisley, 1909). Ref: Brown, II, 270-72; Leonard, 261. [S]Naismith, William, of Paisley, draper, pub. Visions of the Night, and Other Poems (1872). Ref: Brown, II, 365-68. [S]Neil, George (b. 1858), of Whiteletts, near Ayr, miner’s son, soldier, draper, briefly a miner himself. Ref: Edwards, 11, 192-7. [S]? Neill, Charles, of Edinburgh, apprentice printer, lost a hand in a gun accident, became a teacher; pub. Poetical musings...with a literal translation of the third and fourth book of Virgil’s Aeneid (London, Aberdeen, Wick and Dornoch, 1884). Ref: Reilly (1994), 348. [S]? Neill, William (b. 1821), of Chapelton, Greenock (b. 1821), farmer, market gardener, wrote poems and songs. Ref: Edwards, 5, 339-40. [S]Neilson, James Macadam (1844-83), of Campsie, Stirlingshire, engraver for calico-printer, self-educated, wrote journalism, pub. Poems and songs, chiefly in the Scottish language (Glasgow, 1877), Songs for the bairns; and, Miscellaneous poems, ed. by William Freeland (Glasgow, 1884). Ref: Edwards, 1, 34-6 and 9, xx-xxi; Macleod, 283-86; Reilly (1994), 348, Reilly (2000), 336, Murdoch, 387-94. [S]? Nelson, Henry (fl. 1725-29), pub. A Poem, in the Honour of the Antient and Loyal Society of the Journey-Men Taylors, who are to Dine at the King’s-Inns, on Monday the 25th Inst, July; 1726 (Dublin, [1726]); A New Poem on the Procession of Journey-Men Taylors; who are to Dine at the Kings’s Inns, on Tuesday the 25th of this Instant July 1727 (Dublin, [1727]); Poem on the Procession of Journeymen Taylors, July the 28th, 1729 ([Dublin, 1729]). Ref: LC 1, 47-52; Christmas, 67-9. [I] [LC 1]Nelson, John (b. 1810), of Dunning, Perthshire, carpenter and housebuilder, emigrated to America, lived in Syracuse, pub. in newspapers, involved in Syracuse Scottish expatriate events. Ref: Edwards, 7, 82-6. [S]Nevay, John (1792-1870), of Forfar, handloom weaver who ‘turned to literature for diversion’ (DNB). Pub. A Pamphlet of Rhymes (1818); Poems and Songs (Dundee, 1818); Poems and Songs (Forfar, 1821); Emmanuel, a sacred poem in nine cantos. With other poems (1831); The peasant; a poem in nine cantos; with other poems (Edinburgh, 1834); The Child of Nature, and other poems (Dundee, 1835); Rosaline’s Dream, in four duans; and other poems (Edinburgh and London, 1853); The Fountain of the Rock (Forfar, 1855). Ref: Wilson, II, 122-4, DNB; Sutton, 690. [S]Newbigging, Thomas (b. 1833), of Glasgow, moved to Lancashire, cotton factory worker, gas engineer, pub. Poems and Songs (1881). Ref: Edwards, 3, 402-6. [S]Newman, Sarah (b. c. 1752), of Odiham, Hampshire, orphan, her only education the ‘occasional lesson from a schoolmaster’, domestic servant, then took in sewing and worked at haymaking, won 500 subscribers for her Poems, on Subjects Connected with Scripture, ed. by Elijah Waring (Alton, London & Sherborne, 1811), BL 11633.e.27. Ref: Jackson, 242. [F]Newton, William (1750-1830), carpenter, the ‘Peak Minstrel’. Newton, variously described by those who remembered him as a carpenter or as a spinning wheel maker by trade, was born in 1750 at Cockey, near Eyam in the Derbyshire Peak District. A curate at Eyam, the Reverend Peter Cunninghame, was the first to discover him; he told his Rector at Eyam of Newton’s abilities, who in turn informed his daughter. The rector was Thomas Seward, later Canon of Lichfield Cathedral; his daughter was Anna Seward (1742–1809), who by the mid-1780s was unquestionably the most celebrated female poet in Britain. She wrote to the Gentleman’s Magazine, introducing the ‘self-taught Bard’ to the public, informing them that Newton had ‘nothing in his appearance beyond the clean and decent’, and that he was ‘a being in whom the lustre of native genius shines through the mists which were thrown around him by obscure birth, the total absence of all refined instruction, and by the daily necessity of manual labour’ (55 pt. 1, p. 169). His discovery was a miracle, she thought: ‘To have found, in the compositions of a laborious Villager, some bright sparks of native genius, amidst the dross of prosaic vulgarity, had been pleasing, though but perhaps not wonderful; but the elegance and harmony of William Newton’s language, both in prose and verse, are miraculous’ (p. 170). (She also observed that he was ‘rather handsome’.) ~ A sonnet by Newton was printed alongside Seward’s letter, as was a poem of her own (‘Verses, Written by Miss Anna Seward, in the Blank Leaves of her own Poems, Presented by her to William Newton’). Her poem makes much of Newton’s ‘kindred talents’ with the prodigious and neglected Chatterton, who died at 17; she also hails him as ‘the Peak Minstrel’, summoning up ‘Edwin’, the young hero of James Beattie’s The Minstrel (1771-4). ~ Newton’s appearance in the GM follows shortly after Hannah More’s very similar introduction of Ann Yearsley to the public in the monthly magazines. Was Seward merely following More’s lead??Did she soon regret her public expressions of?enthusiasm for his talents??Certainly, unlike most labouring-class poets announced to the public in this way, no volume of poems for sale by subscription followed. Indeed, it would be four years before Newton appeared in print again, with another sonnet, again in the GM. Yet, behind the scenes, his relationship with Seward remained cordial; in 1790 she lent him a significant sum of money, and Seward’s letters make occasional references to Newton’s visits during her annual visit to her birthplace. ~ Indeed, Eyam seems to have been a remarkable breeding ground for poetic talent. As William Wood notes in The History and Antiquities of Eyam (1842), in addition to Seward and Newton, ‘this romantic village has other, if less successful candidates for poetic honour: and of these there are a few whose effusions have only been perused by friends.’ In such observations we sense that what we currently know of the labouring-class poetic tradition in eighteenth-century Britain is but the tip of the iceberg. ~ When Eighteenth-Century Labouring-Class Poets was published in 2003, William Newton’s ‘neglect and disappearance’ was thought ‘perplexing and disappointing’ (53), given the impression he had made upon Seward and several members of the local gentry and clergy. (Cunninghame dubbed him a ‘Prospero’ for his ingenious facility in his trade as well with his book learning, and he worked for a time for Duke of Devonshire.) Despite displaying considerable promise in the sonnet form, in the three poems that he published in The Gentleman’s Magazine between 1785 and 1790, there is as yet no evidence that Newton published anything further. However, recent researches into Newton’s professional life have revealed that he was the agent of Richard Arkwright (1732-1792), often called ‘father of the industrial revolution’ for his invention of the Spinning Frame, at Cressbrook Mill, Tideswell, near Eyam. They quarrelled in 1790, and Newton was sacked – this perhaps explains the dismal and suicidal thoughts of his Sonnet ‘When will my weary aching head have rest?’, which appeared in the GM in 1790 [reprinted in LC3, 55] and his dismissal accounts for Anna Seward’s loan to Newton, enabling him to invest in a new mill, around this time. The project ‘realised a fortune’, and after Arkwright’s death, Newton personally rebuilt Cressbrook mill following its destruction by fire. Archives at Manchester Central Library contain evidence that he sought to provide better living conditions for his apprentices than were prevalent at many other mills, and he oversaw the construction of model cottages and a village school. ~ The poem below is one of the sonnets that Newton published in the Gentleman’s Magazine. (The other two are reprinted in LC 3, 54-5.)?It appeared in 1790, the year in which his strained relationship with that notoriously mercurial employer, Richard Arkwright, finally broke down. The poem expresses Newton’s grief upon the loss of his son, his ‘life’s chief gem’: ‘Year! That hast seen my hopes and comforts fall, / Huddled in dark’ning vest, like Night-hag / And breathing chill a baleful vapour cold, /?On thee abhorr’d with banning voice I call.— / O’erlaid with woes I view thy sweeping pall, / Nor execration from thy form with-hold; / For loss of friends,—and, ah! More lov’d than all, /?My life’s chief gem enwrapt in timeless mold! / Go! Worse than all thy train that went before: /Thy youth came mark’d by Sorrow’s griping /?Thy old age shrunk my hopes:—for not to me / Lives lost fidele! He whom I deplore, / Whom Fancy in her brightest hour still plann’d /?My solace. Him I mourn, and pour my hate on thee’. REF: LC 3, 51-6; DNB (Anna Seward); GM 57 (1785), 169-70, 212-13; The Poetical Works of Anna Seward, ed. Walter Scott, 3 vols (Edinburgh, 1810); Anna Seward’s Letters, 1784–1807,?6 vols (Edinburgh, 1811); William Wood, The History and Antiquities of Eyam (London, 1842); Joseph Tilley, Old Halls, Manors and Families of Derbyshire, 4 vols (London, 1892-1902); Lucas, E. V., A Swan and her Friends (London: Methuen, 1907); Pearson, Hesketh (ed), The Swan of Lichfield, being a Selection from the Correspondence of Anna Seward (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1936); ‘Private Letter Book of Cressbrook Mill’,?Manchester Archives and Local Studies, Business Collections, Manchester Central Library, C5/(MF);. Christmas, 31-2; Sandro Jung, ‘William Newton: Anna Seward’s “Peak Minstrel”’, Wordsworth Circle, 40, 2-3, Spring-Summer 2009. [LC 3] [—Tim Burke]? Nicholl, Robert (1814-37), journalist and poet, died of consumption at twenty-three, pub. The Poems of Robert Nicoll (2nd edn, Edinburgh, 1842). Ref: Maidment (1983), 84; Maidment (1987), 145-7, 228-9; Shanks, 116; Douglas, 233-45, 311-12; Miles, X, xviii. [S]? Nicholls, H. R., Chartist poet, pub. in The Friend of the People, Notes to the People and Cooper’s Journal. Ref: Kovalev, 131-2, Scheckner, 293, 342. [C]? Nicholls, Thomas, author of The Wreath, a Collection of Poems (1790?), Dobell 1153, BL T.413(2); Shenstone, or the Force of Benevolence (1776), Dobell 1154; The Harp of Hermes (1797?), BL 11602.f.1(7). Ref: Dobell, ESTC.Nicholson, James (1822-97), of Edinburgh, herd boy, tobacco worker, village tailor, head tailor at Govan workhouse, temperance writer, pub. Kilwuddie, and other poems (Glasgow: Scottish Temperance League, 1863, several later editions), Father Fernie, the botanist: a tale and a study, including his life; Wayside lessons; and Poems (Glasgow, 1868), Idylls o’ hame, and other poems (London, Edinburgh and Glasgow, 1870), Rest for the weary: or, Mary’s wa’-gaun (Glasgow and Edinburgh, 1875), Poems by James & Ellen C. Nicholson (London and Glasgow, 1880), Wee Tibbie’s garland, and other poems (Glasgow, ?1880), Wee Tibbie’s garland, and other poems and readings, new enlarged edn (Glasgow, 1888), Willie Waugh, and other poems, by James & Ellen C. Nicholson (Edinburgh and Glasgow, 1884). Ref: Edwards, 1, 233-41; Glasgow Poets, 354-57; Reilly (1994), 352; Reilly (2000), 339-40; Murdoch, 125-32. [S]Nicholson, John (1790-1843), of Harewood and Bingley, The Airedale Poet, wool-sorter, followed this occupation all of his life except ‘for intervals when he was hawking his poems’. Apparently Nicholson applied for a grant from the Royal Literary Fund. Pub: The Siege of Bradford (1821); Airedale in Ancient Times (1825); The Lyre of Ebor; The Fall of Belshazzer; Genius and Intemperance; and other poems (London: Seeley and Son, 1827); Folly of the Chartists (Bradford, 1839); Strictures on the proposal of a New Moral World (Bradford, 1839) [attack on Owenism]; Complete Poems by John Nicholson, The Airedale Bard, with a Sketch of His Life by John James (1844, 2nd edn Bingley: Thomas Harrison, 1876); Lines on the Young Lady Drowned in the Strid (Bradford, n.d.; this is not in COPAC and may be a lost work). Ref: LC 4, 275-90; Holroyd, 45-7; Forshaw, 113-26 (includes a detailed bibliography); James, 172; Vicinus (1974), 141, 143, 144-5, 151-2, 162-4, 170, 174-6; Maidment (1987), 173-5. 181-5, 347-8; Johnson, items 649-53; Goodridge (1999), item 84; see also Tony Harrison’s well-researched and witty play about Nicholson, Poetry or Bust (in his Plays: Three, London: Faber, 1996, 1-59); Sutton, 702. [LC 4]? Nicholson, John (fl. 1843), apparently the older brother of William Nicholson (qv), poet and antiquarian, pub. Historical and Traditional tales in rose and verse, connected with the south of Scotland (Kirkcudbright: John Nicholson, 1843) which includes his mostn important poem ‘The Brownie of Blednoch’, a ‘masterpiece of the supernatural’, anf other Galloway legends including the cannibal story of Sawney Bean. Ref Charles Cox, Catalogue 68 (2015), item 137; DNB (under William Nicholson, qv). [S]Nicholson, Thomas, Manchester poet, ‘humble and obscure’, author of A Peal for the People, with Sundry Changes (Manchester, 1849), The Warehouse Boy of Manchester (1852). Ref: Harland, 320, Maidment (1987), 174-9. (Johnson, item 654, appears to be another Thomas Nicholson, of Hunslet, Leeds)Nicholson, William (1782-1849), of Tannymaas, the Galloway Poet, pedlar, friend of Hogg, pub. Tales in Verse and Miscellaneous Poems Descriptive of rural life and manners (1814’ 2nd edn, Edinburgh, 1828; there was also a third edition); known for his ballad ‘Brownie of Blednoch’. Ref: ODNB [See in same entry ‘John Nicholson’, reputed older brother, antiquarian.]; Miller, 222; Harper, 249-50; Edwards, 3, 63-70; Wilson, II, 43-6, Shanks, 159, Douglas, 301-2, LION; Miles, X, xviii; Johnson, item 655; Sutton, 702 (letter and portrait at Bodleian, MS.Montagu d.9, fols. 20-22). [S]Nicol, Alexander (bap. 1703, fl. 1739-66), of Kettins parish, Forfarshire, Scottish packman and son of a packman, one year only at school, freemason, later became a teacher; pub. Nature without Art: Nature’s Progress in Poetry (1739); Nature’s Progress in Poetry (1739), The Rural Muse: or, a Collection of Miscellany Poems, both Comical and Serious (Edinburgh: Printed for the author, 1753); both 1739 books reprinted in 1766 as Poems on Several Subjects. The 1753 book has sections suggesting it is designed to teach children. Ref: ODNB; LION; Charles Cox, Catalogue 51 (2005), item 203 (an association copy of the 1753 vol. once owned by Nicol’s fellow mason and neighbour the traveller George Paterson of Castle Huntly. [S]Nicol, Charles (b. 1858), of Pollokshaws, worked in a weaving factory, in a printer’s engraving department, and as a travelling salesman/representative, pub. Poems and Songs, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (Edinburgh, undated). Ref: Edwards, 6, 70-72; Leonard, 342-5; . [S]Nicol, James (1769-1819), of Traquair, Selkirk, shoemaker poet, later minister, pub. Poems Chiefly in Scottish Dialect (1805); there may be other volumes. Ref: Winks, 313. [S]Nicol, James (1800-60), weaver at Luthermuir, Angus, ‘studied the Bible at his home and walking abroad’ (Reilly), pub. The Life of Paul the Apostle in Metre (Brechin, 1845); An abridgement of Bible History, in Verse (Aberdeen, 1860). He also published poems to the Edinburgh Magazine and articles to the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia. Ref: ODNB; Reilly (2000), 340. [S]Nicoll, Robert (1814-37), of Auctergaven, Perthshire, son of a ruined farmer turned day-labourer, apprenticed to grocer, opened a circulating library at Dundee. At Whitsuntide 1836 he left for Edinburgh and shortly after that he became the editor of the Leeds Times; pub. Poems and Lyrics (Edinburgh, 1835, 1842, 1843, 1852, 1855; each edn claims to have additions, and later memoirs); Tales of the Glens (1836); Marian Wilson, A Tale of Persecuting Times (1845). Ref: Holroyd, 89-90, 109; Wilson, II, 370-8; Ashraf (1975), 159-62; Ashraf (1978), I, 14; Johnson, item 656; Schwab, 46-7 (discussion of ‘The Bacchanalian’), 208-9; Sutton, 703 (letters); (includes Samuel Smiles’ biography of Nicoll); Simmons, 286-92, 458-63. [S]Nicoll, Thomas P. (b. 1841), of Aberdeen, ironmonger from age thirteen, bookseller, clerk, pub. Trifles in verse (Aberdeen and Greenwich, 1874). Ref: Edwards, 1, 81-3; Reilly (2000), 340. [S]Nicolson, Laurance James (b. 1844), ‘Bard of Thule’, of Lerwick, Shetland, cabinet-maker, clerk, poems in Murdoch. Ref: Edwards, 1, 335-8; Murdoch, 394-99. [S]? Nisbet, Hume (b. 1849), of Stirling, painter and itinerant worker, lived in Australia and New Zealand; also pub. book on painting and wrote dramas. Ref: Edwards, 5, 155-60. [S]Niven, John, journeyman baker, The Strathmore melodist: a collection of original poems and songs (London 1846). [S]Noble, Samuel (b. 1859), of Arbroath, worked in an Aberdeen jute mill, sailor, shopkeeper, librarian, pub. Rhymes and recollections, with a biographical introduction by John Paul (Dundee, 1896). Ref: Reilly (1994), 354. [S]? Noel, Thomas, Chartist poet. Pub. The Cottage Muse (1833), Village Verse (1841), and Rymes and Roundelays (1841, contains ‘Rat-Tower Legend,’ ‘Poor Voter's Song,’ and the ‘Pauper's Drive’). Ref: ODNB; Scheckner, 294-5. [C]Norval, James (1814-1891 or 1901), of Parkhead, Glasgow, weaver, pub. early in Glasgow and other newspapers; sources disagree on death date. Ref: Glasgow Poets, 318-21; Edwards, 6, 193-200 and 16, [lix]; Murdoch, 138-43. [S]? Notman, Peter (b. 1818), pseud. “Petrus,” of Paisley, son of a cowfeeder, author of ‘Lines on Mechanism’ in his Small Poems and Songs by ‘Petrus’ (Paisley, 1840). Ref: Brown, II, 112-14; Leonard, 176-7. [S]Nunn, Robert, (c. 1808-53), of Newcastle upon Tyne, slater, popular songwriter, lost his sight in an accident. Ref: Allan, 318-41.Nye, James (1822-92), of East Chiltingon, Sussex, one of eleven children of an agricultural albourer, Nye was a Calvinist, an agricultural labourer, groom, quarry worker and gardener, as well as a poet, musician, composer and instrument-maker; his autobiography, A Small Account of My travels through the Wilderness, was pub. in 1981, ed. by Vic Gammon (Brighton: QueenSpark Books), with three pages of his poems included. Ref Burnett et al (1984), 240 (no. 538). ? O’Connor, Murrough (fl. 1719-40). sub-tenant of a farm in County Kerry from which he was evicted—all of his 5 extant poems written in connection with that eviction. Ref: Carpenter, 83. [I]? O’Conor, Charles Patrick (‘The Irish Peasant Poet’, b. 1837), of County Cork, of poor parents, went to England, wrote songs and journalism, took government clerical post in Canada, retired early and lived in Lewisham for many years, received Civil List pension, pub. Wreaths of fancy (London, 1870); Songs of a life: Wayside chants; Fatherland (London, 1875). Ref: Reilly (2000), 345. [I]Officer, William (b. 1856), of Lonmay, Aberdeenshire, farm worker, cabinetmaker. Ref: Edwards, 8, 364-69. [S]Ogden, James (1718-1802), fustian cutter or shearer of Manchester. His ODNB entry notes that after being fustian shearer, he traveled to Europe and returned to Manchester and became a school master, but returned to being fustian shearer. Publications include An Epistle on Poetical Composition (1762), On the Crucifixion and Resurrection (1762), The British Lion Rous'd, or, Acts of the British Worthies, a Poem in Nine Books (1762) ‘published by subsidy of 600 subscribers and is indicative of the kind of recognition Ogden's literary talents received’ (ODNB). Other poems include A Poem, on the Museum, at Alkrington, Belonging to Ashton Lever (1774), The Revolution, an Epic Poem (1790), Archery: a Poem (1793); Emanuel, or, Paradise Regained: an Epic Poem (1797); Sans Culotte and Jacobine, an Hudibrastic Poem (1800), a ‘staunchly conservative’ poem. He also wrote prose including a history of Manchester. His son William (1735-1822) was a publisher and a radical reformer who published his father’s last poem. Ref: Dobell 3021, ODNB.? Ogg, James (b. 1849), of Banchory-Ternan, Kincardineshire, lived in Aberdeen, saw-miller, pub. Willie Wally, and other poems (Aberdeen, 1873); Glints i’ the Gloamin’: Songs and Poems (Aberdeen, ‘Free Press’ Office, 1891). Ref: Edwards, 1, 360-2; Reilly (2000), 346; Charles Cox, Catalogue 51 (2005), item 204. [S]O’Kelly, Pat (1754- 1837), of County Galway, a ‘colourful’ wandering bard, lame in his foot, who ‘travelled around Ireland on a piebald pony seeking patrons for his poems’, working as a teacher among other things’ pubs. include The Hippocrene: A Collection of Poems (1831), full text available via Google Books. Ref: Carpenter, 468; Wikipedia; . [I]Oliphant, Ebenezer (1813-1893), of Torphichen, Linlithgowshire, mason, poet of the sport of curling, in demand for his jeux d’esprit. Ref: Bisset, 95-100.? , Thomas (b. 1830), of Lutgvan, Cornwall, metal and mineworke in Cornwall and elsewhere (including Australia), Dame School, Sunday School and self-educated. Burnett et al identify him as a poet but give no detail of pub. poetry, just his autobiography, clearly a wide-ranging work, covering an adventurous and intellectually voracious life: Autobiography of a Cornish Miner (Camborne: Camborne Printing and Stationary Company, 1914). Our ‘?’ marker does not reflect his status in this database but the fact that we have not yet sourced any pub. poetry as such. Ref Burnett et al (1984), 241 (no. 540).? Oliver, William (b. 1800), of Newcastle upon Tyne, apprentice draper, grocer, songwriter. Ref: Allan, 228-44.Olivers, Thomas (1725-99), shoemaker poet, pub. A Hymn on the Last Judgment. Another of praise to Christ (1763); An Hymn to the God of Abraham, in three parts (1773); A Full Defence of the Rev. John Wesley, etc. (1776); A Rod for a reviler (1777); An account of the life of Mr. Thomas Olivers. Written by himself (1779); A Full Refutation of the doctrine of Unconditional Perseverance (1790); A Descriptive and plaintive elegy, on the death of the late Reverend John Wesley (1791); and An Answer to Mr. Mark Davis’s Thoughts on Dancing. To which are added serious considerations to dissuade Christian parents from teaching their children to dance (1792). Ref: LC 2, 297-302; Winks, 300-4. [LC 2]O’Neill, John (1778-1858), shoemaker (‘we bear the Crispin name’), pub. Irish Melodies (nd), The Sorrow of Memory (nd), Alva (Dublin, 1821), The Drunkard, a poem (Dublin, 1840), The Blessings of Temperance (Dublin, 1851; according to the ODNB, this poem is really just The Drunkard, renamed), The Triumph of Temperance (Dublin, 1852), Handerahan, the Irish Fairyman; and legends of Carrick (Dublin, 1854), Hugh O’Neill, the Prince of Ulster. A Poem (Dublin, 1859); (with James Devlin, qv) letter and ‘Sonnet, to Mr. Bloomfield, with Prospectus’ (1820), in Bloomfield, Remains, 1824, I, 164-6. He also published a memoir, ‘Fifty years' experience of an Irish shoemaker in London’, in St Crispin (trade mag) in forty-one weekly installments (8 May 1869-19 February 1870). Ref: ODNB; Winks, 316-19; Sutton, 719 (letters). [I]O’Neill, William Cassells (1854–89), of Paisley, ironmoulder, pub. collection 1884, emigrated to New Zealand in 1888. Ref: Brown, II, 452-75. [S]Ormond, Thomas (1817-79), of Dunnichen, Forfarshire, handloom and factory weaver. Ref: Edwards, 2, 354-7. [S]Orr, James (1770-1816), ‘The Bard of Ballycarry’, of Ballycarry, freemason, United Irishman and poet, a weaver like his father, member of the Samuel Thomson (qv) cvircle. According to ODNB, ‘Orr is probably Ulster's most important eighteenth-century poet; his work is increasingly recognized by scholars as of more than local significance’. Pub. Poems on Various Subjects (Belfast, 1804) and numerous poems in Belfast’s Northern Star, including the popular poem ‘The Irishman’, later collected in a posthumous volume sold for the benefit of Ballycarry's poor. Ref: ODNB; DNB; Jennifer Orr, ‘Constructing the Ulster Labouring-Class Poet: The Case of Samuel Thomson’, in Class and the Canon: Constructing Labouring-Class Poetry and Poetics, 1780-1900, ed. Kirstie Blair and Mina Gorji (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 34-54; Carpenter, 542; Sutton, 723 (letters). [I]Orr, John (b. 1814), of Kilbirnie, Ayrshire, handloom weaver from age fourteen, later powerloom weaver, pub. Poems and songs (Ardrossan, 1874). Ref: Reilly (2000), 351; Edwards, 8, 327-9. [S]Orrock, Thomas (b. 1827), of South Queensbury, shoemaker, pub. poems in local press; Fortha’s Lyrics and other Poems (1880); patronised by Lords Rosebery and Hopetoun. Ref: Bisset, 154-60. [S]? O’Sullivan, Owen Roe (Eughan Ruadh O Suillebhain, b. 1748), of south-west Munster, itinerant schoolmaster, sailor and soldier, primarily a Gaelic singer, his one known poem in English, ‘Rodneys Glory’, extemporised to mark an English naval victory over the French. His Irish poetry has earned him the description ‘the sweetest singer of Gaelic verse in his time’. Ref Augustan Lyric, ed. Donald Davie (London: Heinemann, 1974), 130, 173-4. [I]Otley, Richard, of Eccleshall, Sheffield, newsagent, poet and a prominent figure in Sheffield’s circle of radical Chartists. In 1847 he was one of a group of Chartists who were elected to the local council; he represented Ecclesall but was disqualified fairly soon after his election. Ebenezer Elliott (qv) was an admirer of his poetry. Ref inf. ; Yann Lovelock. [C]Overs, John (1808-1844), carpenter and cabinet-maker, helped by Dickens, published much of his work in Tait’s Magazine, author of Evenings of a Working Man, Being the Occupation of his Scanty Leisure (1844), BL 1457.c.15). Ref: Vicinus (1974), 182n47; Maidment (1983), 87, Maidment (1987), 19; Sales (2002), 85-6.? Owen, David (‘Dewi Wyn o Eifion’, 1784-1841), of Y Gaerwen in the parish of Llanystumdwy, Caerns, farmer and poet; privately educated in Wales and England before returning to Gaerwen, where he stayed the rest of his life; bardic pupil of Robert Williams, who was also his neighbour; well-regarded in his day, Owen influenced nineteenth-century Welsh poets, especially the development of the awdl and englynion forms; known for his ‘masterpiece’, ‘ Elusengarwch’ (‘Charity’), which caused some controversy in 1819 when it was not awarded a prize at the Denbigh Eisteddfod. Pub. posthumous collected poems and biography, Blodau Arfon (Chester: Edward Parry, 1842). Ref: OCLW, WBO. [W] [—Katie Osborn]? Owen, Goronwy, (‘Goronwy Ddu O F?n’, 1723-69), born in parish Llanfair Mathafarn Eithaf, Ang.; vicar, poet, and tobacco planter; buried in Lawrenceville, VA, USA; ‘belonged to a family of tinkers from Tafarn Goch.’ (OCLW); studied Latin at the Friars school in Bangor with the intent of becoming a priest, then served as an assistant teacher in Pwllheli (1742-44) and Denbigh (1745). As a young man he excelled in Welsh poetry under the patronage and tutoring of Lewis Morris (1701-1765, a well-known poet and scholar); excelled in writing awdl and cywyddau. He was ordained deacon in 1746 and served at native parish for just one year. ‘Thereafter he led a wandering existence, living in the constant hope that he would be given a parish in Wales instead of having to suffer the poverty of a curate’s life’ (OCLW). His best known poems were written in this time, including: ‘Awdl Gofuned’, ‘Cywydd y Farn Fawr’, ‘Cywydd Y Gem neu’r Maen Gwerthfawr’, ‘Cywydd y Gwahodd’ and ‘Cywydd yn ateb Huw’r Bardd Coch of F?n’. He was offered a teaching position at William and Mary College in Williamsburg, VA and sailed in 1757 before he finished work on an intended epic poem after Milton, which he never completed; his wife and youngest child died on the journey. He married twice more, and devoted several years to ‘alcohol and prodigal living’ before being becoming a tobacco planter and vicar of a parish in Brunswick County, VA in 1762. He was ‘a hero in the eyes of many Welsh poets; and his verse was imitated and invoked at many nineteenth-century eisteddfodau. Pub: verses in Diddanwch Teuluaidd (1763, 1817); several poems in the anthology series Cyfres y Fil (ed. O. M. Edawrds, 2 vols, 1902); Ref: OCLW. See also The Poetical Works of the Rev. Goronwy Owen with his Life and Correspondence (ed. Robert Jones, 2 vols, 1951). [W] [—Katie Osborn]? Owen, John Lorton (1845?-98) of Manchester, journalist and short-story writer, worked in Leicester, Manchester, London, imprisoned for stealing a cheque in 1883; author of Lyrics from a Country Lane; a miscellany of verse (London: Simpkin, Marshall, 8c Co.; Manchester: John Heywood [1873], pp. xvi, 207); ‘A Whitsuntide Carol’ (Ben Brierley’s Journal, 15 May 1873, p. 162), ‘The City Singers’ (BBJ, September 1873, 241). Ref: Reilly (2000), 352; Maidment (1987), 158-9; journal sources indicated.Owler, David, (b. 1860), of Dundee, millworker, joiner, bookseller, pub. as ‘Dib’ in newspapers in prose and verse. Ref: Edwards, 15, 356-60. [S]Pagan, Isobel, Isabel or Tibbie (c. 1742-1821), of Ayrshire, lame, self-taught hermit who ‘lived alone in old brick-store hut’, unlicensed whisky-dealer, famed for the songs ‘Ca’ the yowes to the knowes’, revised by Burns and often set to music, and ‘Crook and plaid’; she did not know how to write so her poems were transcribed by a friend who was a tailor; pub. A Collection of Songs and Poems on Several Occasions (Glasgow, 1805). Ref: ODNB; Edwards, 5, 220; Scot; Douglas, 55-6, 290, Jackson (1993), 249; Kord, 268-70; Sutton, 724 (letter). [F] [S]Palmer, John (1800-70), of Annan, Dumfriesshire, herder, cotton factory worker, bookselling agent for Blackie & Fullarton, nurseryman, Liberal in local politics, pub. Poems and songs by the late John Palmer (Annan, 1871). Ref: Miller, 237-38; Reilly (2000), 356. [S]Parker, Benjamin (d. 1747), of Derby, started life as a stocking-maker and became book manufacturer before turning to ‘quack’ medicine; pub. Money...a Poem in Imitation of Milton, humbly inscribed to...the Earl of Chesterfield (1740), BL 1163-0.e.13(2), advert on 16 for patent medicine prepared by Parker; prose publications on scientific and philosophical subject published at Nottingham and Derby. Ref: ODNB; Foxon 67.? Parr, William, publican in London and Newbury, Berks., pub. Original songs and poetry (Speenhamland/Newbury, 1874). Ref: Reilly (2000), 357.Parsons, Samuel (b. 1762), of Nottinghamshire, poet and itinerant ballad singer, orphaned at 4, taken on as a chorister at Southwell, travelled widely ad worked as an apprentice saddler (1774-82), journeyman saddler (1782-4), then a comedian and strolling player, living in Nottingham, Market Rasen, Southwell, Newark, Grantham, Falkingham, ‘travelled for 36 years before settling in York’. Pub. Poetical Trifles, being a collection of Songs and Fugitive Pieces, by S. Parsons, late of the Theatre Royal, York, with a Sketch of the Life of the Author (York: R. Johnson, 1822). Ref Burnett et al (1984), 244-5 (no. 546); Newsam 101-2.Pass, Fred (1942-2007), worked in the scrap metal industry; pub. two books of dialect poetry in aid of St Luke’s Hospice: Just Fred and Oh no, Not Fred Again. From 2001, wrote fiction. Committed suicide in a fit of depression. Ref: ; inf. Yann Lovelock. [OP]Paterson, Archibald, of Selkirk, stocking frame weaver from age ten, self-taught, wrote for periodicals, pub. The Musiad, and other poems (Selkirk, 1861), The forest lyre: or, man, and other poems (Kelsoe, Melrose, Hawick and Galashiels, 1864). Ref: Reilly (2000), 358. [S]Paterson, James (1775-1843), of Paisley, weaver, florist, published in periodicals. Ref: Brown, I, 107-11. [S]Paterson, James (1805-1876), of Struthers, Ayrshire, stable boy, farm boy, stationer, printer and newspaper editor; political activist; poet and miscellaneous writer; pub. in Thomson’s Miscellany from age of 13; later works include his Autobiographical Reminiscences (Glasgow, 1871). Ref Burnett et al (1984), 245 (no. 548). [S]Paterson, Jeannie Graham (b. 1871), of Springburn, Glasgow, educated at school, and lived with her parents, worked as a milliner, pub. in local periodicals and religious magazines, and at age 23, a collection, Short threads from a milliner’s needle: Poems by Jeannie Graham Paterson (Glasgow, 1894). The preface to Short Threads notes that her poems were written for her own pleasure and that of friends who encouraged her, and her poems celebrate home, the Scots language, and the happiness of friendship and include ‘The Wee Cot Hoose: A Picture Scene,’ ‘Bidin’ Her Time: Suggested by a Painting with This Title,’ ‘A Wee Drap o’ Tea,’ ‘Common Gifts,’ ‘The Wee Bit Heather,’ ‘Oor Mither Tongue,’ ‘The New School on the Hill,’ ‘A Brighter Dawn,’ ‘A Plea. For the ‘Little Barefeet’ Fund,’ ‘Class Distinction,’ ‘Dinna Chide the Bairnies,’ ‘We Never Miss the Water,’ ‘The Exile’s Lament,’ ‘The Mountain Path,’ ‘The Captive’s Release,’ ‘To One Who Believes that Women are Soulless,’ ‘To My Sister,’ ‘To My Father,’ and ‘Hereford Castle,’ a drama. ‘Bidin’ Her Time,’ ‘Golden Days,’ and ‘The Auld Kirkyaird’. Ref: Reilly (1994), 371; Edwards, 15, 284-8; Boos (2008), 327-37, includes author photograph; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Paterson, John (1777-1845), of Paisley, warper (weaver) and brother to James (qv), also pub. in periodicals. Ref: Brown, I, 127-28. [S]? Paterson, John (b. 1833), son of John Paterson (qv, 1777-1845), of Paisley, letter-press printer, poems in Brown. Ref: Brown, II, 302-06. [S]Paterson, John (b. 1853), of Glasgow, working-class family, self-taught, telegraphist. Ref: Edwards, 9, 226-32. [S]Paterson, Mary, née Crighton (‘The Carnoustie Poetess’, b. 1850), of Carnoustie, Angus, employed at panmure works of the Messrs. Smeiton, and married in 1878 Mr. Paterson, a blacksmith with whom she had ‘a large family’; lived in Glasgow, an active Methodist, pub. Poems (Dundee, 1872); poems include ones celebrating the Highland thistle, reproving fault-finding, ‘Canaan’s Land,’ ‘Our Mither Tongue’. Ref: Reilly (2000), 358; infl. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Paton, Joseph Noel (b. 1821), of Paisley, pattern-drawer, poems in Brown. Ref: Brown, II, 125-30. [S]Patrick, James (1801-34), of Paisley, weaver, pub. posthumous collection of 1836. Ref: Brown, I, 398-401. [S]? Patrick, James, ‘the intellectual pedlar’ of Kendal (not clear whether he is a poet or not; also described as Scottish, and ‘of Hawkshead’), childhood companion of Sara Hutchinson, and model for Wordsworth’s wanderer in ‘The Excursion’. See Dorothy Wordsworth’s journal entry for 27 January 1802, Stephen Gill, William Wordsworth: a Life (Oxford, 1990), 25, 134, Cafarelli, 83.Patterson, John (b. 1831), of Inverness, son of a seafarer, apprenticed as a compositor and printer, moved to Glasgow then emigrated to America, surviving typhoid fever on the boat in 1853, quarantined on Staten Island for months then obtained secure work as a printer in New York. Ref: Ross, 178-86. [S]? Pattinson, William (1706-27), of Rye, Sussex, small farmer’s son, admitted as Sizar to Sidney Sussex college, Cambridge but did not complete his course, died of small pox. His patron Edmund Curll pub. The Poetical Works of Mr William Pattison, and Cupid's Metamorphoses. (1728). Ref ODNB.Paul, James (b. 1859), of Longforgan, Perthshire, brother of John Paul, ploughman’s son, joiner. Ref: Edwards, 11, 387-94. [S]Paul, John (b. 1853), of St Madoes, Cares of Gowrie, brother of James Paul, ploughman’s son, joiner. Ref: Edwards, 11, 382-87. [S]Paxton, James (1839-97), of Millerhill, near Edinburgh, engine-keeper. Published a volume with his brother, John (qv). Ref: David Littleton, M. Litt. on the Paxton brothers, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 2004, and (ed) Poems by James and John Paxton, Engine-keepers at Newbattle Colliery (2004). [S]Paxton, John W (1854-1918), of Millerhill, near Edinburgh, engine-keeper. Published a volume with his brother, James (qv). Ref: Edwards, 6, 173-80; David Littleton, (ed) Poems by James and John Paxton, Engine-keepers at Newbattle Colliery (2004). [S]Peacock, John (d. 1867), of South Shields, shoemaker, Chartist, cooperative storekeeper, second-hand bookseller in South Shields market, poet and songwriter, pub. in the Shields Garland (1859). As a young man he was a seaman, and was taken prisoner in the wars with France and confined in northern France. Ref: Allan, 343-44; Newcastle Song Writers web page. [C]Peacock, John Macleay (1817-77), of Kincardine, Chartist, tobacco factory worker, Clydeside ‘rivet laddie’ then boilermaker, later known as ‘The Birkenhead Poet’. He described himself in the Preface to his first volume as being born ‘of humble parents—nursed in the lap of poverty—sent to work for a scanty pittance at the age of nine or ten—left and orphan at an early period of my life, to battle, as best I could, through the world without a guide’. He adds that ‘my education has been but meagre, picked up at intervals and by snatches, and confined to the simplest rudiments of reading and writing’. Perhaps as a result of these early losses and insecurities Peacock loved to travel, and his shipmaking skill enabled him to live at different times in Ireland, on Tyneside and Deeside and in southern Spain, ending his life as a Glasgow shopkeeper; pub. Poems and Songs (1864), Hours of Reverie (1867), Poems (1880). Ref: LC 6, 131-44; ODNB; Edwards, 4, 212-19; Schwab, 212; Reilly (2000), 361. [LC 6] [S] [C]? Pearce, Paulin Huggett, champion swimmer and swimming teacher of Harbour Street, Ramsgate, pub. Cheap Bathing...and Hymn. Praise God... (Bell & Co, [c/ 1860]), ornamenting his poems in this and others vols with useful information on his commercial work including a ‘list of charges for swimming lessons and hire of bathing machines’ (the poems and the swimming are not otherwise connected, seemingly). Ref Charles Cox, Catalogue 51, item 214.Pearson, Edward, farm labourer at Ashford, Kent, pub. The history of Jimmie Lee, an ambassador of Christ of small stature, with a large heart, which kept his tongue in constant exercise with the king’s messenger for fifty-two years (Rochford, Esssex, 1872). Ref: Reilly (2000), 361-2.Pearson, Susanna (1779-1827), of Donington, Lincs., daughter of a surgeon-apothecary, employed as a domestic servant, pub. Poems, Dedicated by Permission to the Right Honourable the Countess Fitzwilliam (Sheffield: J. Gales, 1790), Poems on Various Subjects (London, 1800); her ‘Sonnet to Miss Seward’ is included in Radcliffe. [Note that Grainge, I, 242-3, and Sandro Jung, Women’s Writing, 16, no. 3(2009), 392-407, ascribe both her poetry vols and two novels to one Sarah Pearson, a servant of Sheffield (c. 1768-1833).] Ref: Jackson (1993), 253, Johnson, item 692; Burmester, item 465 and 130 (image); Sandro Jung, ‘Susanna Pearson and the Elegiac Lyric’, Studia Neophilologica 78, no. 2 (2006), 153-64. [F]Peddie, Robert, pub. The Dungeon Harp: Being a Number of Poetical Pieces Written During a Cruel Imprisonment of Three Years in the Dungeons of Beverley: Also a Full Proof of the Perjury Perpetrated Against the Author by Some of the Hired Agents of the Authorities (Edinburgh, 1844). James cites this as a typical nineteenth-century labouring-class nature poem; Maidment says the poem ‘deserves hearing’. Ref: LC 5, 171-88; James, 177; Maidment (1987), 19; Shwab, 212-13. [LC 5] [S]Penman, William (1848-77), ‘Rhyming Willie’, of Carronshore, Falkirk, Stirlingshire, blacksmith then foundry worker in Glasgow, leg crushed in accident, ‘Good Templar’ and Freemason, friend of James Nicholson, a ‘true poet and genuine humorist’ (Edwards), pub. Echoes from the ingleside: a selection of songs and poems (Glasgow, 1878). Ref: Edwards, 1, 36-8; Reilly (2000), 363. [S]? Pennie, John Fitzgerald (1782-1848), The Royal Minstrel, or, the Witcheries of Endor, an epic poem, in eleven books (Dorchester, 1817), The Tale of a Modern Genius, or the Miseries of Parnassus (London: J. Andrews, 1827)—an autobiography. Ref: DNB; Johnson, item 697; Goodridge (1999), item 87; Johnson 46, no. 318; Sutton, 740 (letters).? Perring, Mrs E. M., of Leeds, printer’s wife, pub. Domestic Hours: Poems by Mrs. Perring (London: Simpkin, Marshall, 1841). Holroyd prints her poem ‘Love of Nature and Retirement’, dated Leeds, No, 1847; he seems to be incorrect in his description of her ‘two’ volumes though. Ref Holroyd, 88; COPAC. [F]Perring, Samuel, of Blackburn (fl. 1876), ‘from birth a cripple...his arms and hands being mis-shapen’, pub. poems in the newspapers. Ref: Hull, 343-6; Henry Yates, ‘A Nearly Forgotten Humble Townsman’, Blackburn Times, 30 November 1895; biography and selection of poems online at: , George (1792-1836), of London, soldier, tailor, political writer and organiser, poet, pub. his epic poem Equality, dedicated to Robert Owen, in 1832. Its ‘politico-philosophical ideas are largely based on Thomas Spence [qv] and the cooperative movement’; Petrie ‘can be regarded as an immediate precusor to Chartist poetry’ (Schwab). Also posthumously pub. The Works of George Petrie, comprising Equality and other poems; select extracts from the letter of Agrarius; with a biographical memoir of the author (London 1841). [Ashraf also mentions an otherwise unidentified ‘Charles Petrie’ on 24; possibly the same person.] Ref: Ashraf (1978), I, 44; COPAC/BL; Schwab, 212.Pettigrew, John (b. 1840), of Glasgow, ‘The Parkhead Bard’, ‘The Roving Gardener’, itinerant gardener, pub. extensively in the Glasgow and Kilmarnoch press. Ref: Edwards, 5, 35-40. [S]? Pfeiffer, Emily Jane, (1827-90), née Davis, Montgomeryshire; her father, an army officer, lost most of his property and fortune due to his bank’s failure in 1831; their impecuniousness kept Pfieffer from receiving regular or formal education; her father encouraged her writing and painting; she married German merchant Jurgen Edward Pfeiffer in 1850; she wrote prolifically, especially in the sonnet form, and is compared to Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Sara Coleridge; she was highly critical of female disempowerment and theories concerning women’s inherent weakness and contributed articles on the subjects to Cornhill Magazine and the Contemporary Review to positive review. Pub: The Holly Branch, an Album for 1843 (printed privately in 1842); Valisneria (1857); Gerard’s Monument (1873); The Rhyme of the Lady of the Rock, and how it Grew (1884); The Wynnes of Wynhavod (1881); Flying Leaves from East and West (1885); Women and Work (1887); Flowers of the Night (1889). Ref: ODNB; OCLW; Gramich & Brennan, 113-16, 401; Sutton, 750 (letters). [W] [F] [—Katie Osborn]Phillips, James Gordon (b. 1852), of Newmill, Banffshire, herding boy, apprentice tailor, pub. in the Banffshire Journal and the Elgin Courier, involved in archaeology and local history, pub. Wanderings in the Highlands of Banff and Aberdeen Shires; With Trifles in verse by J. G. Phillips (Banff, 1881). Ref: Murdoch, 424-5, Reilly (1994), 377. [S]Picken, David (1809-1874 or 1875), of Paisley, drawboy and weaver, Chartist, pub. posthumous Poems and songs, with a memoir of the author and notes (Paisley, 1875). Ref: Brown, I, 411-13; Reilly (2000), 367. [S] [C]? Picken, Ebenezer (1769-1816), of Paisley, son of a weaver, friend of Alexander Wilson, father of Joanna Picken (qv), made various attempts to train for the ministry, worked as a schoolmaster and in commerce, often lived in poverty. As a student, his poems were published in Poems and Epistles, Mostly in the Scottish Dialect (1788). Later pub. Miscellaneous Poems, Songs, … Partly in the Scottish Dialect, with a Copious Glossary?(1813, 2 vols.). [See also his son, Andrew Belfrage Picken, in same entry.] Ref: ODNB/DNB; Harp R, xxvi-xxvii, lxxii-lxxiii; Brown, I, 62-68; Wilson, I, 443-6; Leonard, 188; Sutton, 751 (letters). [S]? Picken, Joanna [Belfrage] (1798-1859), of Edinburgh, daughter of Ebenezer Picken (qv), poet of Paisley, emigrated to Canada in 1842, pub. verse in the Glasgow Courier, two poems in Wilson, II, 174-5. Ref: DNB, Boos (1995), Leonard, 188-91, 371. [F] [S]Pickup, John (‘Jean Piko’, b. 1860), of Blackburn, largely self-taught, weaver from aged 10, later insurance agent, dialect and local poet, a key figure in nurturing other Blackburn poets. Ref: Hull, 404-9.Plumb, Samuel (fl. 1821), stockinger, of Carlton, Nottingham, member of the ‘Nottingham group’, sent a verse-letter to John Clare dated 9 March 1821 in which he complained that ‘A Stockinger with all his might, / May press o'er th’arch from morn till night, / And half the night by candle-light, / But seldom can, / Be debtless, and appear upright, / As should a man’. Ref: James, 171; inf. Bob Heyes.Plummer, John (1831-1914), of London and Kettering, staymaker and shoemaker, partially lame and deaf, pub. Songs of Labour, Northamptonshire Rambles and Other Poems (With an Autobiographical Sketch of the Author’s Life) (London and Kettering, 1860). Ref: Vincent, 207, 183; Hold, 121-24; Burnett et al (1984), 249 (no. 557); Ashton and Roberts, 63; Reilly (2000), 369.Polin, Edward (1816-43), of Paisley, drawboy, handloom weaver and pattern-setter, involved with Radical party and became editor of Newcastle Courant, drowned; first poems appeared in Chartist Circular; pub. anonymously a 24-page pamphlet, a short satirical piece, Councillors in Their Cups, or the Reformed Transformed; a Lyrical Laughterpiece (Paisley, 1842). Ref: Brown, II, 56-60; Leonard, 160-5. [S]Pooley, John (1800-after 1841), of Kelmarsh, Northamptonshire, agricultural labourer, self described as an ‘untaught peasant’, pub. Poems, Moral, Rural, Humorous, and Satirical (1825); Blackland Farm (1838); wrote to Clare, who nicknamed him ‘dull Fooley’ (Journal, 27 February 1825). Ref: Hold, 124-28. Portal, Abraham (1726-1809), gold/silversmith poet, befriended and helped by John Langhorne, pub. two vols. of poetry, Nuptial Elegies (1774) and Poems (1781), which reprints earlier material with additions, and an occasional piece on the death of Langhorne (1779); better known for his dramatic works, including Songs, Duets and Finale (1778) “from the comic opera The Cady of Bagdad (music by Thomas Linley the younger, libretto by Portal)”. The preface to his first play, Olindo and Sophronia, notes that he had ‘hitherto passed his time, not in the learned and peaceful retreats of the Muses but in the rude and noisy shop of Vulcan.’ He also made a name for himself in his trade, and his work is still sought after in the antique market. . An example of his finest work in silver, an enormous wine cistern commissioned by the Earl of Huntingdon, was exhibited on the webpage of the new York silver dealer S.J. 3 Feb 2006. Ref: ODNB; Christopher Portal, The Reluctant Goldsmith (Castle Cary Press, 1993); inf. Bill Christmas and Bridget Keegan.Porter, Alexander (d. 1863), shepherd of Edzell, Angus, pub. Poems on various subjects (Montrose, 1861). Ref: Reilly (2000), 372. [S]Porter, Hugh (b. c. 1780, fl. 1800-1813), ‘The Bard of Moneyslane’, Linen-weaver, of County Down, associated with Mary Tighe and Thomas Percy, patronised (along with Patrick Bronte) by Revd Thomas Tighe, pub. Poetical Attempts by Hugh Porter, A County of Down Weaver (Belfast: Archbold & Dugan, 1813); full text on Google Books; The Country Rhymes of Hugh Porter, The Bard of Moneyslane, with an Introduction by Amber Adams and J.R.R. Adams (Bangor, Northern Ireland: Pretani Press, 1992, ‘The Folk Poets of Ulster’ series), includes a list of the original subscribers, identification of Porter’s dedications and other valuable information. Ref: Carpenter, 552; inf Bob Heyes. [I]? Potter, Mary Jane (b. 1833), of York, daughter of a ship’s carpenter, moved to Montrose aged 3; raised her deceased sister’s four orphaned children, and wrote for local newspapers; poems include ‘My Companie,’ ‘Lines to an Early Snowdrop,’ and ‘They Left the Bay at Midnight’. Ref: Edwards, 9, 375-9; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Powell, James Henry (b. 1830), of London, engineer’s son, worked in paper mill, then as an engineer, pub. Phases of Thought and Feeling, Poems and Lyrics (London: Partridge & Co, 1857); Life incidents; and, Poetic pictures (London, 1865). Ref: Reilly (2000), 373, inf. Bob Heyes.? Powell, Thomes E., Member of London Trades’ Council, pub. Down the river, from Pimlico Pier to Temple Bar: A Satire (London: 1870). Ref: BL .9.(1.)..? Poynton or Pointon, Priscilla (c. 1740-1801), of Litchfield, went blind at age 12, strict parents, largely self-taught, married a saddler in Chester (becoming Mrs Pickering), pub. Poems on Several Occasions (Birmingham, 1770), with nearly 1,300 subscribers; 2nd edn, Poems by Mrs Pickering...to which are added poetical sketches (Birmingham and London, 1794), ed. by Joseph Weston, pub to support herself after her husband’s premature death that year. Ref: Poole & Markland, 387-9; Jackson (1993), 259; Lonsdale (1989), 272-6; Backscheider & Ingrassia, 883. [F]Pratt, Ellis (‘E. P. Philocosm’), hairdresser of Bath, pub. The Art of Dressing Hair. A Poem. Humbly inscribed to the members of the T. N. Club, by E. P. Philocosm, and late hairdresser to the said society (Bath: R. Crutwell, 1770). The ‘T.N. Club’ is the fashionable Tuesday Night Club. Pratt promotes his shop and the ‘numerous hair treatments he had to offer’. Ref C. R. Johnson, catalogue 55 (2013), item 21 (includes title-page image). Preston, Benjamin (1819-1902), Ben Preston was b. August 10th 1819 in Bradford, where he lived until 1865, was a wool sorter and comber, a publican and a dialect writer, known as ‘The Burns of Bradford’. He made his name with a dialect poem, ‘Natterin Nan’ (1856), and published extensively in local periodicals; Holroyd prints several poems including his tribute to Charlotte Bronte, ‘On the Death of Currer Bell’ (1857), 23, and enthuses that for ‘raciness and vigour of language, there is nothing in the whole range of English literature to surpass’ his collection of 18 dialect poems, pub. in 1972, expanded as Dialect and Other Poems by Ben Preston, With a Glossary if Local Words (London and Bradford: Simpkin, Marshall & Co., and T. Brear, 1881). Moorman considers that ‘his pathos has dignity and restraint, and in the poem “I nivver can cll her my wife” it rises to the heights of great tragedy’ (xxxv). Ref: Holroyd, 2-3, 23, 64-5, 100-101, 107; Andrews, 106-11; Forshaw, 132-9 (includes a photograph); Moorman, xxxiv-xxxv, 37-43; Ashraf (1975), 233-6, Ashraf (1978), I, 7-8, 227-9, Vicinus (1974), 161, Reilly (1994), 385; England 14, 21, 49, 66.? Preston, Edward Bailey, itinerant calligrapher, poet and correspondent of Clare. Ref: Clare’s Letters, ed Storey (Oxford, 1985).Price, Emma, of humble origin, the only child of ‘humble but respectable English parents’; her mother died and she lived with her father, who had become incapacitated, in the workhouse. Though able to work for a time as a nurserymaid, she was forced from blindness to live in the Edinburgh Blind Asylum, and her poems were published in the hope of raising money for her. Price is one of at least four blind Scottish women poets who published books during this period, reflecting a fairly high incidence of blindness. She pub. Verses, by a blind girl (Edinburgh, 1868); her verses, simple and of a pious cast, include ‘The Blind Girl to Her Book,’ and ‘A Village Scene (Llandysill)’. Ref: Reilly (2000), 374; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S] ? Price, Frederick, of Bilston, Staffs., compositor, pub. Rustic Rhymes (1859). Ref: Poole & Markland, 152-3.Prichard, Thomas Jeffery Llewelyn, (1790-1862), born at Builth, Brecs.; actor, poet, and historian; made a living in London as an actor and periodical writer; in 1823 published Welsh Minstrelsy by subscription and returned to Wales to sell the poetry collection; married and settled in Builth, where he was a bookseller, anthologist and novelist; became a strolling player in 1839, but lost his nose in a fencing accident; he worked as a book cataloguer at the Llanover Library and returned to writing and research; when he fell back into destitution (in Swansea, 1854-62) friends organized a fund for him through the newspaper The Cambrian; died “of burns received when he fell into his own fire” (OCLW). Pub: Welsh Minstrelsy (London, 1823); The Cambrian Wreath (1828, ‘anthology of poems by English Writers on Welsh historical subjects’); The Adventures and Vagaries of Twm Shon Catti, descriptive of Life in Wales (‘the first Welsh novel’, several editions: 1828, 1839, 1873); Heroines of Welsh History (1854). Ref: OCLW. [W] [—Katie Osborn]Prince, John Critchley (1808-66), of Manchester, the ‘Reedmaker Poet’, leading figure in the ‘Sun Inn’ group, also lived in Blackburn, pub. ‘The Death of the Factory Child’ (1841); Hours With the Muses (1841). Ref: LC 5, 107-22; ODNB; Harland, 285, 302, 349-50, 362-3, 366-8, 374-5, 381-2, 390-1, 420, 432-3, 446, 476; Hull (photograph of the poet on the frontispiece), 49-57; Cross, 142-7; James, p., 171-3; Vicinus (1973), 743-5; Vicinus (1974), 141-3, 152-5, 159-60, 163-7, 171-2, 176-8; Ashraf (1978), I, 14; Maidment (1983), 79, 84; Maidment (1987), 98-101, 111-16, 136-7, 191-5. 198-200, 338-44; Goodridge (1999), item 91; Miles, X, xiii; Brian Maidment and A.S. Crehan, ‘The Death of the Factory Child’—J.C. Prince and Nineteenth-Century Working-Class Poetry (Manchester, 1987); Reilly (2000), 375; Sutton, 778 (letters and poems). [LC 5]? Pringle, Thomas (1789-1834), farmer’s son from Blakelaw, near Kelso, emigrated to South Africa, returned as ardent abolitionist. He raised more than 10,000 pounds ‘for the relief of settlers in Albany’ with Some Account of the Present State of the English Settlers in Albany, South Africa (1824). Pub. Ephemerides or Occasional Poems, written in Scotland and South Africa (London, 1828), copy in Clare’s (qv) library; The Autumnal Excursion’ and Other Poems (1819); Narrative of a Residency in South Africa (1834); African Sketches (1834); and ‘Afar in the Desert’ (1832, admired by Samuel Taylor Coleridge). Also wrote The Desolate Valley: A South African scene; and, The wild Forester of Winterburg: A South African Tale. Ref: ODNB; Wilson, II, 100-104, Douglas, 305; Sutton, 778. [S]Procter, Andrew (b. 1841), of Dalkeith, draper. Ref: Edwards, 3, 367-8. [S]Procter, Richard Wright (1816-81), barber, ‘spare-time antiquarian and poet’, member of the ‘Sun Inn’ group of Manchester poets, referred to in Alexander Wilson’s ‘The Poet’s Corner’. He contributed to The Festive Wreath (1842), City Muse (1853) and Literary Reminiscences and Gleanings (1860). Pub. Reminiscences of a Barber’s Clerk; The Barber's Shop (1856); Our Turf, our Stage and our Ring (1862). Ref: ODNB; Harland, 356-7, 365, 540-2, 545--6, Vicinus (1973), 743, Vicinus (1974), 160, Maidment (1987), 166.? Proctor, James (1826-59), of Dalkeith, of humble origin, tailor’s apprentice, carpenter, temperance advocate, religious minister, pub. A Crack about the Drink; or, a poetical dialogue between a total abstainer and a moderate drinker (Dalkeith, 1849). Ref: Edwards, 2, 79-83. [S]Proudlock, Lewis (1801-26), of Callaly, Northumberland, miner turned schoolteacher, poetry includes dialect work, pub. The Posthumous Poetical Works of Lewis Proudlock (Jedburgh: Printed by Walter Eaton, 1826). Ref: Johnson, item 727, Jarndyce, item 1466, Reilly (1994), 386, Reilly (2000), 378.Proudlock, Lewis (fl. 1865-1896), miner, born at Folley, near Elsdon, Northumberland. Pub. Poems and Songs (Haltwhistle, c. 1865) – this collection includes a poem “A Dirge. (Inscribed to the Memory of Lewis Proudlock, the Coquetdale Poet, who was born at Callely, in 1801, and died at the early age of 25 years in 1826)”; The “Borderland muse” (London, 1896). The preface to this collection mentions his having toiled for 48 years in a coal mine. Includes numerous poems written in dialect and about mining and protesting for the rights of miners. Also wrote two novels: The Shepherd of the Beacon or, the Hero of Khyber Pass. A Story of Coquetdale by Lewis Proudlock, Dinnington, Northumberland (Wexham: Printed at the Herald Office, 1877); and Crimson Hand, the Scourge of the Bushrangers, or The Oath Redeemed, A story of Coquetdale Life and Australian Adventure. By Lewis Proudlock, Author of the “Shepherd of the Beacon,” “A Hypocrite Unmasked,” “The Gambler Reclaimed,” “Black Will the Outlaw,” Poems and Songs, &c. (n.d. but BL suggests 1890?). Ref: Johnson, item 727, Jarndyce, item 1466, Reilly (1994), 386, Reilly (2000), 378; inf. Bridget Keegan.Pryse, Robert John, (‘Gweirydd ap Rhys’), (1807-89), born at Llanbadrig, Anglesey; shopkeeper and writer; orphaned at age 11; “had only four days’ schooling” (OCLW); kept a shop at Llanrhuddlad, Ang. (1828-57), all the while also weaving and teaching himself Latin, Greek, and English; to begin his writing career, he moved to Denbigh, then Bangor, and suffered great poverty while trying to earn a living as a journalist; luck turned in 1870, when he received an advance for a major work, Hanes y Britaniaid a’r Cymry (1872-74); won prizes at 1883 Cardiff Eisteddfodau; in his time, he was respected as an authority on Welsh language, and he put out his own edition of the Welsh Bible (1876). Pub: Hanes y Britaniaid a’r Cymry (1872-74); Hanes Llenyddiaeth Gymreig, 1300-1650 (1885); The Myvyrian Archaiology (1870); the Welsh Bible (1876). Ref: OCLW. [W] [—Katie Osborn]Purdie, David Walter (b. 1860), of Hutlerbury, Vale of Ettrick, Selkirkshire, ‘The Ettrick Bard’, farmworker, self-styled ‘unlettered son of toil’, pub. Poems and songs (Selkirk, 1897). Ref: Edward, 11 (1888), 297-302; Reilly (1994), 387. [S]? Purdy, Victory (1747-1822), known as ‘The Kingswood Collier’ and ‘The Walking Bible’, popular travelling preacher and hymn-writer, pub. Poetical miscellanies. With a life of the untutored author, and a facsimile of his hand writing (Bristol, 1825). Ref: Johnson, item 730.Purves, Peter (b. 1799), of Dunbar, East Lothian, gardener, teacher, Sunday school superintendant, librarian, pub. The poetical works of Peter Purves, Kirkcaldy, with portrait and prefatory sketch of the author by Isaac E. Marwick (Edinburgh, Religious Tract Society of Scotland, Kircaldy, 1879). Ref: Reilly (2000), 379. [S]? Purvis, William, ‘Blind Willie’ (1752-1832), of Newcastle upon Tyne, blind son of a waterman, street musician and singer, composed rhymes and tunes, a ‘traditional working class songwriter’ (Vicinus). Ref: William Hone, The Table Book (London: William Tegg, 1878), 231-2; Allan, 54-8, 188; Vicinus (1974), 144, 164.Purvis, William ‘Billy’ (1784-1853), born near Edinburgh, apprentice joiner, theatre ‘call boy’, poet, conjurer, clown, musician and proprietor of a travelling theatre and of the Victoria Theatre, Newcastle: not much of a poet, but a key figure in Newcastle popular culture, celebrated in poems and songs by others listed here. Ref: Allan, 412-14; Burnett et al (1984), 253-4 (no. 566a); J.P. Robson, Life and Adventures of Billy Purvis (1849) [written by Robson in the first person, so a quasi-autobiography]; The Life of Billy Purvis, the Extraordinary, Witty and Comical Showman (Newcastle: T. Arthur, 1875; facsimile edition, Newcastle upon Tyne: Frank Graham, 1981). [S]? Pyott, William (b. 1851), of Ruthven, Forfarshire, mill-overseer’s son, cloth-lapper, pub. Poems and songs (Blairgowrie, 1883; enlarged edition, Dundee, 1885). Ref: Reilly (1994), 388; Edwards, 8, 409-16. [S]Pyper, Mary (1795-1870), of Edinburgh, the only child of Scottish parents ‘in a very humble rank of life.’ Her father was impressed into the army, ordered away, and never returned; Mary had recurrent illnesses, was unable to attend school, and was taught only by her mother. She learned lacemaking from House of Industry, but was too ill to work at lacemaking, and supported herself and her mother by button-making and work in a trimming shop. Later she did needlework when available, and sewed shirts for a tiny income. Pyper read history and literature with her mother in the evenings, and visited friends in the countryside. Blindness prevented her earning her living in old age, and her volume was published in an attempt to help her. According to the introduction, ‘It would give her the purest happiness to think that her writings might be of use in conveying to the minds of others those high consolations which have been the comfort of her life, and are the solace of her age.’ She pub. Select Pieces by Mary Pyper (1847); Sacred Poems (Edinburgh, 1865). Poems include ‘Apology of the Authoress for her Muse,’ ‘On Seeing Two Little Girls Present a Flower to a Dying Person,’ ‘On the Death of An Infant,’ ‘A Harvest Hymn,’ ‘Here To-Day, and Gone To-Morrow,’ ‘Abide With Use,’ ‘To the Moon,’ ‘Epitaph—A life,’ and ‘Negro Emancipation.’ Other books included Select Pieces (Edinburgh: printed by T. Constable, 1847) and Hebrew Children. Poetic Illustrations of Biblical Character (Edinburgh, William Elgin and Son, 1858). Though her later poems are more accomplished, the earlier ones are less exclusively religious and have more thematic variety. Ref: LC 5, 221-8; Leonard, 266, Reilly (2000), 380; Edwards, 8, 284-91; inf. Florence Boos. [LC 5] [F] [S]Quick, Henry (b. 1794), of the Zennor coast, north-west Cornwall, miner’s son, lost his father in 1805 reducing the family to poverty; beggar, broom-seller, potato-digger, turf- and peat-cutter, hawker who sold books including his own privately pub. poems; Christian; pub. The Life and Progress of Henry Quick of Zennor. Written By Himself, 3rd ed. (Hayle: James Williams, 1844), 12 pages; ed. by P.A.S. Pool (Penzance, 1963). Ref Burnett et al (1984) 254 (no. 567).Quinn, Roger (b. 1850), of Dumfries, Irish father and Scottish mother, shopworker and clerk, later itinerant musician in summer, living in a Glasgow lodging-house in winter, pub. The Heather Lintie: Being Poetical Pieces, chiefly in the Scottish dialect (Dumfries, 1861; 2nd edn inserts ‘spiritual and temporal’ into title, 1863). Ref: Reilly (2000), 381; Charles Cox, Catalogue 51 (2005), item 224. [S]Rack, Edmund (1735?-1787), ‘Eusebius’, shopkeeper, son of a labouring weaver, from a Quaker family, wrote on agricultural matters; pub. Poems on Several Subjects (1775), Mentor's Letters Addressed to Youth (1777, 4 edns) and Essays, Letters, and Poems (1781). Ref: ODNB; ESTC.? Radford, Joseph, of Birmingham, Chartist poet, pub. in The Northern Star. Ref: Kovalev, 96-7, Scheckner, 298, 342. [C]Rae, James R. (b. 1842), of Dennyloadhead, Stirlingshire, cartright’s son, coachmaker, President of Glasgow Burns Club, pub. Imperial Poems, by J.R. (1888) [16 pp.]. Ref: Edwards, 14, 209-14; Reilly (1994), 391. [S]Rae, John S. (b. 1859), of New Deer, Aberdeenshire, draper, pub. Poems and Songs, with an Introduction by D.H. Edwards (Edinburgh, 1884). Ref: Edwards, 3, 216-19; Reilly (1994), 391. [S]Rae, Thomas (1868-89), ‘Dino’, of Galashiels, Selkirkshire, draper and factory worker, health failed, wrote for the Border Advertiser, pub. Songs and verses, with a Preface by Andrew Lang (Edinburgh, 1890). Ref: Borland, 238-39; Edwards, 11, 234-38 and 12 (1889), viii-ix; Reilly (1994), 391. [S]Rafferty, Anthony (Irish Antoine O Raifteiri, Antoine O Reachtabrha, ‘Blind Rafferty, 1779-1835 [some sources give 1784-1835]), of Kiltimagh, County Mayo, Irish language poet sometimes called the last of the wandering bards, weaver’s son, blinded by he smallpox that killed his eight siblings, earned a lioving playing the fiddle and performing his songs and poems in the homes of the Anglo-Irish gentry; became an intinerant poet; songs not written in his lifetime, but collected by others. His best known poems are still learnedin Irish schools, and some of his lines appear in an irish bank note. There are English translations in James Stephens, Reincanations (Oregon: Corvallis) Ref: Poems for the Millennium, Vol. 3: The University of California Book of Romantic and Postromantic Poetry, ed. Jerome Rothenberg and Jeffrey C. Robinson (Berkeley: California University Press, 2009), 547-8; Wikipedia and other open online sources. [I] ? Ragg, Thomas (1808-81), of Sneinton, Nottingham, son of a bankrupted hosier and lacemaker, worked for a bookseller, later ordained as a vicar; pub. The Deity (1834), praised in The Times, August 11th 1834, as a remarkable and elaborate philosophical poem ‘by a working mechanic of Nottingham’; God’s Dealings with an Infidel; or, Grace Triumphant: being the Autobiography of Thomas Ragg (London, 1858). Ref Mellors; Burnett et al (1984), 254 (no. 568).Raiftearaí, Antoine (1779-1835), of Killedan, Co. Mayo, blind weaver’s son, violinist and poet. Put out around forty-eight poems, some of considerable length. Pub. (probably with the aid of a sighted amanuensis) Seanchas na sceiche (‘The bush's history [of Ireland]’), Cill Liadáin (‘Killedan’), Eanach Dhúin (‘Annaghdown’), Agallamh Raiftearaí agus an bháis (‘Raiftearaí's discourse with death’) and Achainí Raiftearaí ar ?osa Críost (posthumously in 1848, ‘Raiftearaí's petition to Jesus Christ’). Ref: ODNB. [I]Ramsay, Allan (1684-1758), major poet, playwright, anthologist and bookseller, son of a leadmine manager; after the early death of his father, Ramsay was apprenticed to a wig-maker, and later became a shopkeeper. His poetry collections (1721 and 1728), his pastoral drama The Gentle Shepherd (1725) and his collections of Scottish poetry, The Ever Green (1724) and The Tea-table Miscellany (1724-9) were hugely influential on later self-taught poets including Burns and Clare. He has numerous items in Sutton, including letters and 45 poems or volumes of poetry. Note also that the principal collection of Ramsay papers outside the UK is in the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA. (A Glossary of Scottish words held at National Library of Wales is attributed to Ramsay, but is written in the hand of Edwards Williams (qv).) Ref: ODNB; Borland, 56-60; Craik, II, 206-8; Crawford, passim; Sutton, 786-8; John Goodridge, ‘Allan Ramsay, 1688-1758’, Index of English Literary Manuscripts, Vol. III, Part iii, Pope-Steele, ed. Margaret M. Smith (London: Mansell, 1992), 169-261, and ‘Blawing off the Mullygrumbs: Two Unpublished Poems by Allan Ramsay’, The Drouth, 28 (2008), 43-47. [S]Ramsay, Donald (1848-92), of Glasgow, ploughman’s son, printer, lived much of his life in the US. Ref: Edwards, 15, 233-8; Ross, 202-11. [S]? Ramsay, Grace C., née Cadzow (1822-72), of Lanark, m. a tailor, and died after a long period of suffering. She and her husband Thomas [qv], a tailor, pub. Harp-tones in life’s vale: being short poems, exercises in verse, and paraphrases, including a metrical version of the Book of Job and the Song of Solomon, by Thomas and Grace C. Ramsay (Edinburgh and Lanark, 1895). However, Reilly claims it is not jointly authored. Poems include ‘Our Ain Fireside,’ ‘The Heart-Soothing Harp,’ ‘The Dying Mother’s Farewell,’ ‘The Faded Flower,’ ‘Wakened Memories.’ Ref: Edwards, 7, 227-32; Reilly (2000), 382-3; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]? Ramsay, James (1844-1917), of Airdrie, grocer and provisioner, councillor and magistrate, freemason and poet laureate of the Airdrie Burns Club. Ref: Knox, 239-42. [S]Ramsay, John (1802-79), carpet weaver and poet. ~ Ramsay was born in Kilmarnock, the son of James Ramsay, a carpet weaver, and his wife, Jean, née Fulton.?Although Ramsay had little formal schooling, the Bible – particularly the pastoral language of the Book of Job – is said to have stirred his poetic sensibilities, as did his mother’s collection of ancient ballads.?Moreover, there is little doubt that regular holidays at his grandfather’s Guililand farm – with the romantic view of an old castle on the hill, the wood in the background, the ocean in the near distance, and an ancient Roman camp where the entire valley of the Irvine could be discerned – made a deep impression on Ramsay’s youthful intellect, as did the link to history in the abundance of anecdotes concerning ‘the days of old’ passed on by his grandfather. ~ The tranquil charms of Ramsay’s youth were forced to contend with more prosaic affairs, and at the age of ten he became draw-boy to his father.?During the five years he devoted to this work, Ramsay participated in a course of self-education with several friends he had met, with a particular focus on the expression of thought through writing.?Ramsay soon started to compose verses while working at the loom, and his first published effort—an Epigrammatic piece on a sailor at a funeral—was featured in an Ayr periodical edited by Mr. Archibald Crawford, author of Tales of My Grandmother.?Ramsay’s next poem, ‘The Loudon Campaign’ brought him a degree of local renown.?He also contributed ‘Lines to Eliza’ to the Edinburgh Literary Gazette, then edited by Henry Glassford Bell, who highly recommended the piece and pronounced its author as a poet. ~ In 1828, Ramsay wed Elizabeth Templeton.?The unhappiness that characterized the marriage is said to have resulted in Ramsay becoming a ‘wanderer’, having ‘neither home nor household health’, and breeding a ‘morbid sensitiveness as to persons and things’ which ‘may be seen scintillating through more than one of his pieces like a lurid lightning through the murky clouds of a thunder sky’ (‘Life of the Author’, 1871). ~ In 1836, Ramsay published his collected poems under the title, Woodnotes of a Wanderer, which was favorably received and expanded and pruned in further editions.?The Ayr Advertiser (1839) wrote: ‘The author has evidently read much of the best of poetry, is a keen observer of nature, and possesses considerable originality of thought, a lively vein of humour, and is capable of highly appreciating the ridiculous, and portraying it in a strong light’.?The leading piece, ‘The Eglinron Park Meeting’, about a race-meeting in the country, written in the strain of Tenant’s ‘Anster Fair’, was mentioned by the Dumfries Herald (1840) as being ‘full of humour, pathos, and decription, in rapid interchange’. The heroic couplets of ‘Address to Dundonald Castle’ are noted in ‘Life of the Author’ (1871) for containing ‘truth as well as poetry’: ‘And round thy ruined walls / The ivy creeps : thine ancient glory’s fled: / Thine ancient tenants numbered with the dead. / Yes, with the stream of time a wave rolls on, / Whose surge shall leave thee not a standing stone’. ~ After attempting business as a grocer, provision merchant, flesher, and spirit dealer, he roamed Scotland selling his poems for fifteen years.?From 1854, he worked for four years as officer in Edinburgh for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.?As late as 1871, he published a volume entitled Gleanings of the Gloamin. ~ John Ramsay died at 495 St Vincent Street, Glasgow, on 11 May 1789. Pub. Woodnotes of a Wanderer (1836, nine editions to 1869; available on Google books), Poems (Edinburgh and London, 1836), Eglington Park Meeting, and Other Poems (2nd ed., Edinburgh, 1840); Gleanings of the Gloamin (1865, 1868, London, 1870, 1875). Ref: Edwards, 3, 270-3; Wilson, II, 260-1, ODNB/DNB, Johnson, item 741, Reilly (2000), 383; Sutton, 788 (letters). [S] [—Iain Rowley]Ramsay, Thomas (b. 1822), of Kirkfieldbank, Lanarkshire, tailor, pub. The sky scraper: a collection of original & popular recitations (London, 1860), Harp-tones in life’s vale: being short poems, exercises in verse, and paraphrases, including a metrical version of the Book of Job and the Song of Solomon, by Thomas and Grace C. Ramsay [qv] (Edinburgh and Lanark, 1895). Ref: Edwards, 7, 227-32; Reilly (1994), 393, who states that the book is ‘not joint authorship.’ Reilly (2000), 383. [S]Ramsbottom, Joseph (1831-1901), dyehouse worker, later businessman, Lancashire dialect poet, author of ‘Preawd Tum’s Prayer’, in Country Words (Manchester, 1864); Phases of distress: Lancashire rhymes (Manchester, 1864). Ref: Harland, 351-2, 491-6, 501-2, 505-6, 508-10; Maidment (1987), 86-90, 261-5, 362-4; Hollingworth (1977), 154.Rankin, Alexander (b. 1842), of Dundee, flaxdresser. Ref: Edwards, 3, 254-6 [S]Rannie, John (b. c. 1760, fl. 1789-91), ‘a young Scotsman, of little or no Education’, later a Butler in London, wrote songs for the theatre; died in poverty; pub. Poems (1789; 2nd edn, Aberdeen, 1791); Pastorals (Perth, 1790); Poems (London, 1791); Squire Poems (Aberdeen, 1791). Ref: ESTC; Radcliffe; Goodridge (1999), item 93. [S]Rathmell, Michael (b. 1828), of Huby, Harewood, Yorkshire, farmhand, then took a series of menial jobs in Leeds, retired in ill health in 1884, pub. Spring blossoms and autumn leaves: a collection of poems (Leeds: Fred R. Spark at the “Leeds Express” Office, 1886). Ref: Reilly (1994), 394; COPAC.Rawcliffe, John (b. 1844), of Ribchester, Lancs, brother of Richard Rawcliffe (qv), dialect and local poet, bobbin winder and handloom then powerloom weaver at Blackburn, emigrated to USA, pub. jointly with his brother, Pebbles fro’ Ribbleside (Blackburn, 1891). Ref: Hull, 194, 253-63, Reilly (1994), 394.Rawcliffe, Richard (1839-58), of Ribchester then Blackburn, handloom then powerloom calico weaver, then overlooker, emigrated to Australia to combat consumption in his final year, pub. poems jointly with his brother John (qv), Pebbles fro’ Ribbleside (Blackburn, 1891). Ref: Hull, 194-202. Ref: Reilly (1994), 394.Reading, Lucy, Leeds factory girl, pub. ‘The Song of the Factory Girl’ (1844), pub. in Holroyd from a cutting presumed to be from the Leeds Times, accompanied by a plea to the paper’s readers to help save the author from her hardship. Ref Holroyd, 94-5. [F]Reay, William (1830-1903), coalminer, artist, poet, friend of Joseph Skipsey (qv) was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, and died in Waratah, New South Wales, Australia, where he emigrated in 1860, and where his book of poems was published: Poems and Lyrics by William Reay, Artist (West Maitland: E. Tipper, 1886), with a dedication to Joseph Skipsey “In token of his sincere friendship, and also his genius as a poet”. Ref Kelsey Thornton, ‘A Nineteenth Century “Australian” enthusiast for Clare’, JCSN, 115 (June 2012), 8-12; further information in Professor Thornton’s co-edited selection of Skipsey’s poems (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2014). Reed, James, journeyman slater, pub. Metrical Memories of the late war, and other poems (Edinburgh, 1861). [S]Reed, Joseph (1723-87), son of a Presbyterian ropemaker, took over family rope-making business; primarily a dramatis, writing several plays, farces and prose works, but pub. poem about ‘the death of Mr Pope’in Gentleman's Magazine (August 1744). Ref: ODNB; Sutton, 793 (plays and letters).? Rees, Evan, (‘Dyfed’), (1850-1923), collier and writer, born at Puncheston, Pembs but brought up in Aberdare, Glam.; ordained in 1884 and moved to Cardiff but did not hold a pastorate; won prizes at numerous eisteddfodau, including the Chair at the National Eisteddfod four times (between 1881-1901) and Chair at the World’s Fair Eisteddfod in Chicago (1893); served as Archdruid of the Gorsedd Beirdd Ynys Prydain (see entry on Iolo Morganwg); pub: Caniadau Dyfedfab (1875); Gwaith Barddonol Dyfed (no date); Gwlad yr Addewid a Iesu o Nazareth (1894); Oriau gydag Islwyn (no date). Ref: OCLW. [W] [—Katie Osborn]? Rees, William, (‘Gwilym Hiraethog’), (1802-83), born at Chwibren-isaf, near Llansannan, Denbighshire, shepherd then Congregational minister, blind in his right eye from childhood smallpox, Welsh poet, master of Welsh strict-metre poetry and winner of numerous eisteddfod prizes; with John Jones of Liverpool established liberal newspaper Yr Amserau (edited 1843-53), pub. Abolitionist book Aelwyd f'ewythr Robert (1853); epic poem Emmanuel (two vols, 1861/7); and religious works, including expositions, commentaries, and a catechism. Ref: ODNB. [W] [—Katie Osborn]Reid, George (b. 1843), of Montrose, millworker and overseer, draper, pub. poems in the Dundee Evening Telegraph. Ref: Edwards, 15, 37-41. [S]? Reid, Janet (fl. 1840s), of the Bridge of Allan, published her modest rhymes as leaflets during the 1840’s, and these were bound as Some of the Works of Janet Reid. Some must have been popular, for ‘On a Comfortable Cup of Tea’ was advertised as in its 32nd edition. Her verses seem to be the work of an uneducated poet. Ref: inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Reid, John (1785-1865), of Paisley, weaver, minor publications and leaflets. Ref: Brown, I, 175. [S]? Reid, John (1808-1841/2), of Paisley, father, teacher and surgeon, educated at home, bookseller and publisher, religious and historical writer. Pub. Bibliotheca Scoto-Celtica (1832) and William M'Gavin's Posthumous Works (1834). Ref: ODNB. ? Reid, John (b. 1838), of Glengairn, near Balmoral, limited education, Aberdeen and Leith policeman, railway detective. Ref: Edwards, 7, 101-5. [S]Reid, John Dougall, ‘Kaleidoscope’, of Glasgow, draper, soldier. Ref: Murdoch, 426-7; Edwards, 10, 73-84. [S]Reid, John Pringle (b. 1862), of Aberlady, Haddingtonshire, merchant’s son orphaned at ten, gardener and glassworker, pub. Facts and fancies in poem and song (Edinburgh, 1886). Ref: Edwards, 6, 241-4; Reilly (1994), 398. [S]Reid, Robert (b. 1847), of Fyvie, Aberdeenshire, ‘Rowland’, shoemaker. Ref: Edwards, 12, 98-101. [S]? Reid, Robert (‘Rob Wanlock’, 1850-1922), of Wanlockhead, Dumfriesshire, elementary education, clerk in Glasgow and Belfast, emigrated to Canada, pub. Moorland Rhymes (Dumfries), 1874; Poems, Songs and Sonnets (Paisley, 1894). Ref: Edwards, 1, 318-20; Miller, 301-05; Reilly (2000), 387. [S]Reid, William (b. 1827), of Peterhead, herder, shoemaker, pub. in Aberdeenshire press, and The Last o’ the Warlocks (1864) and Auld Ronald: a well-known local character, and other rhymes (1873). Ref: Edwards, 2, 349-52. [S]Reid, William (1764-1831), of Glasgow, baker’s son, worked in a print foundry before being apprenticed to a bookseller, known as a Glasgow ‘character’, pub. poems in Poetry, Original and Selected (printed in penny numbers by Reid and his bookselling partner, 1795-98). Ref: ODNB; Glasgow Poets, 116-24. [S]? Reid, William Hamilton (fl. c. 1780-1800), ‘a day labourer in the lowest circumstances’, pub. poetry and prose regularly in the Gazetteer (as did Robert Bloomfield) around 1793-4; also pub. an essay on the writings of William Law in the Gentleman’s Magazine (Nov. 1800). Reid sometimes published under his initials, and seems also also have been the ‘W Hamilton, day-labourer’ whose ‘painting of a Suicide and Modern Fanaticism’ also appeared in the Gents. Mag. (June 1786), and who was the subject of a debate around “natural genius” and poetic register/ability in thes journals. Ref: inf. Katie Osborn; Robert L. Haig, The Gazetteer, 1735-1797; A Study in the Eighteenth-century English Newspaper (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1960), 205.? Renton, James (b. 1841), of Rutherglen, moved to Edinburgh, left school at 12, worked at W. H. Smiths, later a railway clerk, pub. in Bailie, Ladies’ Own Journal and elsewhere. Ref: Edwards, 7, 49-53. [S]Rentoul, John (b. c. 1830s), of Paisley, weaver, emigrated to Australia, pub. Reminiscences of a Paisley Weaver, with Twenty-Six Years’ Experience in Melbourne (1878). Ref: Brown, II, 346-53. [S]Reston, Andrew (1818-58), of Glasgow, hand-loom weaver, pub. in newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 5, 63-4. [S]? Rettie, T. Leith (b. 1854), of Old Aberdeen, farmer’s son, the father ‘driven from his holding’ to the town and became a grazier; the son educated to age 10 then apprenticed as a clerk, later flour merchant, cashier. Ref: Edwards, 7, 342-5. [S]Revel, James (fl. c. 1659-1680s), pub. The Poor Unhappy Transported Felon’s Sorrowful Account of his Fourteen Years Transportation, at Virginia, in America, unpublished before the C20th, now much anthologized poem in American Lit teaching anthologies; an interesting poem to look at as regards ‘convict poets’. Ref: Basker, 22-4. [OP]Rhodes, Ebenezer, of Masborough, near Rotherham, apprenticed as a Shefield cutler, later a master cutler. Pub. Alfred, A Historical Tragedy; to which is added a collection of Miscellaneous poems by the same author (Sheffield: printed for the author, 1789) and Peak Scenery, or Excursions in Derbyshire, illus. with engraving by F.L. Chantry (London, 1818-23), two vols; Modern Chatsworth, or the Palace of the Peak (Sheffield, 1837). Ref Grainge, I, 282; COPAC.Rhodes, T., Dunstan Park; or an Evening Walk. A Poem. By...a Journeyman Ribbon-Weaver (Newbury: private, [1786]), by T. Rhodes, CR LXI, 234. Ref: Jackson (1985).Rice, Alexander (b. 1865), of Paisley, son of a Londonderry handloom weaver, preserve-factory worker, poems in Brown. Ref: Brown, II, 512-15. [S]Richardson, Charlotte Caroline (1775-1825?), née Smith, of York, of humble origins; training for domestic service at the Grey Coat charity school, York; at 16 her mother died and she left school to work as a maid; she suffered two further bereavements: that of her brother in 1796, and her shoemaker husband: she married in 1802 and was left destitute when he died of consumption two years later. Attempts to run a school failed due to illness, and her poems were pub. by subscription thanks partly to the charitable patronage of the philanthropist Catharine Cappe. Pub. Poems written on different occasions (York, 1806; 3rd edn of 1809 has Bloomfield as a subscriber); Poems chiefly composed during the pressure of severe illness (York, 1809). Later volumes ascribed to her appear to be by another writer of the same name, and recent research by Roger Sales suggests she died in 1825 not 1850 as given in many sources. In fact Grainge in 1868 had been quite clear about this: ‘She died in college yard, York, September 26th, 1825, and was buried in the church yard of St Michael le Belfrey, without the walls of the city’ (307); the mix-up is a modern one. Ref: ODNB; LC 4, 85-92; Memoirs of the Life of the Late Mrs. Catharine Cappe: Written by Herself (London: Longman, 1822); Grainge, I, 306-8; Helen Plant, Unitarianism, philanthrophy and feminism in York, 1782–1821: the career of Catharine Cappe, Borthwick paper 103 (York: Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, University of York, 2003); Roger Sales, ‘The Maid and the Minister’s Wife: Literary Philanthropy in Regency York’, Women’s Poetry in the Enlightenment: The Making of a Canon, 1730–1820, eds Isobel Armstrong and Virginia Blain (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999), pp. 127–41; Johnson, item 754; ABC, 126-8; Jackson (1993), 268-9; Burmester, item 476; Sutton, 796. [F] [LC 4]Richardson, George (1807-66), Manchester poet, author of Patriotism: In Three Cantos, and Other Poems (1844), contributed to The Festive Wreath (1842). Ref: LC5, 153-70; Harland, 313-14, 326-7, 376, 421, Maidment (1987), 101, 116-19; Vicinus (1974), 162. [LC 5]Richardson, John (1750-1840), of Yorkshire, ‘Yorkshire Volunteer’, served in the army, then master of the free school in Sheffield; probably living in Newcastle in 1770s, briefly married; pub. Poems on Several Occasions, Chiefly Pastoral (Winchester [1785?], BL 11643.aa.31); Poems on Various Subjects, chiefly Pastoral (Darlington, 1779, BL 632.df.4). Yann Lovelock adds: the poems at the Spenser and Tradition site are chiefly anapaestic pastoral ballads; his biography there reveals he was fool enough to dedicate his book to Col. Althorpe, the man who ordered the Sheffield massacre (1795). Both Montgomery and Mather (‘Norfolk Street riots’) criticised Althorpe and the former was imprisoned for it. Ref: Radcliffe; ESTC; inf Yann Lovelock.Richardson, John (1817-86), of St, John’s, Cumberland, mason and builder, later a schoolmaster, dialect poet, pub. “Cummerland” talk [ODNB incorrectly gives title Cumberland Talk]: being short tales and rhymes in the dialect of that county, together with a few miscellaneous pieces in verse (London and Carlisle, 1871; 2nd ser. 1876); he also contributed a series of sketches called Stwories 'at Granny Used to Tell to the West Cumberland Times (1879/80). Ref: ODNB; Sparke, Cumb., Reilly (2000), 390.Richardson, R., sailor, author of The Dolphin’s Journal epitomiz’d, in a Poetical Essay (1768), BL 1465.f.55; full text via Google books; the preface refers to his ‘crude sailor’s pen’. Ref: ESTC.? Richley, Matthew (1820-1904), of Bishop Auckland, County Durham, tailor, later caretaker and librarian of Mechanics’ Institute. pub. The Oakland Garland (Bishop Auckland, 1879). Ref: Reilly (2000), 390.? Riddell, Henry Scott (1798-1870), of Sorbie, Dumfriesshire, shepherd and shepherd’s son, attended Edinburgh University (1819-1830), later clergyman poet, pub. ‘The Crook and the Plaid’ (around 1817), Songs of the Ark, with other poems (1831), Poems, Songs and Miscellaneous Pieces (1847), Poetical Works (Glasgow, 1871, 2 vols, ed. James Brydon), ‘Scotland Yet’, and Other Verses (Hawick, 1898); also wrote a biography of James Hogg (qv) for Hogg's Instructor (1847). Ref: ODNB; Miller, 230-34; Borland, 169; Wilson, II, 190-6; Shanks, 117-29; Douglas, 308; Burnett et al (1984), 260 (no. 582); Reilly (2000), 391; Sutton, 799. [S]? Rider, William, of Leeds, printer(?), Chartist radical, heavily involved in The Northern Star, wrote ‘The League’, about the Anti-Corn Law League. Ref: Kovalev, 98; Scheckner, 299, 342; Schwab 215. [C]Ridings, Elijah (1802-72), silk handloom weaver, of Manchester, member of the ‘Sun Inn’ group of Manchester poets, author of The Village Muse (Macclesfield, 1854), Streams from an old fountain (Manchester, 1863), contributed to The Festive Wreath (1842); The Village Muse, Containing the Complete Poetical Works of E. Ridings (1854). Ref: Harland, 242-4, Cross, 147-8, James, 172, Maidment (1987), 132-5, 243-9, 337-8, Vicinus (1973), 753, Vicinus (1974), 141, 145-6, 171, 176, 178, Reilly (2000), 391.Ridley, George (1835-64), of Gateshead, sent down the pit as a ‘trapper boy’ aged eight, severely injured and disabled in an accident which shortened his life, became a songwriter and performer, his songs printed in cheap popular editions. Pub. George Ridley's New Local Songbook (produced by Thomas Allan, 1862); his most popular song was 'The Blaydon Races' (1862), which was performed at Balmbra's Music Hall in Newcastle on June 5, 1862 and reported on by the New Daily Chronicle. Ref: ODNB; Allan, 446-63.Rigbey, Richard (fl. 1682-1702): The Cobbler’s Corant (1690-1702), A new song in praise of the gentle craft (1682-1700), A new song, to the tune of the Prince of Orange’s delight (1689), The shoe-maker’s triumph, being a song in praise of the gentle craft, etc. (1695). Ref: inf. Bridget Keegan.Ritchie, John (1778-1870), of Kirkcaldy, Fife, son of a flax dresser, handloom weaver, draper, co-founder with brother William (qv) and later owner of The Scotsman, Edinburgh civic dignitary, pub. Royal soliloquies; The royal Highland home, and other poems (London, 1863), The Church, and the people (?1865), and other religious volumes of verse. [Can be found in his brother’s ODNB entry: William Ritchie.] Ref: ODNB; Reilly (2000), 392. [S]Ritchie, William (1781-1831), born at Lundin Mill, Fife, brother of John Ritchie (qv), son of a flax desser, co-founder of The Scotsman, phrenologist. Ref: ODNB. [S]Ritchie, William (b. 1827), of Paisley, blacksmith, went to Calcutta, then America, all the while working as a blacksmith, and back to Scotland, poems not separately collected. Ref: Brown, II, 221-25. [S]Robb, John (b. 1855), of Kilspindie, Carse of Gowrie, ploughboy, railway porter. Ref: Edwards, 6, 162-6. [S]Roberts, Absalom, (c. 1780-1864), traveling shoemaker, native of Trefriw, Caerns.; lived at Eglwys-Bach, Denbighsire and Llanrwst; collected and wrote hen benillion (harp stanzas); pub: one collection of hen benillion called Lloches Mwyneidd-dra (1845); his poem ‘Trawfynydd’ was included in the anthology Y Flodeugerdd Gymraeg (ed. W. J. Gruffyd, 1937). Ref: OCLW. [W] [—Katie Osborn]? Roberts, David, (‘Dewi Havhesp’), (1831-84), tailor, born at Llanfor, near Bala, lived in Llandderfel, bardic name comes from a stream hear his home, pub: Oriau’r Awen (1876), four englynion appear in Y Flodeugerdd (ed. Alan Llwyd, 1978). Ref: OCLW. [W] [—Katie Osborn]? Roberts, Edward, (‘Iorwerth Glan Aled’, 1819-67), shopkeeper and minister, from Llansannan, Denbighshire; served as Baptist minister in Liverpool and Rhymney, Mon; attempted to compose in Welsh a biblical epic like Milton’s Paradise Lost, which he called ‘Y T?r’ and ‘Palestina’ (1851). Pub: collected poetic works (collected by his brother in 1890); Llyfrau Deunaw (ed. ‘David James Jones (‘Gwenallt’), 1955). Ref: OCLW. [W] [—Katie Osborn]Roberts, Elis (‘Y Cowper’, d. 1789), cooper, Llandoged, Denbs.; wrote interludes with moral, religious, and social criticism, including religious controversy and the American Revolution; pub: Pedwar Chwarter y Flwyddyn (1787); Gras a Natur (1769); Cristion a Drygddyn (1788); Y Ddau Gyfamod (1777). Ref: OCLW. [W] [—Katie Osborn]Roberts, John (‘The Bard of the North’, fl. 1863), miller at Balbirnie Mill, Brechin, pub. Groats, and thoughts while grinding (Dunbar, 1863). Ref: Reilly (2000), 393. [S]? Roberts, Robert (‘Silyn’), (1871-1930), Llanllyfni, Caerns., quarryman, critic, and poet; worked in a quarry, then received an education at University College of North Wales, Bala; major figure in twentieth century Welsh revival; established the North Wales Branch of the Workers’ Education Association; associated with W. J. Gruffydd and co-published with him a volume of poetry, Telynegion (1900); won the Crown at the National Eisteddfod of 1902 for a pryddest on Tristan and Iseult; pub: Telynegion (1900, with W. J. Gruffydd); Trystan ac Esyllt a Chaniadau Eraill (1904); Cofarwydd (posthumous, 1930); translations: Gwyntoedd Croesion (J. O. Francis, 1924) and Bugail Geifr Lorraine (Souvestre, 1925); novel, Llio Plas y Nos (posthumous 1945). Ref: OCLW. [W] [—Katie Osborn]? Roberts, William Isaac (1786-1806), of Bristol, brewer’s son, clerk in banker’s office, posthumously pub. Poems and Letters (London: Longman, Hurst and others, 1811), full text at . Ref: Southey, 213-4; Johnson, item 767; Goodridge (1999), item 96; PBSA, 57 (1963), 184-90.? Robertshaw, Joseph (b. 1822), of Halifax, moved to the Luddenden valley to ‘learn the worsted business with his brother-in-law’, read the Remains of Henry Kirke White (qv) and began to write, from 1853-86 a wool-combing manager in Keighley; from 1855 editor of the Keighley Visitor, in which he published ‘a large number of tales and sketches’; in 1886 he suffered a ‘paralytix seizure’ and retired to Halifax. Pub Yorkshire Tales and Legends by Heather Bell (1862), and Meditative Hours and Other Poems (1856). Ref Forshaw, 141-6.Robertson, Alexander (b. 1825), of Glengairn, Ballater, Aberdeenshire, farm-worker, gardener-coachman. Ref: Edwards, 2, 326-7. [S]Robertson, Alexander (b. 1848), of Cambuslang, son of a miner and a handloom weaver, miner, machinist. Ref: Edwards, 2, 155-6. [S]? Robertson, Eliza Frances (1771-1805) wrote her Consolatory Verses (1808) while imprisoned in Fleet Prison for debt; also wrote Dividends of Immense Value (1801), which details the evidence for her case. Ref Davis and Joyce, xi , 240. [—Dawn Whatman] [F]Robertson, Isabella, of Dundee, tobacconist and fancy goods shopkeeper, wrote for the People’s Journal, Glasgow Weekley Mail, and other newspapers; poems include ‘Davie Dakers,’ ‘Noddin’ To Me,’ ‘The Lanely Hame,’ ‘Welcome, Bonnie Snawdraps,’ and ‘Oh Thae Bairns.’ Ref: Edwards, 11, 168-72; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]? Robertson, James (fl. 1768-88), comedian of York, author of Poems (1770, 1780, 1787); Poems on Several Occasions (1773); A Collection of Comic Songs (2 vols, Edinburgh, 1800). Ref: NCBEL II, LION.Robertson, John (1767-1810), of Paisley, son of a grocer, worked as a weaver, joined the Fifeshire Militia, friend of Tannahill (qv); drowned himself one month before Tannahill; pub. ‘The ‘Toom Meal Pock’ (1800, frequently anthologized), in Brown, I, 60-1, no collection. Ref: ODNB; Brown, I, 59-61; Wilson, II, 536-7; Leonard, 5-7. [S]Robertson, John (1779-?1831), weaver, pub. The Waddin’ Day and other poems (Edinburgh, 1824). Ref: Crockett, 117-18. [S]Robertson, John, of Perth, letter-carrier, pub. Original poems and songs (Perth, 1879). Ref: Reilly (2000), 394. [S]? Robertson, Louisa (b. 1851), b. at Auchencairn, Kirkcudbrightshire, and attended school until 16; married and raised her children, and published in periodicals such as the Kirkcudbright Advertiser; verses include ‘The Flittin’ Awa’,’ ‘Lang Syne,’ ‘Allacardoch’s Braes,’ ‘Ane’s Ain Fire En’,’ and ‘To the Bairns.’ Ref: Edwards, 4, 49-53 and 13; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Robertson, Matthew (b. 1828), of Paisley, drawboy, weaver, worked in post office, later owned crystal and china shop, pub. poems in local papers. Ref: Brown, II, 248-51. [S]? Robertson, William (b. 1808), of Longforgan, Carse of Gowries, Perthshire, served an apprenticeship, lived in London, pub. Poetic Ramblings (London, 1865). Ref: Edwards, 1, 306-7; Reilly (2000), 394. [S]Robertson, William (d. 1891), of Dundee, left school at 13 to work in the spinning mill where his father was overseer, later a grocer and a salesman. Ref: Edwards, 7, 57-60 and 16, [lix]. [S]? Robins, John Jr., ‘a solitary wanderer from village to village in his native Derbyshire’, pub. Sensibility, with other poems (London and Exeter, 1806). Ref: Johnson, item 768.Robson, Joseph Philip (1808-70), Tyneside dialect poet and miscellaneous writer, ‘Bard of the Tyne and Minstrel of the Wear’, orphan, apprentice planemaker, then schoolmaster, suffered a disabling stroke, wrote a biography of Billy Purvis (William Purvis, qv), pub. Poetic Gatherings; or, Stray Leaves from my Portfolio (Gateshead, 1839), Evangeline: or the spirit of progress; together with a copious selection of miscellaneous poems and songs, sentimental, humourous and local (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1870). Refs: Allan, 345-87; Burnett et al (1984), 265-6 (no. 595); Ashton & Roberts, ch. 1, 7-31; Johnson, item 772; Reilly (2000), 395.? Robson, Mark Newton (b. 1861), of Denholm, blacksmith’s son, teacher. Ref: Edwards, 14, 31-6. [S]Rodger, Alexander (1784-1846), Scottish poet, son of a Midlothian farmer, handloom weaver, journalist, pub. Hints to the Disaffected ‘sooty rabble,’ on their day of meeting, in order to petition for a Reform of parliament, By James Black, esq., place-hunter (8th edn., Glasgow, 1816); Peter Cornclips, a tale of real life; with other poems and songs (Glasgow, 1827); Poems and Songs, humorous and satirical (Glasgow, 1838); Poems and Songs (Paisley, 1897, ed. by Robert Ford). Ref: DNB; LION; Glasgow Poets, 171-80; Wilson, II, 57-61; Murdoch, 17-27; Maidment (1987), 27-32; Douglas, 303; Johnson, items 775-7; Sutton, 803 (7 items, poems). [S]Rodgers, Paul (1788-1851), of Sheffield, originally from Greasbrough, moved to Sheffield 1833, pub. Poems and Amusements (1845), . Ref: inf. Yann Lovelock.Roger, James (b. 1841), of Kirkmichael, Ayrshire, grew up in poverty, worked for North British Railway Company from 1866, Station Master at Roslin Castle from 1870, pub. poems in People’s Journal. Ref: Edwards, 3, 52-4. [S]? Rogerson, David, newsvendor, author of Poetical Works, with the Author’s Address to Bambrough Castle (undated, nineteenth-century: one poem dated 1866). Ref: BL 11643.bb.31(12).Rogerson, John Bolton (1809-59), of Manchester, poet, left school at 13, apprenticed clerk, cemetery registrar, amateur actor and president of the Manchester Shakespearean Society, member of the ‘Sun Inn’ group of writers, and ‘editor of short-lived magazines’ (Vicinus); editor of The Falcon, or, Journal of Literature (1831) and The Festive Wreath (1842), pub. Rhyme, Romance, and Revery, A Voice from the Town, And Other Poems, and The Wandering Angel and Other Poems (London, 1844); Musings in Many Moods (London, Manchester and Liverpool, 1859). Ref: ODNB, Harland, 229-31, 234-5, 240-1, 287-9, 291-2, 298-9, 314-15, 324-5, 427-9, Cross, 147-8, Maidment (1987), 155-6, 188-90, Vicinus (1973), 743, 746-78; Vicinus (1974), 160; Sutton, 809 (letters).? Rollo, John, keeper of a Spitalfields Victualling House, anonymous poet and prose-writer. Referred to by John Bancks (qv) in 1738. Ref: Christmas, pp 30-1, 101.Rolph, Richard (b. 1801), blind peasant, itinerant fiddler, shrimp-seller, later a religious poet, pub. A Poetical Discourse (third edn, Bury St Edmunds, 1843). Ref: The Life of Richard Rolfe, the blind peasant of Lakenheath (Bury St Edmunds, 1841); Cranbrook, 226; Copsey (2002), 305.Rorrison, David (d. c. 1778), of Paisley, weaver, tea and tobacco seller, author of ‘The Twa Bells’, pub. in periodicals. Ref: Brown, I, 284-90. [S]? Roscoe, William (1753-1831), poet, writer and abolitionist, Unitarian and Presbyterian, son of a market gardener and publican, left school at 12, became a lawyer, among many other achievements he was elected as an abolitionist MP, helped found Liverpool Botanic Garden, studied italian culture and translated Italian texts, edited Pope; pub. A long anti-slavery poem, The Wrongs of Africa (1787–8); Poems for Youth, by a Family Circle (1820); Poetical Works (1857); best known verse is the children’s poem The Butterfly's Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast (1807). Ref ODNB; Wikipedia.Ross, Angus (b. 1830), of Cromarty, pattern-maker in Inverness and Glasgow, lost used of one hand, worked as an iron-planer at Glasgow Locomotive Works, pub. ‘occasional natural and thoughtful little poems’ in the Glasgow press. Ref: Edwards, 1, 292. [S]Ross, James, handloom weaver of Forfar, pub. A Peep at Parnassus. A Poetical Vision (Forfar, 1821), Poems (1825), The Chaplet (nd). Ref: NCSTC, Edwards, 2, 352-4. (Johnson, item 781, has a Rotherham publication, Wild Warblings, 1817, probably another poet.) [S]Ross, John (b. 1801), of Campbelltown, ‘the oldest distiller in Campbelltown’. Ref: Edwards, 7, 297-9. [S] Ross, William Stewart (b. 20 March 1844), of Kirkbean, Galloway, rural labourer, educated at a parish school, dominie and writer and publisher of educational works, secularist. Pub. Poems Lays of Romance and Chivalry (1881) and Isaure and other Poems (1887); and religious works God and his Book (1887; new edn, 1906) and in Woman, her Glory and her Shame (2 vols., 1894; new edn, 1906). Ref: ODNB; Edwards, 3, 329-34; Harper, 242 (with a short bibliography). [S]? Rounsevell, John, of Alterton or St. Juliot, Cornwall, ?shepherd, went to South Australia in 1867, pub. The adventures of Joseph Golding, his courtship, and marriage with Flora Percival, the Duchess of Botcinni: a tale of love in fairy style, with other poems (Plymouth, 1864). Ref: Reilly (2000), 400.? Roxby, Robert (1767-1846), the fisher poet of Tyneside, ‘born at Needless Hall, by the failure of his trustee, had to turn to business, and his long life was spent as a [banker’s] clerk’, pub. The Lay of the Reedwater Minstrel (Newcastle, 1809—reprinted 1832), pub. ‘Coquet Side’ as a broadside, 1823, and other publications jointly authored with Thomas Doubleday (qv). Ref: memorial stone in St. Nicholas’ church, Newcastle upon Tyne; Allan, 160-2; Welford, III, 335-8; Johnson, item 782; Miles, X, vi.? Rudland, Mary (1854-71), of Sudbury, Suffolk, Sunday School teacher, died of TB, pub. Mary Rudland: her sketches in prose and verse, edited by her father (London, 1873). Ref: Reilly (2000), 400-1. [F]Rushforth, Benjamin (‘The Blind Poet of Bolton’, b. 1805), of Elland, Halifax, son of woollen card manufacturer, apprentice grocer in Bolton, soldier, sight damaged, workhouse inmate, made and sold oilcloth cart-covers, pub. Original verses, published for his benefit, with an introductory sketch of his life by F.H. Thicknesse (Little Bolton, 1861), Miscellaneous poems (Bolton, 1869). Ref: Reilly (2000), 401.Rushton, Edward (1756-1814), of Liverpool, partially-blind poet and radical, apprenticed sailer and slaver, became ardent abolitionist, tavern-keeper, bookseller, sight restored in an operation in 1807. ~ He was also co-founder of the first school for the blind in the country.?Born in John Street, Liverpool, Edward was the son of Thomas Rushton, a victualler. Apprenticed to a Liverpool shipping company by the age of eleven, Edward was promoted to second mate around five years later after demonstrating outstanding courage in guiding a vessel—which the captain and crew were prepared to abandon during a storm out in the Mersey Estuary—back to port. ~ While on a slaver bound for Dominica in 1773, Rushton grew so appalled by the sadistic treatment of the captives he remonstrated with the captain to the point of being charged with mutiny.?As the only member of the crew willing to tend to their suffering, Rushton contracted the highly contagious ophthalmia, which left him blind. ~ Rushton’s Aunt took him in shortly after his return—his father having now remarried a woman antagonised by Edward’s presence.?The injustices Rushton observed at sea led to the publication of his first book-length work, The Dismembered Empire (1782), a denunciation of British rulers and merchants in the framework of the American War of Independence.?Furthermore, in the same year as he published a poetry volume on the tragic neglect of Thomas Chatterton, his disgust at the slave trade was given further voice in The West Indian Eclogues (1787).?A decade later he wrote to his former hero George Washington, pointing up the hypocrisy of retaining slaves while fighting for freedom: ‘In the name of justice what can induce you thus to tarnish your own well-earned celebrity and to impair the fair features of American liberty with so foul and indelible a blot’.?A similar letter was dispatched to Thomas Paine, but neither he nor Washington tendered a reply.?Nonetheless, Rushton’s bold reputation prompted Thomas Clarkson to credit his contribution to the abolitionist cause upon visiting Liverpool. ~ After his marriage around 1784 to Isabella Rain, Rushton went on to become editor of the Liverpool Herald.?This career was soon cut short after he reproached brutal press-gang practice in several articles, and rebuffed his partner’s suggestion of a retraction. This episode in Rushton’s life inspired the poem Will Clewine (1806). ~ When he became a bookseller at 44 Paradise Street, Rushton’s outspoken political convictions deterred potential custom, but not to the extent of preventing him from living out his life in relative comfort, and giving his children a sound education.?In the late 1780s Rushton became a member of a literary and philosophical society – thought to have been the forerunner of William Roscoe and James Currie’s ill-fated radical Debating Society – where the idea of raising funds to offer care for local blind paupers came into effect.?The Liverpool School for the Indigent Blind opened in 1791.?Rushton published a collection of poems in 1806, and the following year an operation by the Manchester surgeon Benjamin Gibson restored his sight, enabling him to see his wife and children for the first time. ~ Rushton died of paralysis on 22 November 1814 at his home on Paradise Street, just a few years after the death of his wife and one of his daughters.?The eldest of his four children, also Edward, became a prominent social reformer in Liverpool’s political landscape, advocating Catholic emancipation and prison reform. Pub: The Dismembered Empire (1782); The West Indian Eclogues (1787); Will Clewline (1806); Poems (1806), Poems and other writings (London, 1824); The Collected Writings of Edward Rushton, ed. Paul Baines (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2014). In 2014 the 200th anniversary of Rushton’s death on was marked by a ‘City Wide Exhibition’ in Liverpool and a service of thanksgiving (BBC News online). See also John McReery and Thomas Rushton (qqv). ~ Ref: ODNB; Wikipedia; LC 3, 9-38; T. Clarkson, The History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament, (London, 1808), I, 292-414; Anon, Sketches of Obscure Poets London: Cochrane, 1803), 56-71 (online at Google Books); E. B. Dykes, The Negro in English Romantic Thought (Washington D.C: Associated Publishers, 1942); C. G. Martin, ‘Coleridge, Edward Rushton, and the Cancelled Note to the “Monody on the Death of Chatterton”’, Review of English Studies 17 (1966), 391-492; A. Richardson, A, ed., Verse, vol. IV of Slavery, Abolition and Emancipation: Writings in the British Romantic Period, eds Peter Kitson and Debbie Lee (London: Pickering & Chatto, 1999); P. Magnuson, ‘Coleridge’s Discursive “Monody on the Death of Chatterton”’, Romanticism on the Net (2000), 17; Tim Burke “‘Humanity is Now the Pop’lar Cry’: Labouring-Class Poets and the Liverpool Slave Trade, 1787-1789’, The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation 42, no. 3 (2001), 245-63; M. Royden, M, ‘Edward Rushton - life and times of an 18th Century Radical and the foundation of the Blind School in Liverpool’ (2001) ; B. Hunter, Forgotten Hero: The Life and Times of Edward Rushton (Liverpool: Living History Library, 2002); Franca Dellarosa, Talking Revolution: Edward Rushton’s Rebellious Poetics 1782-1814 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press: 2015); also Radcliffe; Harland, 339-41, 517-28; Ashraf (1975), 95-8; Ashraf (1978), I, 25, 36; Johnson, item 784; Goodridge (1999), item 100; Jarndyce, item 1474; Carpenter, 480; Basker, 342-9. [LC 3] [—Iain Rowley]Rushton, James, (b. 1848), of Rossendale then Blackburn, draper, pub. poems in newspapers. Ref: Hull, 325-8.Rushton, John, of Blackburn, ‘colleague’ of William Billington (qv; i.e. therefore a weaver), who apologises for his ‘poor’ and ‘untaught’ muse, later moved to Stockport. Ref: Hull, 132-4; , Thomas, peruke-maker, dealer in spirits, haridresser, father of Edward Rushton (qv), poet, pub. Party Dissected: or, Plain Truth: A Poem, by a Plain Dealer (London, 1770), a ‘pro-government satirical poem’. Ref Collected Writings of Edward Rushton, ed. P. Baines (Liverpool, 2014), 1.Rushton, William Charles (b. 1860), of Windhall, near Shipley, Yorkshre, factory worker from age of nine; aged 19 (when Walter J Kaye wrote his entry in Forshaw) he was a working woolsorter. His poetry ‘if convenient, lays aside all rules with greatest ease’; he also painted. Pub. Rosanus, and Other Poems, including Odes, Songs and Sonnets (1883). Ref Forshaw, 155-9 (includes a pined image of the author).Russell, Jessie (1850-1923), of Glasgow, orphaned, received some education including Latin and French, winning prizes for drawing and penmanship, worked as a cowherd then domestic servant, becoming a seamstress and dressmaker. She married a carpenter, James Russell, and they had three children; she emigrated to New Zealand, and is buried in Palmerston North. She pub. The Blinkin’ o’ the Fire and Other Poems (Glasgow, 1877). Ref: LC 6, 287-304; Edwards, 1, 15-16; Boos (1995); Leonard, 306-10; Reilly (2000), 402; Boos (2008), 320-27; inf. from Russell’s New Zealand descendants, especially Andrea Hanaray, and from Florence Boos. Link: wcwp [LC 6] [F] [S]Russell, Thomas (b. 1822), of Parkhead, Glasgow, coal-carter’s son and labouring man, pub. two volumes. Ref: Edwards, 1, 309-11; Murdoch, 192-4. [S]? Ryves, Elizabeth, pub. Poems on Several Occasions, and The Prude, a comic opera (London, 1777); [anon] Ode to the Rev. W. Mason (London, 1780); Dialogues in the Elysian Fields, between Caesar and Cato (London, 1785); Epistle in Verse to Lord John Cavendish (London, 1784; BL copy has handwritten corrections); [anon] The Hastiniad, an heroick poem (1785); [anon] Ode To Lord Melton (1787); The Hermit of Snowden (1789), also wrote several other works, including a novel and a comedy, ‘Debt of Honour’. ‘This most unfortunate authoress was of good family in Ireland, and born about 1760. She owned some property, but was cheated out of it by some legal shark, and had to turn to literature for a livelihood. She had much ability, but only earned a poor subsistence, and her extreme good-nature and generosity prevented her using her small means solely on herself. She died in destitution in Store Street, Tottenham Court Road, London, in April or May, 1797’ (O’Donoghue). Ref O’Donoghue, 412; inf. Dawn Whatman. [F] [I]Salisbury, George (1832-97), of Blackburn, factory worker, auctioneer, journalist, emigrated to US in 1874, editor then proprietor of the Fall River Advance. Ref: Hull, 159-65.Samuel, James (b. 1869), of Bathgate, tailor, pub. poems in the West Lothian Courier, Christian News and elsewhere. Ref: Bisset, 322-27. [S] Sancho, Ignatius (1729?-1780), African servant turned writer, born on a slave ship headed for the West Indies, brought by his owner to Greenwich, England; butler for the widowed duchess of Montagu and later her son, then a grocer; some poems included in his published letters, Letters of the Law Ignatius Sancho, an African (1782, two vols, by subscription). Ref: ODNB; Basker, 232-3; Sutton, 827 (letter).Sanderson, James (1788-1891), of Earlston, weaver. Ref: Crocket, 121-7. [S]Sanderson, Robert (b. 1836), of West Linton, Peeblesshire, land surveyor and weaver, took violin lessons from Alexander Thom, pub. Poems and songs (Edinburgh, 1865); Frae the Lyne Valley: Poems and Sketches (Paisley, 1888). Ref: Edwards 1, 67-9; Reilly (2000), 405. [S]Sangster, Charles (1822-1893), son of a shipwright and grandson of a Scottish army sergeant, born near Kingston, Canada, d. Montreal. His mother was left a widow with a large family of small children (Charles was the youngest), and he struggled after a basic education of ‘the first two Rs’, leaving school at 15, working at the Ordinance Office, and eventually finding a role as a newspaper writer and editor. The most acclaimed Canadian poet of his age, Sangster pub. The St Lawrence and the Sanguenay (1856); Hesperus and Other Poems and Lyrics (1860); Our Norland (1890). A nervous breakdown in 1875 and poor health in late life prevented him from publishing two planned later volumes (though much else was published, principally in newspapers); these later volumes finally published in the 1970s. Ref: Lighthall, 25, 254, 307, 461-2; Poem Hunter web page; Dictionary of Canadian Biography.Satchwell, Benjamin (1732-1810), of Leamington Priors’, Warwickshire, shoemaker; pub. The Rise and Fall of Troy, and Astronomical Characters and Their Use; both lost works; ODNB indicates that only two examples of his verse are known to have survived but does not identify where; online sources and leamington guidebooks note a monument to Satchwell raised by his daughter, and refer to ‘his rhyming efforts to eulogise both the waters [of Leamington Spa] and the visitors, as well as by his frequent notices of the same in the provincial newspapers of the period’ (New Guide to the Royal Leamington Spa, London, 1839, pp. 18-19, via Google books). Ref: ODNB; Poole, 161-5; various online sources; nothing on COPAC.Saunderson, F., ‘A Female Cottager’, was ‘one of the only named working-class women writers whose poetry appeared in the leading Chartist journal; pub. ‘Spring Reflections’, Northern Star, 19 May 1838, 7, which ‘is in fact a veiled political poem’ and ‘shares the Chartist unease with the 1834 Poor Law’ (Timney, 2014). Ref: Timney (2009); Timney (2014); wcwp. [F] [C]? Savage, Richard (1697/8-1743), of Holborn, murky childhood and upbringing, shoemaker, poet and playwright, friend of Samuel Johnson, notoriously claimed illegitimate aristocratic blood (see ODNB), died in poverty and debt; pub. Miscellaneous Poems and Translations (1726), A Poem sacred to the glorious memory of our late Sovereign Lord, King George, etc. (1727), The Bastard, a poem in five cantos (1728), The Wanderer (1729), Verses occasion’ed by the Viscountess Tyrconnel’s recovery at Bath (1730), The Volunteer Laureat. A poem (1732), On the departure of the Prince and Princess of Orange. A Poem (1734), The Progress of a Divine, a satire in verse (1735), Of Public Spirit in regard to Public works. An epistle in verse... (1737). Ref: ODNB; Radcliffe; Sutton, 827 (2 items refer to poems, one letter).? Sawyer, Anna (fl. 1794-1801) lived at Rowberrow, Somerset, and also may have lived in Bristol and Birmingham; background uncertain but suffered an unspecified, seemingly tragic misfortune associated with her husband (possible William Sawyer, formerly of Bristol), and described the poems in her volume as ‘the first productions of her unpracticed Muse’; pub. Poems on Various Subjects (Birmingham, 1801), with subscribers for 700 copies including Hannah More, Anna Seward, and the Society of Artisans, Birmingham. Ref: Lonsdale, 503-6; Backscheider & Ingrassia, 885. [F]? Sayer, W. F., pawnbroker, pub. Spare Moments (Hackney: George Pope, 1953) and The Pawnbroker’s Warehouse Boy. Ref: John Hart catalogue 17 (2006), no. 180.Scadlock, James (1775-1818), of Paisley, friend of Tannahill (qv), weaver, bookbinder, engraver; poems posthumously published. Ref: Brown, I, 96-101; Wilson, I, 527-8. [S]Scarlett, Robert (1820-1887), of Westleton, Suffolk, agricultural labourer, pub. Poems...dedicated by permission to Miss Sarah Row (Woodbridge, 1841). Ref: Copsey (2002), 314.? Scholes, John (?1808-63), of Rochdale, failed hat-manufacturer, later journalist, contributed to The Festive Wreath (1842). Referred to in Alexander Wilson’s ‘The Poet’s Corner’ as author of ‘A Touching Scene’ and ‘many poems’. Ref: Harland, 341-2, 404-8; Hollingworth (1977), 154.Scorgie, John (b. 1852), of Monymusk, Aberdeenshire, rabbit-trapper’s son, cattle-herder, stone-dresser, went to US but returned, pub. poems in newspaper and journals. Ref: Edwards, 5, 321-5. [S]Scott, Andrew (b. 1821), of Elliott Bridge, near Arbroath, herd laddie, weaver, merchant. Ref: Edwards, 5, 134-8. [S]? Scott, Andrew (1757-1839), of Bowden, Roxburghshire, poet and farm labourer, called ‘shepherd boy’, enlisted and served under Cornwallis in the American War of Independence, first collection pub. 1805; Poems Chiefly in Scots [the Scottish] Dialect (Kelso, 1811, Jedbergh, 1821, 3rd edn 1826); published two other collections in 1821 and 1826. Ref: ODNB; Shanks, 143-6; Douglas, 76-9, 294; Wilson, I, 344-8; Johnson, items 804-05; Sutton, 827 (letters). [S]Scott, David (b. 1864), of Cowdenfoot, near Dalkeith, second generation coal-miner. Ref: Edwards, 4, 57-9. [S]? Scott, James Kim (1839-83), of Hardgate, Urr, Kircudbrightshire, of limited education, tailor, musician, pub. Galloway Gleanings: Poems and Songs (Castle-Douglas and Edinburgh, 1881). Ref: Harper, 245; Reilly (1994), 425; Edwards, 4, 43-8 and 9, xxv. [S]? Scott, Mary, later Taylor (?1752-1793), of Milborne Port, Somerset, daughter of a linen-merchant; her husband [ODNB says it was son, not husband] went on to found the (Manchester) Guardian newspaper. Pub. The Female Advocate (1774, reprinted Los Angeles: Augustan Reprint Society, 1984); possibly the Mrs. Scott who published ‘Dunotter Castle’ and ‘Verses, on a Day of Prayer, for Success in War’ in Poems by the most Eminent Ladies (1780?); The Messiah, a verse epic (reviewed in the Monthly Review, 79, 1788, 277' [ODNB]). Ref: ODNB; Lonsdale (1989), 320-2, Fullard, 566-7. [F]Scott, Robert (b. 1730), of Fife, apprentice cabinet maker and joiner, pub. Life of Robert Scott, Journeyman Wright. In Verse, Written by Himself. With Observations Moral and Religious (Dundee, 1801). Ref Burnett et al (1984), 274 (no. 613). [S]Scown, George (fl. 1836-76), of Exeter, grocer, draper, hopster, journeyman painter, pub. Such is life!: or, the experiences of a West Country painter...containing many interesting events and incidents connected with his own history, in Exeter, London, Windsor, and Oxford, from 1836 to 1876 (Oxford, 1876). Ref: Reilly (2000), 409, Bodleian.Seath, William, of Kingskettle, Fife, weaver, pub. Poems, songs, and miscellaneous pieces, descriptive and humorous (Cupar-Fife, 1869), Rhymes and lyrics: humorous, serious, descriptive and satirical (St. Helens, 1897). Ref: Reilly (1994), 426; Reilly (2000), 409. [S]Sellars, David R. (b. 1854), ‘Smalltingle’, of Dundee, shoemaker, trade unionist, pub. poems in People’s Friend and elsewhere. Ref: Edwards, 6, 153-62. [S]Semple, Robert (b. 1841), of Paisley, pattern designer, author of ‘A Sober Saturday Night’. Ref: Brown, II, 360-64; Leonard, 332-3. [S]Senior, Joseph (1819-92) Sheffield cutler and blade-forger, pub. Smithy Rhymes and Stithy Chimes; or, ‘The Short and Simple Annals of the Poor, spelt by the unletter’d muse’, of your humble bard, Joseph Senior (Sheffield: Leader & Sons, 1882); Additional Poems to Smithy Rhymes and Stithy Chimes, which have been conceived during the author’s semi and total blindness (Sheffield: Leader & Sons, 1884), copies in Bodleian. Senior’s great-granddaughter Carole became a poet and an illustrator—her work was included in a recent anthology of verse translated into Icelandic. Ref: Reilly (1994), 427; England 41; inf. Bob Heyes, Yann Lovelock.Service, David (?1776-?1828), of Yarmouth, formerly a shoemaker at Beccles, ‘The Caledonian Herd Boy’, An Elegy on the death of Mr. Swanton, painter, in Greater Yarmouth (Yarmouth, 1802), The Caledonian Herd Boy (Yarmouth, 1802), The Wild Harp’s Murmurs (Yarmouth, 1800), St. Crispin, or the Apprentice Boy (Yarmouth, 1804), A Voyage and Travels in the Region of the Brain (Yarmouth, 1808), A tour in pursuit of ideas, a picturesque view of all the Yarmouth public houses, a poem (Yarmouth, 1822), A brief sketch of the different professions, trades, etc. in the parish of Gorleston with Southtown (Yarmouth, 1828). Ref: Winks, 313, 314; Johnson, item 809; Cranbrook, 253. [S]? Sewell, Robert, pub. An Essay in Rhyme, in two parts (Halsted: M. King, 1834), contains ‘To Burns’ and ‘To the memory of Bloomfield’, and a list of subscribers (Johnson, item 813). Ref: Johnson 46, no. 326. [S]Shand, Alexander (b. 1845), of Drumblade, Aberdeenshire, cattle tending aged nine, soldier, book canvasser, pub. Poems and songs, composed at home, Gibralter and Canada (Montreal, 1869), The white cockade: poems and songs composed at home and abroad, 3rd edlarged edn (Glasgow, 1873). Ref: Edwards, 1, 339-41; Reilly (2000), 413. [S]Shanks, George Fergusson Smellie (b. 1862), of Whitburn, later patternmaker of Glasgow, pub. poems in the West Lothian Courier, Weekly Mail and other newspapers, wrote the operettas ‘A Name at Last’ and ‘The Wizard of the North’. Ref: Bisset, 291-95. [S]Shanks, Henry (b. 1829, ‘The Blind Poet of the Deans’), farmer’s son, drysalter; eyesight failed c. 1862, pub. Poems (Airdrie, 1872), The Peasant Poets Of Scotland And Musing Under The Beeches (Edinburgh and Glasgow, 1881). Ref: Edwards, 11, 372-82; Bisset, 161-76; Reilly (2000), 413. [S]Sharp, James (fl. 1837-187?), of Paisley, silk mercer, shawl manufacture, pub. The Captive King and Other Poems (1887). Ref: Brown, II, 27-33. [S]Shaw, Cuthbert (1738-71), born at Ravensworth, near Richmond, Yorkshire, shoemaker’s son, school usher, unsuccessful actor. Pub. Liberty (1756, attacked in the Monthly Review, 14 [1756], 575-6); Odes on the Four Seasons (under pseudonym ‘W. Seymour, 1760, Bury St. Edmunds); the satirical poems The Four Farthing-Candles (1762), The Four Farthing-Candles (1762) and The Race (1765, under pseudonyms ‘Mercurius Spur’ and ‘Faustinus Scriblerus’); and his best-known poem, A Monody to the Memory of a Young Lady Who Died in Childbed (1768, 1769, and 1770; the last edition includes An Evening Address to a Nightingale, an elegiac poem on his three-year old daughter, whose birth killed his wife). Ref: LC 2, 235-50; ODNB; Newsam 72-4; Grainge I, 248-50; Cranbrook, 228; Sutton, 853. [LC 2]Shaw, James (b. 1826), pattern-designer, printer, schoolmaster at Tynron, Dumfriesshire; pub. A Country Schoolmaster (1899), full text via Google books; a kind of literary remains with a long biographical sketch, and selections from his poetry among his other writings. Ref: Murdoch, 212-14. [S]Shaw, John (fl. 1824-5), ploughboy, sailor, actor, pub. Woolton Green: a domestic tale, with other miscellaneous poems (Liverpool, 1825); Don Juan Canto XVII (Liverpool, 1824); Don Juan, Canto XVIII (Liverpool, 1825). Ref: LC 4, 215-34; Johnson, 816-18. [LC 4]? Shaw, Thomas, apiarist (beekeeper) of Saddleworth, pub. Recent Poems, on rural and other miscellaneous subjects (Huddersfield: printed for the author, 1824). Ref: Johnson, item 822; inf. Bob Heyes; Johnson 46, no. 328 (with illustration of title page).Shelley, William (1815-95), illegitimate birth in Marylebone, London, worked in pits, quarries and fields from age fourteen, herring fisherman and agricultural labourer in Scotland, became a policeman in Aberdeen, pub. Aston Brook; also, a poem entitled, Are any bodies found? relating to the ferry-boat disaster on the River Dee (Aberdeen, ?1863), Flowers by the wayside (Aberdeen and Edinburgh, 1868). Ref: Edwards, 1, 139-43; 9, 350 and 16, [lix], who gives a death date of 1885; Reilly (2000), 414.? Shepheard, James, author of An Hymn to the Holy and Undivided Trinity, written by James Shepheard during his Imprisonment in Newgate. Printed from the Copy which he wrote in a Book given to his Mother two hours before his execution (1718, Dobell 1644, BL 1851.c.19(29); Foxon S397; BL C.116.i.4(70); a dying speech (1718, BL 10350.g.12(16). Ref: Dobell, ESTC.Shepherd, William, of Larne, working-class writer, pub. Christian Warfare, An epic poem (1830) which runs to 1800 lines of heroic couplets; Temperance and Independence (1832). Ref Hewitt. [I]? Shield, John, of Newcastle upon Tyne, owner of a wholesale and grocery business, author of comic songs such as ‘Bob Cranky’s Adieu’, ‘Blackett’s Field’. Ref Colls, p. 37.Shiells [or Sheils or Shields], Robert (d. 1753), of Roxburghshire, of ‘humble origins’, had little education but an ‘acute understanding’ (Johnson, Lives of the Poets, cited in ODNB), journeyman printer, poet and editor. Contributed to Johnson's dictionary (1748). Pub. Marriage (1747); Beauty (‘printed in 1766 together with James Grainger’s The Sugar Cane and wrongly ascribed to that author’, ODNB); Musidorus (on the death of James Thomson, 1748). Ref: ODNB; Radcliffe. [S]Shorrock, James (b. 1841), of Craven, West Riding, dame school education, shepherd, stable-boy, sawpit worker, joiner and cabinet maker, temperance poet. Ref: Hull, 246-53.Short, Bernard (1803-42), pub. Rural and Juvenile Poems (1821), The Rude Rhymes (1824) and two later volumes in 1829 and 1840; first book had 330 subscribers and the second a whopping 1,152. He drowned while bathing. Ref. Hewitt; inf. Bridget Keegan. [I]? Shorter, Thomas (‘Thomas Brevoir’, 1823-99), errand boy, watch-case finisher, journalist, secretary of Society for Promoting Working Men’s Association and of the Working Men’s College, pub. Echoes from bygone days: or, love lyrics and character sonnets (London, 1889); Later autumn leaves: thoughts in verse, with sketches of character chiefly from our village and neighbourhood (London, 1896); Lyrics for heart and voice: a contribution to the hymnal of the future (London, 1883); Spring flowers and autumn leaves (London, 1893). Ref: Reilly (1994), 433.Sievwright, Colin (1819-95), of Brechin, Angus, son of handloom weaver, working 72-hour week for East Mill Co at age of eight (Reilly), pub. A Garland for the Ancient City: or, love songs for Brechin and its neighbourhood (with historical notes), 2nd edn (Brechin, 1899). Ref: Edwards, 1, 88-91; Reilly (1994), 434. [S]Sievwright, William (b. 1823), of Brechin, minimal education, began work at 11, became a mission worker, wrote articles on political and social issues, poems in newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 1, 187-9. [S]Sillar, David (fl. 1789), friend of Burns, pub. Poems (Kilmarnock, 1789). Ref: LC 3, 171-8; ODNB [a mention only, spelled as ‘Siller’, in the Janet Little entry]; Johnson, item 822. [LC 3] [S]Simpson, George Muir (b. 1844), of Edinburgh, bookbinder, pub. Shakespeare Rab, and other Poems (1882). Ref: Edwards, 8, 329-34. [S]Simson, James (b. 1858), of Huntly, Aberdeenshire, herd laddie, read books to the ‘untutored farm servants, who listened with the greatest attention, while the mistress of the house threatened to burn every book if he continued to read them’; later a reporter, wrote historical romances and ‘many poetical pieces’. Ref: Edwards, 4, 64-9. [S]Sinclair, Elizabeth M., of New Lanark, ‘a millworker poetess of Ettrick Braes’, educated in the school founded by Owen, and was able to read books in her father’s library. During her teens she assisted local women in housework, but though ‘qualified for a pupil teachership,’ ‘owing to one of the Government regulations’ she was unable to be employed as a teacher. She moved to Selkirk, where she was employed in a Tweed manufactory. Her verses include a poem on a dying soldier, and another on the pleasures of lovely weather. She seems an instance of someone who tried to leave factory work but was unable to do so. Ref: Edwards, 4, 84-8; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Sinclair, Walter (b. 1803), of Kirkcaldy, baker, sailor, farmer, emigrated to Australia in 1839. Ref: Edwards, 7, 306-8. [S]Singer, John (b. 1861), of Woodside, Aberdeen, spinner. Ref: Edwards, 12, 116-21. [S]Singleton, John (fl. 1752-77), according to Basker ‘a strolling player of whom few traces survive’; travelled to America, and wrote a long descriptive poem, General Dsecription of the West Indian Islands...Attempted in Blank Verse (Barbados 1767; 2nd edn, London, 1777), inspired by James Grainger’s The Sugar Cane (1764). Gilmore describes Singleton as a ‘member of an English troupe of actors touring the [Caribbean] region’. Ref: Basker, 166-9; John Gilmore, The Poeticc of Empire: A Study of James Grainger’s The Sugar Cane (1764) (London: The Athlone Press, 2000) 46.Skerrett, F.W., ‘our locomotive poet’; pub. Rhymes of the Rail (Leeds, 1920). Ref: inf. John Goodridge. [OP]Skimming, Robert (1812-82), of Paisley, weaver, pub. Lays of Leisure Hours (Paisley: J. Bowie, 1841), and another volume in 1851. Ref: Brown, I, 476-80; C. R. Johnson. cat. 49 (2006), item 50. [S]Skipsey, Joseph (1832-1903), ‘The Pitman Poet,’ of North Shields, mineworker of Percy Main Colliery. ~ He was born in Percy Main, Northumberland – the eighth child of Cuthbert and Isabella Skipsey. His father was killed by a special constable’s bullet while defending a pitman during an acrimonious strike the same year. This event left the family destitute, and at seven years old Joseph was sent to the colliery as a trapper boy. ~ Skipsey learnt how to read and tackle basic arithmetical questions during Sundays and holidays, mostly in his mother’s garret, and he taught himself how to write by candlelight with his finger in the dust or a piece of chalk on a trap-door linked to the ventilation of the mine, replicating the print on discarded playbills. During his youth, he earnestly endeavoured to learn the Bible ‘by heart’, and studied the works of major poets such as Shakespeare, Milton, and Burns, as well as reading Greek drama in translation, Goethe’s Faust, and Heine’s poetry. ~ Skipsey spent several years striving to find a route out of the mines. He experienced periods of employment on the expanding railway network in London – where he met his future wife Sara Ann Hendley; they married on December 12th 1868 – Scotland, and Sunderland’s Pembroke Pit, and finally to Northumberland’s Choppington Colliery.~ Skipsey printed a volume of lyrics in 1858, eith a dedicated to his feriend William reay (qv), which although no longer known to be extant, caught the attention of various prominent individuals in the North of England to such an extent a second edition was called for and prioduced in 1859. Indeed, James Clephan (qv), the editor of the Gateshead Observer found Skipsey the position of sub-store keeper at the Hawks, Crawshaw and Co. Iron Works in Gateshead, where he remained until 1863. His son William had been killed in an accident on a railway line in 1861. Robert Spence Watson commended him to be sub-librarian to the Literary and Philosophical Society in Newcastle, but this was not an altogether satisfactory stint due to the lower comparative salary and Skipsey’s insatiable appetite for reading. As Spence Watson writes, Skipsey ‘would become absorbed in some passage of a well-know author, and he would scarcely recognise the eager and impatient member who wished for his services forthwith’. Thus, Skipsey relocated to pits at Newsham, Cowpen, Ashington, and ultimately Backworth Colliery – throughout this time he managed to balance hewing coal with writing poetry, before finally leaving mining for good in 1882. ~ In 1883, it appears that Skipsey may have delivered a lecture on‘The Poet as Seer and Singer’ to the Literary and Philosophical Societ. There were several further books, including Carols from the Coalfields (1886). It is worthwhile noting that, as Maidment (2002) points out, ‘the 1830s and 1840s saw the extension of eighteenth century deferential modes of publication out from the aristocracy into the middle class entrepreneurs of artisan progress. Often this resulted in quite close personal relationships between obscure authors and their famous sponsors’. In Skipsey’s case, he became the obscure author to Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s famous supporter if not quite a sponsor. Rossetti was introduced to Skipsey by Thomas Dixon (1831-80), the Sunderland cork-cutter to whom Ruskin wrote the letters published as Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne (1867), an important working-class figure in his own right who represented Ruskin’s ideal of a cultured working man. The artist expressed considerable enthusiasm for Skipsey as a man, meeting him in London, and finding him to be ‘a stalwart son of toil, and every inch a gentlemen’. Rossetti’s enthusiasm was not restricted to admiration of his person and upon reading his A Book of Miscellaneous Lyrics (1878) remarked that Skipsey ‘recited some beautiful things of his own with a special freshness to which one is quite unaccustomed’. Rossetti (1878) deemed the poem ‘Get Up’ as ‘equal to anything in the language for direct and quiet pathetic force’. Like much of his work the poem arises from direct observation of the miner’s everyday life: ‘“Get up!” the caller calls, “Get up!” / And in the dead of night, / To win the bairns their bite and sup, / I rise a weary wight. / My flannel dudden donn’d, thrice o’er / My birds are kiss’d, and then / I with a whistle shut the door / I may not ope again.’ ~ With regard to other opinions of Skipsey’s poetry, Oscar Wilde in the Pall Mall Gazette (Feb 1, 1887) highlighted ‘an intellectual as well as metrical affinity with Blake’ adding that he ‘possesses something of Blake’s marvellous power of making simple things seem strange to us, and strange things seem simple’. Wilde also stressed that Skipsey ‘never makes his form formal by over-polishing’ and concluded that he ‘can find music for every mood, whether he is dealing with the real experiences of the pitman, or with the imaginative experiences of the poet’. Many decades later, Basil Bunting (1976, 13, cited Bigliazzi 2006, 65) lays more stress on the ‘faults of technique, of vocabulary, and of syntax… added to the difficulty of reading a dialect written in the spelling of the capital’, but nevertheless also affirms that the poetry sometimes has the ‘power to please and move’ to the extent Rossetti describes. ~ Skipsey was conferred with a civil list pension in 1880 in recognition of his literary output, which also included putting together popular editions of Shelley, Blake, Coleridge, Poe, and Burns for Walter Scott’s Canterbury Poets series. Many members of the literary establishment, such as Tennyson and Bram Stoker, lobbied to have Skipsey appointed as curator of the Shakespeare Birthplace Museum in Stratford. However, the fraudulent relics he was duty-bound to present became in his own words ‘a stench in his nostrils’. He and his wife left the position after two years in 1891 and returned to the north-east. (This episode formed the basis for Henry James’s short story ‘The Birthplace’) ~ Skipsey died at Gateshead on 3 September 1903, and was buried in the cemetery there. ~ Pub: Lyrics (first edn. Durham: George Procter, 1858; second edn., Newcastle upon Tyne: Thomas Pigg & Co., 1859); Poems, Songs and Ballads (London and Newcastle upon Tyne: Hamilton & Co., 1862); The Collier Lad, and Other Lyrics (Newcastle upon Tyne: J. G. Forster, 1864); Poems (Blyth: William Alder, 1871), A Book of Miscellaneous Lyrics (Bedlington: George Richardson, 1878); A Book of Lyrics, Songs, Ballads, and Chants (London: David Bogue, 1881); Carols from the Coalfields, and other songs and ballads (London: Walter Scott, 1886, new edn. 1888); Songs and Lyrics, Collected Revised (London: Walter Scott, 1892); Selected Poems, ed. Basil Bunting (Sunderland: Ceolfrith Press, 1976); Selected Poems, ed R. K. R. Thornton, Chris Harrison and William Daniel McCumiskey (Newcastle upon Tyne: Rectory Press, 2013). Skipsey’s great-great-grandson and co-editor Chris Harrison has released a CD of his settings of Skipsey’s poems, Carols from the Coalfields (GMFA, 2014). ~ Ref: LC 6, 211-40; ODNB; Robert Spence Watson, Joseph Skipsey, His Life and Work (1909); NCBEL III, 648; Maidment (1983), 79; Maidment (1987), 93-4, 204-5; Klaus (1985), 75-6; Vicinus (1974), 141, 143, 155-8, 167, 169-71, 197-8; Miles, V, 515; Ricks, 526; Reilly (1994), 436; Reilly (2000), 421-2; Bradshaw, 583-6; S. Bigliazzi, Collaboration in the Arts from the Middle Ages to the Present (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006); Bridget Keegan and John Goodridge, ‘Modes and Methods in Three Nineteenth-Century Mineworker Poets’, Philological Quarterly, 92: 2 (2013), 225-50. [LC 6] [—Iain Rowley]? Skirving, Adam (bap. 1719, d. 1803), ‘Johnnie Cope’, of Garleton, Haddingtonshire farmer, older contemporary of Burns, wrote two much-anthologised Jacobite songs: 'Tranent Muir' and 'Johnny Cope' (latter published in Burns and Johnson's Scots Musical Museum [vol. 3, 1790]). Ref: ODNB; Shanks, 115; Edwards, 12, 276. [S]Skirving, Peter (1829-69), of Edinburgh, a descendant of Adam Skirving (qv), draper and outfitter, emigrated to Australia. Ref: Edwards, 12, 276-80. [S]Sleigh, John, tailor of Linlithgow, ascribed author of a poem on Carriber or Rab Gib’s Glen pub. in the West Lothian Courier, and contributor of poems to the Dundee Weekly news. Ref: Bisset, 351-2. [S]Sloan, Edward L., of Conlig, weaver bard and freemason. The Bard’s Offering: A Collection of Miscellaneous Poems (1854). Ref. Hewitt. [I]? Smart, Alexander (1798-1866), shoemaker’s son, of Montrose, Angus, apprentice watchmaker, became compositor in Edinburgh, wrote prose sketches and verse, pub. Songs of Labour and Domestic Life; with, Rhymes for Little Readers (Edinburgh and London, 1860), contributor to ‘Whistlebinkie’. Ref: Edwards, 11, 72-83; Reilly (2000), 423. [S]Smart, Thomas Raynor (c. 1772-1847), Chartist poet, born near Loughborough of working class parents. When Smart’s father died, his mother could not afford to keep him on at school, so he became a carpenter. Having learnt to read, he then managed to teach himself Latin, French, Italian and Spanish. He also demonstrated a talent for verse and contributed to several periodicals. These gifts and attainments brought him to the notice of the Marquis of Hastings who found him an appointment as a supervisor of excise which lasted for 17 years. However, he lost his job as a result of his radicalism and thereafter eked out a precarious living as a schoolmaster and by making machinery and architectural drawings. For a time he lived in Loughborough where he was the Chartist leader Skevington’s chief assistant. He then moved to Leicester, where he became a supporter of Thomas Cooper. One poem of his was published in the local Chartist press. Ref: Newitt, 46-51. [C] [—Ned Newitt]Smith, Alexander (1829-67), son of a Kilmarnock lace-pattern designer, lived in Paisley and Glasgow. Pub. Life Drama (1853); City Poems (Cambridge, 1857; includes biographical ‘A Boy's Poem’), Edwin of Deira (CambrIdge, 1861, 1862), Poems (New York, 1879), Poetical Works, ed. by W. Sinclair (Edinburgh, 1909). Ref: DNB/ODNB; Glasgow Poets, 369-76; Brown, II, 264-69; Wilson, II, 467-76; M.A. Weinstein, W.E. Aytoun and the Spasmodic Controversy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968); N&Q, 8th ser XII (1897), 7, 57, 118, 174 & 311; Douglas, 313-14; Leonard, 207-14, Miles, V, 421, Reilly (2000), 424; Murdoch, 227-32; Sutton, 877-8. [S]? Smith, Alexander, of Zetland Cottage, Falkirk, Stirlingshire, pub. Agriculture: A Poem in Sixteen Sooks (Edinburgh, 1861). Ref: Reilly (2000), 423. [S]Smith, David Mitchell (b. 1848), of Bullionfield, Dundee, farm labourer’s son, railway clerk, dyer, pub. in newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 2, 211-14 [S]Smith, Ebenezer (b. 1835), of High Street, Ayr, third-generation shoemaker, pub. Verses (Glasgow, 1874); The Season’s Musings (Ayr, 1888). Ref: Edwards, 3, 98-102; Reilly (1994), 440; Reilly (2000), 424; Murdoch, 288-90. [S]Smith, Elizabeth (Lizzie) Horne (b. 1876), of Hagghill, Barony Parish, Glasgow, the youngest of six children of a ploughman who was often forced to change farms, so received no steady education, though she attended schools in Dumbarton, Hamilton, and Uddingston; left school and at fifteen began work as a dairymaid; pub. Poems of a Dairymaid (Paisley, Edinburgh and London, 1898). Poems show the influence of Burns, and are varied and skilful for the work of a twenty-one year old author. Ref: Reilly (1994), 440; Boos (2008), 157-71, includes photograph; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Smith, James, shoemaker, of Aberdeen; pub. Hame-spun Rhymes (Aberdeen, 1879), copy in Bodleian. Ref: Reilly (2000), 425. [S]Smith, James (1813-1885), ‘Vinney’, of Forfar, handloom weaver, teacher, pub. in the Dundee papers. Ref: Edwards, 1, 191-3 and 9, xxi. [S]Smith, James (1824-87), of Edinburgh, son of a coach-lace weaver, printer, compositor, reader, librarian of the Mechanics’ Library, well-known Scottish poet and story-writer, pub. Poems and songs (Edinburgh, 1864), The merry bridal o’ Forthmains, and other poems and songs (Edinburgh, 1866, 2nd edn also 1866), Poems, songs and ballads (Edinburgh, 1869). Ref: Edwards, 1, 260-7 and 12, xvii-xviii; Reilly (2000), 425-6; Murdoch, 44-52. [S]Smith, John, of Sheffield, ‘engaged in some of the Sheffield handicrafts’, published in 1821 ‘a little volume of comic songs’ like Mather’s. Ref Newsam, 97-8; inf. Yann Lovelock.Smith, John (b. 1836), of Springbank, Alyth, herder, wholesale draper. Ref: Edwards, 13, 198-205. [S]Smith, John G., stonemason of Ednam, Roxburghshire, left the district under church pressure because of his satirical poetry; pub. The Old Churchyard; The Twa Mice, and Miscellaneous Poems and Songs (Kelso, 1862). Ref: Reilly (2000), 426. [S]Smith, John Kelday (d. 1889), of Newcastle upon Tyne (born Orkney), bellhanger, local songwriter. Ref: Allan, 491. [S]Smith, John S. (b. 1849), of Creetown and later Dalbeattie, granite hewer, President of the Dalbeattie Literary Society, published in the local papers. Ref: Harper, 251. [S]Smith, Margaret (‘Daisy’), of St Andrews, Orkney, farmer’s daughter, pub. in magazines as ‘Daisy’; poems include ‘Heroism,’ ‘Small Evils,’ ‘Lost to Sight, to Memory Dear,’ and ‘No Work’. She helped maintain the family farm, and wrote some good poems on the poor and those who help them, and temperance poems. This may be the same person as Mrs. M. A. Smith, who published two volumes, Poems and Songs (Wishaw: David Johnson, 1873) and Poems and Songs (Lanark, 1877). Ref: Edwards, 13, 33-8; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]? Smith, Mary S. (1822-89), often used pseud. ‘Mary Osborn’ (the surname of an employer’s family, for whom she worked as a ‘mother's help’ [ODNB]) or simply ‘Z’, of Cropredy, Oxfordshire, shoemaker’s daughter, became schoolmistress in Carlisle, religious and political activist. Contributed early poems to Whitridge’s Miscellany, the People's Journal, Cassell’s Magazine, the Carlisle Examiner, and the Carlisle Journal. Pub. Poems, By M.S. (1860); Progress, and Other Poems, the later including poems on the social affections and poems on life and behaviour, by M.S. (London and Carlisle, 1873); The Autobiography of Mary Smith, Schoolmistress and Nonconformist. A Fragment of a Life. With Letters from Jane Welsh Carlyle and Thomas Carlyle (1892); Miscellaneous Poems (1892), also wrote about castles; Bodleian. Ref: ODNB; Vincent, 208; Burnett et al (1984), 287 (no. 638); Reilly (1994), 442; Boos (2008), 298-320. Link: wcwp. [F]Smith, Robert Archibald (1780-1829), of Reading, weaver, soldier, music teacher and choir conductor, friend of Tannahill (qv), pub. Anthems (1819), The Scottish Minstrel, 6 vols (1821-4, contains more than 600 poems including his most famous, 'Jessie, the Flow'r o' Dunblane'), The Irish Minstrel, 2 vols (1825), An Introduction to Singing (1826), Select Melodies (1827). Ref: ODNB; Brown, I, 150-57. [S]? Smith, Thomas (d. 1877), of Paisley, letter-press printer, poems in Brown. Ref: Brown, II, 187-88. [S]Smith, William, the Haddington Cobbler, A Collection of Original Poems (Edinburgh, 1821), Verses composed on the disgraceful traffic at present carried on of selling the newly dead (1829). The Haddington Cobbler Defended; or, The doctors dissected. By an East Linton Gravedigger. Being a reply to the poems published by the Resurrectionist men (1829); The Haddington Cobbler Dissected ... in answer to his objections against dissecting the dead. (It is not clear whether British Heroism, 1815, Johnson, item 846, is by the same William Smith. Ref: LC 4, 187-214. [S] [LC 4]Smith, William Brown (1850-87), of Saltcoats, self-taught stationer and teacher, poet, evangelist, an invalid who died young, pub. Life Scenes, and Other Poems (1883). Smith was also a painter, trained a choir connected with the YMCA and at the time of his death was leader of praise in the Free Church, Saltcoats. Ref: Edwards, 11, 92-99; obituary in an unidentified press cutting, July 15th 1887. [S]Snaddon, Alexander (b. 1842), of Collyland, Clackmannanshire, weaver, letter-carrier, pub. poems in Alloa Journal. Ref: Edwards, 8, 115-20. [S]Snell, Henry James, working man of the stained glass works, Cumberland Market, London, pub. Love lies bleeding (London, ?1870), Poems: containing, The three twilights...The shipwreck, and minor poems (London, 1871). Ref: Reilly (2000), 429.? Somerville, George Watson (b. 1847), of Edinburgh, stationer, printer, lived in Manchester, survived major illness, lived in Glasgow, Sunderland, Newcastle, settled in Carlisle. Ref: Edwards, 4, 170-4. [S]? Somerville, Robert (b. 1831), of Halmyre, Peebleshire, Edinburgh grocer, bookseller, member of Edinburgh Council and Justice of the Peace. Ref: Edwards, 4, 163-4. [S] Soutar, Alexander M. (b. 1846), of Muirdrum, Panbride, Forfarshire, farmworker, joiner, soldier, pub. Hearth Rhymes, with an introductory preface by Revd. William Rose (Dundee: A. A. Paul, 1880). ‘Mr Soutar is a Tradesman, and his time for cultivating the Muse has, therefore, been limited’. Ref: Edwards, 1, 101-04; Reilly (1994), 445; Charles Hart Catalogue 51, item 252. [S]Soutar, Elizabeth (b. 1768), ‘The Blind Poetess’ of Dundee, born at Coupar Angus, daughter of a shoemaker, received some education. She lived in Dundee from age 13, and in 1835 published in Dundee a fifty-page book of poems and a memoir; rejected charity and maintained herself from sale of rhymes; wrote simple hymns. Ref: Reid, Bards, 437-8; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Southcott, Joanna (1750-1814), farmer’s daughter of Taleford, Devon, domestic servant in Exeter, self-described religious prophetess. From 1792 she began dictating prophecies in rhyme, producing sixty books of such prophecies in her lifetime. Her followers in the Panacea Society (established 1920, a charitable trust since 2012), continue to fund research. Ref ODNB, inf Dawn Whatman. [F]Spalding, Colin (b. 1826), of Rattray, Perthshire, cook, valet, hotelier. Ref: Edwards, 12, 94-8. [S]Spence, Charles (1779-1869), of Kinfauns, Perthshire, mason, pub. From the braes of the Carse: poems and songs, ed. by James M. Strachan (Perth, 1898). Ref: Reilly (2000), 431-2, Bodleian. [S]Spence, Peter (1806-83), of Brechin, Forfarshire, son of a handloom weaver, failed grocer, successful practical chemist and inventer, lived in Perth, Carlisle and Manchester, pub. Poems (written in early life) (London, 1888). Ref: ODNB; Edwards, 13, 136-46; Reilly (1994), 446. [S]Spence, Thomas (1750-1814), radical writer and bookseller, born in Newcastle upon Tyne, one of nineteen children of a net-maker and hardware supplier, became a schoolmaster, later a land plan advocate and London radical. ~ Spence was a radical who described himself as ‘the unfee’d Advocate of the disinherited seed of Adam’.?He was born on the Quayside, one of the more impoverished areas of Newcastle.?One of nineteen children, Thomas was denied a formal education and required to work at the age of ten. However, his father Jeremiah, a net-maker, encouraged him to read and critique the chapters of the Bible, and with the aid of Revd James Murray—a radical Presbyterian to whose breakaway congregation Thomas belonged—he was able to advance from being a clerk to becoming a schoolmaster by 1775. ~ Undoubtedly influenced by the Glassite congregation’s belief that in order to realise the millennial society in which all land is held in common, ‘men must act in concert’ (Political Works, viii), Spence published The Grand Repository of the English Language (1775), positing the virtue of a new phonetic alphabet for extending literacy in the ‘laborious part of the people’.?Despite the work being met with a frosty reception upon publication, Spence persisted in propagating his phonetic alphabet throughout his life, and contemporary philologists consider his efforts decidedly significant. ~ Spence became a founder member of the Newcastle Philosophical Society in 1775, which included Thomas Bewick as well as James Murray.?The catalyst for him delivering a lecture on The Real Rights of Man was a campaign he and Murray fought to preserve the Newcastle freemen’s customary rights by thwarting the corporation’s enclosure of the Town Moor.?The reading represented the principle public occasion on which Spence detailed his land plan; it proposed that the parish should manage all land—the true source of political power—within its own boundaries, for the benefit of every inhabitant.?Spence was expelled from the society when he published it without permission and hawked it about the streets of Newcastle, yet this did not prevent the land plan from remaining the backbone of his later radical political discourses.?While in Newcastle, Spence produced his first recorded poem, ‘The Jubilee Hymn’, around 1782, and also began his coin-stamping venture, countermarking slogans to publicise his material. ~ Following the death of Murray; his publisher, Thomas Saint; and his discharge from St Ann’s School in Sandgate, Spence and his son moved to London, where by 1792 he surfaced as a radical bookseller and author.?His vision of a welfare state was developed over many pamphlets, including The End of Oppression (1795), Description of Spensonia (1795), Rights of Infants (1797), and The Restorer of Society to its Natural State (1801). ~ Spence produced a periodical between 1793 and 1795 entitled, One Penny Worth of Pig’s Meat: Lessons for the Swinish Multitude.?The journal signals a rejoinder to Burke’s bewailing of the post-revolution prospects of education in Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)—where ‘learning will be cast into the mire, and trodden down under the hooves of a swinish multitude’—and reproduced selections from such writers as John Locke, Joseph Priestley and William Godwin.?His own writings were not without irony or humour, and possessed a style tailored to convert poor men.?Tim Burke (LC3, 268) notes that Spence’s ‘ballads of rural hardship pave the way for those of Wordsworth and Coleridge later in the decade, and his lyric works at times demonstrate something of the radical simplicity of Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience (1789-94) of the same period’.?Anne Janowitz (1998, 79) suggests that song lyric and poetry make themselves heard in Spence’s prose polemics, ‘either as a coda, or a representational example, or as a performative exhortation’.?Janowitz (72) views Spence as embodying an alternative trajectory of British Romanticism, articulating a ‘poetic activism which valued a collective voice, made a claim for cultural tradition, and directed poetry into the centre of political life’. ~ With the French Revolution instilling anxiety in the British authorities, repressive measures were called upon Spence’s propagandising: he was arrested on 20 May 1794 on suspicion of treasonable practices, and owing to the suspension of Habeas Corpus, held at Newgate Prison for seven months without trial.?In 1798, Spence defended himself with great impudence against accusations of seditious practices and disaffection, and had to suffer a year in Shrewsbury Gaol.?Spence was not easily silenced; on his release he published The Important Trial of Thomas Spence (1803) - first in his reformed spelling, later (1807) in conventional spelling.?He died of a bowel complaint in Castle Street, London on 1 September 1814, but not before introducing two issues of a new periodical, The Giant Killer, or, Anti-Landlord, and attracting a band of disciples, who convened as a Free and Easy Club in local taverns to explore his ideas and sing his songs.?Following his death, these Spencean Philanthropists perpetuated his convictions and engaged in such revolutionary activity as the Spa Field riots of 1816 and the Cato Street conspiracy of 1820.?Furthermore, advocates of Spence’s land plan were active in the 1830s in both the National Union of the Working Classes and the Chartist movement. Published numerous unsuccessful theories on adult education and social justice, including The Grand Repository of the English Language (1775, Newcastle: T. Saint); A Supplement to the History of Robinson Crusoe (1782, Newcastle: T. Saint); The Real Reading Made Easy (1782, Newcastle: T. Saint); The Case of Thomas Spence, Bookseller (1792, London); The Rights of Man?(1793, London); One Pennyworth of Pigs' Meat or Lessons for the Swinish Multitude, (2nd ed. Vols I, II, III, 1793-5; London); The Meridian Sun of Liberty (1795, London); The Coin Collector's Companion (1795, London); The End of Oppression (1795, London); The Reign of Felicity (1796, London); The Rights of Infants (1797, London); The Constitution of a Perfect Commonwealth (1798, London); The Restorer of Society to its Natural State (1801, London); The Important Trial of Thomas Spence (2nd edn, 1807, London); The Giant Killer, or Anti-Landlord nos. 1, 2 (1814, London). Pigs’ Meat: the Selected Writings of Thomas Spence, Radical and Pioneer Land Reformer (ed. Gallop, G.I, 1982); The Political Works of Thomas Spence (ed. Dickinson, H.T, 1982). Ref: ODNB; LC 3, 267-74; Allen Davenport, The Life, Writing, and Principles of Thomas Spence (London, 1836); E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (London: Gollancz, 1963); M Scrivener (ed) Poetry and Reform: Periodical Verse from the English Democratic Press 1792-1824 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1982); P. M. Ashraf, The Life and Times of Thomas Spence (Newcastle: Frank Graham, 1983); Olivia Smith, The Politics of Language 1791-1819 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984); Malcolm Chase, ‘The People’s Farm’: English Radical Agrarianism, 1775-1840 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988); Iain McCalman, Radical Underworld: Prophets, Revolutionaries and Pornographers in London, 1795-1840?(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); J. C. Beal, ‘Thomas Spence’ in The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics eds. R.E. Asher & J. M. Y. Simpson (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1994), 4319; J. C. Beal, English Pronunciation in the Eighteenth Century: Thomas Spence’s 'Grand Repository of the English Language’ (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994); Marcus Wood, Radical Satire and Print Culture, 1790-1822 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994); Janowitz; Worrall. [LC 3] [—Iain Rowley]Spencer, Richard (b. 1831), of Holbeck, Leeds, apprenticed to a brushmaking firm, pub. Field flowers: poems (Batley and Leeds, 1891). Ref: Reilly (1994), 446; England. 37, 57, 60.Stagg, John (1770-1823), known as ‘The Blind Bard’, Cumberland poet of peasant life, lost sight in youth, Miscellaneous Poems (1790), Miscellaneous Poems, some of which are in the Cumberland and Scottish dialects (1804, 1805, 1807, 1808), The Minstrel of the North; or, Cumbrian legends (Manchester, 1816), The Cumbrian Minstrel: being a poetical miscellany of legendary, Gothic, and romantic tales … together with several essays in the northern dialect, also a number of original pieces?(3 vols., Manchester, 1821), 2 vols; Legendary, gothic and romantic tales, in verse, and other original poems, and translations. By a northern minstrel (Shrewsbury, 1825). Ref: ODNB; Sparke, Cumb., 133-4; inf. Michael Baron; Johnson, items 850-7; Johnson 46, no. 332.? Standing, James (1848-78), of Cliviger, near Burnley, bobbin maker from before the age of eight, later teacher, auctioneer and other jobs, learned French and German, pub. Lancashire and Yorkshire Comic, Historic and Poetic Almanack (1873-7), Ref: Abraham Stansfield, ‘Folk Speech of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Border’, Essays and Sketches, being a few selections from the prose writings of twenty years (Manchester: Printed for the Author by the Manchester Scholastic Trading Co., 1897); Hollingworth (1977), 154-5.Stanley, Benjamin (fl. 1864), ?cotton spinner, of ?Oldham, pub. Miscellaneous Poems, Written After Work Hours (Oldham: Hirst & Rennie, 1864), gathering together at the request of his friends many poems first published in newspapers. Preface states that from ‘the dawn of his earliest youth his work hours’ were ‘spent at the loom’. Ref: Pickering & Chatto, list 227, inf. Bob Heyes.Stark, William (b. 1857), of Anderson, Glasgow, postal worker, pub. poems in newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 9, 232-8. [S]Steel or Steele, Andrew (1811-82), of Coldstream, Berwickshire, shoemaker, pub. Poetical works, 2nd edn (Edinburgh, 1863), Poetical productions, 3rd edn (Edinburgh, 1864, 4th edn 1865), Select productions, 5th edn (Edinburgh, 1867), Poetical works (Edinburgh, 1871). Ref: Edwards, 3, 76-80 and 9, xx; Crockett, 158-62; Reilly (2000), 436. [S]? Steel, Mrs, author of Pathetic and Religious Poems (London, 1839) seems a genuinely humble poet; possibly not Scottish. Ref: inf. Florence Boos. [F] ?[S]Steel, William, letter carrier, later a concert singer, pub. Scotland’s Natural Songster: Songs and Addresses, Written and Sung by William Steel (Invercargill, 1865). Ref: Reilly (2000), 436. [S]Stephens, Charles Taylor (b. 1863), of Liverpool, shoemaker by trade, became rural postman in Cornwall, living in St Ives, pub. The chief of Barat-Anac, and other poems, songs, &c. (St Ives and Penzance, 1862), 36 pp, Morrab Library, Penzance; preface states ‘These poems were not written with any intention to publish them, nor would they appear in print if the writer were able to earn a living at his trade’. Ref: Reilly (2000), 437; inf. Kaye Kossick. [LC6]? Stephenson, William (b. 1763), of Newcastle upon Tyne, watchmaker disabled by an accident, schoolmaster, pub. a volume of poems in 1832. Ref: Allan, 119-21; ‘Tyneside Bards’ website .? Stevens, George Alexander (1710-84), of Holborn, London, son of a tradesman who tried to apprentice him in a trade, but he ran away to become strolling player (according to ODNB, a rather bad actor); lecturer, playwright; pub. Religion, or, The Libertine Repentant: a Rhapsody (Bath, 1751); The Poet's Fall (Dublin, 1752); A Week's Adventures (Dublin, 1752); Distress upon Distress, (Dublin, 1752); The Tombs, a Rhapsody (Dublin, 1752); New Comic Songs (1753); The Birth-Day of Folly (1754); Collection of New Comic Songs (1759); Songs, Comic and Satyrical (1772, contains 134 songs). Ref: ODNB.? Stevenson, Edith (‘Edith’), of Edinburgh, pub. The Yetts o’ Muckart: or, the famous pic-nic and the brilliant barn-ball, in hairst, auchteen-hunder an’ seventy-one (Edinburgh, 1872). Ref: Reilly (2000), 438. [F] [S]Stevenson, Jane, mason’s wife whose husband died at 34, leaving her with five children, pub. Verses (Banff, 1866). Poems include ‘Arndilly,’ ‘The Banks of the Dee,’ and ‘My Own Life’. Ref: Boos (1998); Reilly (2000), 438; Boos (2008), 146-56; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Stevenson, Jane (fl. 1870), ‘The Rustic Maiden’; cattle herder, anonymously self-published her Homely Musings by a Rustic Maiden (Kilmarnock: Printed for the Author, 1870; online via Google Books and ). The first page of her book’s preface recounts that Stevenson herded cows as girl, and memorized and imitated old popular songs. (The preface breaks off abruptly, and perhaps the second page is missing.) She was derided by her family for writing, however, and thenceforth she wrote in secret; pub. Homely Musings, by a Rustic Maiden (Kilmarnock: printed for the author, 1870). Poems include ‘Written on the Death of My Father and The Prospect of Then Leaving My Birthplace’, ‘Garnock Water’, ‘The Emigrant Youth.--Song,’ Home’, ‘Companions of My Youthful Years’, ‘Song’, ‘The Wandering Dog’, ‘The Bible’, ‘Critics, or the World’s Two Great Extremes’, ‘Song of the Engineers’, ‘Song of the Ploughmen’, ‘Song. The Homes of My Fathers’, accompanied by a prose account of her visit to where her parents’ families had lived, ‘Donald M’Donald, or My Sweet Highland Home,’ ‘The Prophetess, or Seer of Visions,’ ‘Song of the Trees,’ ‘Husband and Wife,’ ‘The Fairy Dale.’ She seems to have been impressed with the dreaming or prophetic state, for several poems describe fairies or prophecies. Ref: Boos (2008), 146-56; Burmester item 491 and p. 138; further notes by Florence Boos. Link: wcwp [F] [S]Stevenson, John, of Paisley, weaver, appeared in miscellanies. Ref: Brown, I, 212-14. [S]Stewart, Alexander (b. 1841), of Galston, Ayrshire, weaver, book-deliverer, city mission worker, pub. Bygone memories, and other poems, with an Introductory Preface by Alexander Macleod (Edinburgh, 1888). Ref: Edwards, 10, 120-9; Reilly (1994), 453. [S]Stewart, Allan (1812-37), of Paisley, drawboy and weaver, pub. posthumous volume, Poetic Remains of the Late Allan Stewart (Paisley, 1838). Ref: Brown, II, 20-23; Jarndyce, item 1489. [S]Stewart, Andrew (b. 1842), of Gallowgate, Glasgow, machine operator, journalist and poet. Ref: British Workman, c. 1893; Edwards, 15, 97-103. [S]Stewart, Charles (b. 1813), of Bailleston, Glasgow, weaver, went to Canada in 1856, later librarian of Galt Mechanics’ Institute, pub. The Harp of Strathnaver: A Lay of the Scottish Highland Evictions, and other poems (Galt, Ontario, c. 1885). Ref: Edwards, 8, 305-11 and 11, 287-92. [S]Stewart, James (1801-43), shoemaker of Perth, wrote verse ‘Sketches of Scottish Character’. Ref: Edwards, 1, 211-14; Douglas, 308; . [S]Stewart, James (b. 1841), of Johnstone, Dumfriesshire, farm worker, railwayman. Ref: Edwards, 6, 252-8. [S]Stewart, John Joseph Smale (b. 1838), in Ireland where his soldier father was stationed, raised in Lochearnhead, brother of Sarah Jane Hyslop (qv), sailor, travelled in Bermuda and Nova Scotia, took part in the Russian war, later a farmer and gold prospector in Australia, finally a schoolmaster at Tamarara. Ref: Edwards, 7, 61-4. [I] [S]Stewart, Robert (1806-85), of Paisley, handloom weaver, pub. some of his pieces in 1851. Ref: Brown, I, 389-91. [S]Stewart, Thomas (b. 1840), ‘Rustic Rhymer’ of Larkhall, Lanarkshire, coalminer, pub. in local press, and a vol. of Doric Rhymes, some hamely Rhymes (Larkhall: William Burns, 1875). Ref: Murdoch, 362-5. [S]Stewart, Thomas (b. 1859), of Monboy, Brechin, farmboy, grocer. Ref: Edwards, 8, 188-92. [S]Stewart, William (b. 1835), of Aberlour, shoemaker, shopkeeper. Ref: Edwards, 12, 89-94 (Edwards’ index, vol. 16, gives a death date as 1848, clearly in error). [S]Stewart, William (b. 1867), of Waterside, Lochlee, farmworker. Ref: Edwards, 10, 139-41. [S]Stibbons, Frederick (b, 1872), of North Norfolk, farmworker nfrom age 11, later groom, handyman, assistant miller/mechant, gardener, yachting agent, insurance agent, milk-seller, oil and petrol rep, painter and decorator, golf instructor and caddie; pub. The Poems of a Norfolk Ploughman (1902); Norfolk’s ‘Caddie’ Poet. His Autobiography, Impressions, and some of his Verse (Holt, 1923); Life and Love in Arcadie (1929); In the King’s Country (1931). Ref: Burnett et al (1984), 198-9 (no, 666). [OP]Still, Peter (1814-48), of Longside, Aberdeenshire, cattle herder, father of Peter Still (qv, 1835-69), poet, pub. Cottar’s Sunday and Other Poems. Ref: Edwards, 3, 305-8; Shanks, 153-4. [S]? Still, Peter (1835-69), poet, son of Peter Still (qv, 1814-48) the cattle-herder poet. Ref: Edwards, 1, 173 and 16, [lix]. [S]Story or Storey, Robert (1795-1860), of Wark, Northumberland, worked as gardener, shepherd and schoolteacher, lived in Gargrave, Yorkshire, made the acquaintance of John Nicholson. Pub. Craven Blossoms (Skipton, 1826, Johnson, item 872); The magic fountain, with other poems (London, 1829); The Outlaw, a drama in five acts (London, 1839); Songs and lyrical poems (Liverpool, 1837); Love and Literature: Being the Reminiscences, Literary Opinions and Fugitive Pieces of a Poet in Humble Life (London, 1842), Poetical Works of Robert Story (London, 1857), includes autobiographical preface, The lyrical and other minor poems of Robert Story, with a sketch of his life and writings by John James (London and Bradford, 1861). Contributed to The Festive Wreath (1842). ‘Mute is the Lyre of Ebor’ (1842) is printed in Holroyd, described as a memorial poem to his fellow wool-sorter John Nicholson (qv); if so and it is correctly dated it is premature as Nicholson died in 1843. Patrick O’Sullivan has in recent years helped revived interest in Story by bringing his work into the Gargrave Autoharp Festival. Ref: ODNB; Newsam, 151-5; Holroyd, 32, 128, 197-8; Vicinus (1974), 14-179 passim; Burnett et al (1984), 300-1 (nos. 670-1); Maidment (1987), 144-5; Vincent, 97; Johnson, items 872-6; Vincent, 208; Crossan, 40n33; Reilly (2000), 442; Keegan (2008), 93-5; Sutton, 905.? Stott, Benjamin, of Manchester, bookbinder and poet, Chartist, Oddfellow, educated to school level. Referred to in Alexander Wilson’s ‘The Poet’s Corner’, pub. ‘The Songs of the Millions’ in The Northern Star in 1842; Songs for the Millions and Other Poems (Middleton, 1843), ‘the emanations of fervent feeling...of an almost uneducated mind’, which includes a ‘Memoir’. Ref: Kovalev, 106-9; Scheckner, 305-8, 343; Schwab, 217; Vincent, 124n, 188; Burnett et al (1984), 301 (no. 672); Charles Cox, Catalogue 51 (2005), item 258. [C]Stott, Margaret Watt, ‘Maggie’ (b. 1862), of Montrose, daughter of Mr. J. E. Watt; in early life received ‘a fair education,’ and afterwards worked as a domestic servant; m. William Stott in 1882, with whom she lived in Brechin until some years later he became a station agent in Newtonhall. Stott was described by Edwards as ‘employed in public works in her native town’; pub. Poetical Sketches of Scottish Life and Character. Her verses, all of which were religious, included ‘Waitin’ The Maiser,’ ‘The Auld Year,’ and ‘Only Trust Him’. Ref: Edwards, 10, 167-9; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]? Stratton, Nicholas, a ‘rustic farmer’s son’ from Huntingdonshire, poet of humble origins, pub. Poems on Various Subjects (1824) which includes a poem on the death of Bloomfield, and the intro cites Bloomfield and Clare as influences. Ref: Crossan, 37; Powell, item 369; inf. Greg Crossan.Straycock, James (d. c. 1830), sailor of Yarmouth, pub. The son of commerce, an original poem, in thirty-four cantoes [sic], written by a sailor. To which is added his grand ode on the death and funeral of the late Lord Nelson (London: More and Son, 1806). Ref: C. R. Johnson, cat. 49 (2006), item 54.Struthers, John (1776-1853), of Longcalderwood, Lanarkshire, shoemaker poet, moved to Glasgow, corresponded with Joanna Baillie and Walter Scott, pub. Poems on various subjects (1801), Anticipation (1803), The Poor Man’s Sabbath (1804), The Peasant’s Death and other poems (1806), The Winter’s Day with other poems (Glasgow, 1811), Poems moral and religious (1814), The Plough and other poems (Glasgow, 1816), An essay on the state of the labouring poor (1816), The Harp of Caledonia (1819), The British Minstrel (1821), The History of Scotland (1827), The Poor Man’s Sabbath and Other Poems (1832), Dychmont: A Poem (Glasgow, 1836). Ref: ODNB, Glasgow Poets, 132-40; Wilson, I, 540-51; Winks, 314-15; Johnson, items 880-2; Sutton, 909 (letters). [S]? Sutherland, Frank (b. 1844), ‘Uncle Peter’, hairdresser, of Morayshire, pub. Sunny Memories of Morayland. Ref: Murdoch, 399-401. [S]Sutherland, George (1866-93), born near Durham but moved early to Berwick, worked in coal trade at Berwick Station, pub. poems in newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 8, 209-12. [S]Sutherland, William (b. 1797), a ‘young working class author’ of Langton, Berwickshire, ‘The Langton Bard’, son of a Highland cattleman, joiner, grocer, emigrated to America in 1823, pub. Poems and songs (Haddington: printed for the author, by James Miller, 1821), which includes a lament on the death of Robert Burns and a poem on Allan Ramsay. Ref: Edwards, 12, 166-9; Crockett, 137-8; Johnson, item 887. [S]Swain, Charles (1801 or 1803-1874), of Manchester, dyehouse clerk, poet, lithographer, member of the ‘Sun Inn’ group of Manchester poets. Pub. Metrical Essays (1827, 1828; dedicated to Charles Tavaré), Beauties of the Mind, a poetical sketch; with lays, historical and romantic (London, 1831; dedicated to Southey, who wrote back to him: ‘If ever man was born to be a poet, you are; and if Manchester is not proud of you yet, the time will certainly come when it will be so’ [ODNB]), Art and Fashion, with other sketches, songs and poems (London, 1863), Dryburgh Abbey, and other poems (London and Manchester, 1868); A Cabinet of Poetry and Romance: Female Portraits from the Writings of Byron and Scott (1845), Dramatic Chapters (1847); Letters of Laura d'Auverne (1853); English Melodies (London: Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans, 1849); and Songs and Ballads (1867). Ref: ODNB; Harland, frontispiece and 217-20, 233, 241-, 244-7, 252, 293-4, 311-12, 323-4, 350-1, 355, 363-4, 422-3, 443, 473, 481-2, Cross, 147-8, Maidment (1987), 121-4, Vicinus (1973), 743, Vicinus (1974), 160, Johnson, items 888-9, DNB, LION, X, xii, Reilly (2000), 446; Sutton, 910.? Swain, John (b. 1815), of Haddenly Hall, Holmfirth, Yorkshire, cloth finisher, teacher, inspector of letter carriers, lived at Otley, pub. Gideon’s Victory (1835); Harp of the Hills (1851, 1857, 1858); Cottage Carols, and other poems (1860; London, 1861); The Tide of Even, and other poems, with Tales and Songs (1864; London and Otley, 1877). Ref: Holroyd, 130; Reilly (2000), 446.Swain, Joseph (1761-1796), apprenticed as engraver, Baptist hymn-writer; pub. A collection of poems. On several occasions (London, [1781]); Redemption. A poem (London, 1789, 1797); Walworth Hymns (1792, two editions; 1799, 3rd edition). Ref: ODNB; ESTC.? Swan, Maggie (b. 1867), of Edinburgh, daughter of a former potato merchant who leased the farm of Mountskip, in the neighbourhood of Gorebridge. The youngest sister of the better-known poet Annie Swan (qv, ‘Annie S Swan Smith’), Maggie attended a village school and the Queen Street Institute for Young Ladies, after which she returned home to help with household duties; pub. in local journals such as the People’s Journal, and her verses include ‘The Homes of Scotland, ‘The Greatest of the Three,’ ‘Change,’ God’s Ways,’ and ‘The Hope of the Spring’. Arguably the Swan sisters might have been considered middle class. Ref: Edwards, 10; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Swan, Robert (b. 1853), of Kirkburn, Peebles, draper, pub. in newspapers. Ref: Edwards 10, 62-6. [S]? Swan Smith, Annie S. (1859-1943), ‘David Lyall’, born in Berwickshire, near Coldingham, one of seven children including sister Maggie (qv), also a writer, briefly attended the Queen Street Ladies College in Leith, but was not an attentive student and soon quit. Swan became a prolific and popular novelist, and paid her husband’s (James Burnett Smith) way through medical school at Edinburgh University. She published two volumes of poetry, My Poems (Dundee and London: John Leng, 1900?), circulated by The People’s Friend) and Songs of Memory and Hope (Edinburgh: Nimmo, 1911). See also My Life: An Autobiography (London, 1934). Arguably the Swan sisters might have been considered middle class. Ref: ODNB; Borland, 237; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Swanson, Thomas, unemployed collier and dialect poet, pub. Select Poems (North Shields, 1878), published ‘to support my wife and family during the awful slackness which has prevailed in this and other districts’. Ref: Charles Cox, Catalogue 51 (2005), item 263.Swift, John, of Rochdale, Lance, Private in the King's Own Light Infantry, served at Waterloo, pub. Reminiscences of the Battle of Waterloo (Rochdale, 1864). Ref: Reilly (2000), 447.Syme, James, Chartist, author of ‘Labour Song’ (The Northern Star, 26 December 1840) and othe rpoems in the Northern Star and the Chartist Circular. Ref: Maidment (1987), 42-4; Kovalev, 80-1; Scheckner, 309-10, 343; Schwab 217. [C] Symonds, Thomas Dudley (1847-1915), of Dulwich, ‘The Woodbridge Poet’, boot and shoe maker, pub. Sparks from the Jubilee Bonfire (Woodbridge, [1888]). Ref: Copsey (2002), 341.Tait, Alexander (fl. 1790), of Paisley, tailor, author of ‘A Ramble Through Paisley’ in his Poems and Songs (Paisley, 1790), wrote poems against Burns (as did Maxwell). Ref: Brown, I, 198-206; Leonard, 36-7. [S]Tannahill, Robert (1774-1810), of Paisley, weaver, major poet, drowned himself. Pub. Poems and songs, chiefly in the Scottish dialect (Paisley, 1815), The soldier’s return...with other poems and songs (Paisley, 1807); see elegies to him in Brown, I, 209-11. Ref: ODNB; ‘Robert Tannahill Commemoration Website’; NRA (Glasgow); Harp R, xxxii-xliv; Wilson, I, 501-8; Maidment (1983), 85; Johnson, items 334, 892-3; Douglas, 296-9; Brown, I, 86-95; Leonard, 38-52 & 373; LION; Miles, II, 73-86; Basker, 679-80; Sutton, 922. [S]Tasker, David (b. 1840), of Dundee, mill boy, weaver (warper), mill manager, lived in Carlisle, pub. Musings of leisure hours (Carlisle, 1878). [Brother 'John Paul' mentioned in entry on David Lundie Grieg.] Ref: Reilly (2000), 451, Edwards, 2, 280-3. [S]Tate, Matthew (b. 1837), of Benton, Northumberland, miner, poet, pub. Stray Blossoms (1874), Pit life in 1893 (Blyth, 1894), Poems, songs and ballads (Blyth, 1898). Ref: Reilly (1994), 463; Newcastle Central Library; Charles Cox, Catalogue 51 (2005), item 266.Tatersal, Robert (fl. 1734-1735), bricklayer, of Kingston upon Thames, author of The Bricklayer’s Miscellany; or, Poems on Several Subjects (second edition, 1734: BL 1162.k.2). Ref: LC 1, 275-310; ODNB; Unwin, 72-3; R?svig, II, 158; Shiach, 53-4; Klaus (1985), 4-7 and 14; Lonsdale (1984), 278-80, 844n; Phillips, 213; Christmas, 110-15. [LC 1]Tatton, William, working man of Stoke, Devonport, pub. Edwin and Marguerite: a legend and other poems (London and Devonport, 1860). Ref: Reilly (2000), 452.? Taylor, Andrew B., of Arbroath, ‘Quill’, compositor on the Arbroath Guide. Ref: Edwards, 4, 311-16. [S]Taylor, David (1817-76), ‘The Saint Ninians Poet’, of Dollar, Clackmannanshire, weaver, moved to Stirlingshire, wrote and set songs, wrote for newspapers, drowned in the river Devon on holiday at Dollar, pub. include Miscellaneous Poems (1827), Welm and Amelia with other Poems (1830), The poems and songs of David Taylor, with memoir, notes, and glossary by William Harvey (Stirling, 1893). Ref: Reilly (2000), 453; Edwards, 15, 397-400. [S]Taylor, David (b. 1831), of Dundee, handloom then powerloom weaver, Secretary of the Nine Hours movement, author of ‘many stirring poems’. Ref: Edwards 1, 26-7. [S]Taylor, Ellen (fl. 1792), daughter of ‘an indigent cottager’, pub. Poems (Dublin, 1792). Ref: LC 3, 253-60; Lonsdale (1989), 455-7; Carpenter, 473. [I] [F] [LC 3]Taylor, James (1794-c. 1864), the Royton poet, Lancashire cotton-worker, self-taught, pub. vols. in 1825 and 1830; posthumously pub. Miscellaneous Poems (Oldham: Hurst and Rennie, 1864). Ref: inf. Bob Heyes.Taylor, James (1813-75), of Main of Nairn, near Stanley, Perthshire, journeyman pattern-drawer, calico printing designer, resided in Glasgow. Ref: Edwards, 4, 174-6. [S]Taylor, Jessie Mitchell (1815-80), of Paisley, kept a fruit and seed shop, son of John Mitchell (qv). Her verses are included in Brown’s Paisley Poets, and in Lays of St. Mungo; or The Minstrelsy of the West (1844). Three also appeared in her father John Mitchell (qv)’s The Wee Steeple Ghaist (1840). Ref: Brown, II, 48-51; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]? Taylor, John, ‘The Water Poet’ (1578-1653), of St. Ewen’s, Gloucester, Thames boatman, miscellaneous amd travel writer, claimed to ‘have served Elizabeth at sea on seven occasions’ (ODNB), and such other adventures as a voyage in a symbolically paper-made boat and journeys from London to other places including Hamburg, Salisbury and Leicester, all recorded in his writings. Taylor is perhaps the model for the garrulous boatman in Shakespeare in Love who claims to Will to be ‘a bit of a writer myself’ (p. 67, Faber edn, 1999); indeed the real Taylor would almost certainly have known Shakespeare. Among the boatman’s many publications are Taylors Farewell to the Tower Bottles (1622); The Sculler, Rowing from Tiber to Thames (a collection of verses, 1612); The Nipping and Snipping of Abuses (1614); Taylors Urania (1615); numerous prose travel tales and political tracts; Early Prose and Poetical Works (London and Glasgow, 1888). Ref: ODNB; Radcliffe; Southey, 15-87; Craik, II; Unwin, 21-3; Christmas, 66-7; Bernard Capp, The World of John Taylor the Water Poet 1578-1753 (Oxford, 1994). [OP]Taylor, John (fl. 1787), stay-maker of Limerick, known as an eccentric. Ref: Carpenter, 428. [I]Taylor, John (fl. ?1827), cotton spinner of Manchester, author of a ‘Jone o’ Grinfield’ broadside ballad on his unemployment and hardship, reproduced and discussed by Hepburn. Ref: Hepburn, I, 40; II, 377, 387-8.Taylor, John (b. 1839), of Raddery, Ross-shire, orphaned son of a shoemaker, bird-scarer, stable boy, merchant’s assistant, gardener, navigator on the Highland railway, took different jobs throughout Scotland before settling in Edinburgh, pub. Poems, chiefly on themes of Scottish interest, with introductory preface by W. Lindsay Alexander (Edinburgh, 1875), which includes an ‘autobiographical sketch’. Ref: Edwards, 1, 77-80; Burnett et al (1984), 307 (no. 686); Reilly (2000), 453-4. [S]Taylor, John Kay, self-taught apprentice of Oldham, pub. The Land of Burns and other poems, and The Burial of Burns (Glasgow, 1847). Ref: Manchester Public Library copy of the latter.Taylor, Kirkwood, of Derby, railwayman, pub. 'Behold the fowls of the air': thoughts in blank verse on matters social and religious (Leicester and Wallasey, Cheshire: 1899). Ref: Reilly (1994), 465.Taylor, Malcolm (b. 1850), of Dundee, plumber, private secretary, pub. in newspapers, emigrated to America with his family at age 10. Ref: Ross, 144-51; Edwards, 6, 101-7. [S]Taylor, Peter (b. 1837), of Auchterarder Moor, son of a mason, messenger-boy from age 11, later a brewery bottler, mechanic, businessman. Pub. Autobiography of Peter Taylor (Paisley: Alexander Gardner, 1903), which includes extracts frok his poetry. Ref Burnett et al (1984), 308 (no. 689). [S] [OP]Teenan, Joseph (1830-83), of Edinburgh, tailor, self-educated, lived in London and East Linton, pub. Song and satire (London, 1876). Ref: Edwards, 2, 229-33 and 9, xxv; Reilly (2000), 454. [S]Teer, John (b. c. 1809), of Manchester, cotton piecer (weaver) from age of nine,later a spinner and a warehouseman pub. Silent Musings (Manchester, 1869), which includes an autobiographical preface. Ref: Vincent, 125n; Burnett et al (1984), 309-10 (no. 692); Reilly (2000), 454.? Teft, Elizabeth (bap. 1723), of Rothwell, Lincolnshire, regarded Duck as a precedent and had ‘want of learning’; but Isobel Grundy in ODNB says she was of middling rank, though not well off financially, and that little is known of her life except from verses; pub. Orinthia’s Miscellany, or, A Compleat Collection of Poems (1747). Ref: ODNB; Lonsdale (1989), 217-19. [F]Telfer, James (1800-62), of Southdean, Roxburghshire, shepherd’s son, and shepherd, later schoolmaster, poet and novelist; corresponded with Robert White (qv) and Allan Cunningham (qv). Pub. Border Ballads and Other Miscellaneous Pieces (1824, reminiscent of Burns [ODNB], contains 'The Gloamyne Buchte’ and ‘The Kerlyn's Brocke’), dedicated to Hogg. Ref: ODNB; Wilson, II, 217-22, Shanks, 141, Johnson, item 897; Sutton, 930. [S]? Telford, Thomas (1757-1834), of Glendinning sheep farm, Westerkirk, Eskdale, Dumfriesshire, shepherd’s son, father died in his infancy, parish school education, stonemason, later a major civil engineer (Caledonian Canal, Menia Bridge, Gotha Canal); pub. a poem in Ruddiman’s Weekly Magazine (5 May 1779, then, Eskdale (London, 1781, Shrewsbury, 1795). According to ODNB, he wrote at least 12 poems in his life including an extended poem to Burns, 26 verses of which were printed in many editions of Burns from 1801. Ref: ODNB; Miller, 142-3. [S]Telford, William (b. 1828), of Leitholm, drain digger, emigrated to Canada as a farmer, pub. a vol of selected poems. Ref: Ross, 187-93; Crockett, 245-7. [S]? Tennant, George (1819-56), of Airdrie, orphaned, brother to Robert Tennant (qv), though quite different in character, Robert being ‘of a bouyant and cheery disposition’ while George ‘from his earliest years suffered from constitutional melancholy’; their contrasting spirits being ‘distinctly reflected in their writings’. Ref: Knox, 301-302. [S]Tennant, Robert (1830-79), of Airdrie, Lanarkshire, orphaned handloom weaver, postal messenger, letter-carrier, brother of George Tennant (qv); pub. Wayside musings (Airdrie, 1872); see also the David Thomson (qv) poem ‘To Robert Tennant [qv] (Airdrie’s Postman Poet)’ (Knox, 213), and various other poems reprinted in the account in Knox (317-27) of the Airdrie Burns Club’s celebrations of Tennant’s centenary in 1930, reflecting the enduring popularity of this cheerful and familiar local figure. Ref: Edwards, 1, 168-71; Murdoch, 221-6; Knox, 77-95, 213; Reilly (2000), 455. [S]Terry, Joseph (1816-89), Waterman’s son of Mirfield, later lived in Dewsbury, Brighouse, Birstal, and for much of his youth lived on a boat; worked from age six in a ‘setting shop’ setting cards in machines, later a navigator and provisioner; pub. Poems (1874). Burnett et al (1984) mention an 1848 collection but this is unidentified. His ‘compelling’ unpublished autobiography, written between 1865 and 1868, is extracted in John Burnett (ed), Destiny Obscure: Autobiographies of Childhood, Education and Family from the 1820s to the 1920s (London: Allen Lane, 1982), 66-71. Ref Reilly, 456; Burnett et al (1984), 310 (no. 693).Terry, Lucy (1730-1821), considered to be first African-American poet, wrote a poem on the Indian attack on Deerfield, MA (1746). Ref: Basker, 99-100. [F]Tester, William Hay Leith (‘La Teste’, ‘Granny McDoodle’, b. 1829), listed by Andrew Elfenbein in Byron and the Victorians (Cambridge, 1995), 86 as a working-class poet indebted to Byron’s early poems pub. Poems, second edition enlarged, with Autobiography (Elgin, 1867); frontispiece photograph has the poet posing in working clothes, with a large sledgehammer over his shoulder; the playful ‘Autobiography’ at the back fo the volume tells his life in Scots and supposedly in the hand of ‘Granny Mcdoodle’. Ref Burnett et al (1984), 311 (no. 695); . [S]Thistlethwaite, James, Chatterton’s friend, bluecoat boy apprenticed to a stationer; author of The Prediction of Liberty (1776), full text via Google Books, Dobell 1802, BL 11630.e.16(5); The Consultation (Bristol, 1774, 1775), BL 11659.bb.46(1); Corruption (1780), BL 11642.ee.14(1). Note that Basker, 193-4, includes ‘Bambo and Giffar, An African Eclogue’, as apparently by ‘Thomas Thistlethwaite’ [‘S.E.’], dated 1771. Ref: Daniel Wilson, Thomas Chaterton [sic?], a Biographical Study (___); Dobell, ESTC.? Thom, John (1834-1909), of Airdrie, son of a hosiery manufacturer, worked for an ironmonger; completed apprenticeship and worked in Wolverhampton, then as a cashier at Rochsolloch Iron Works, finally ran an ironmongery; pub Wallace and Other Poems (1873). Ref: Knox, 298-9. [S]? Thom, Robert William (1816-?1890), of Annan, Dumfriesshire, surgeon’s son, draper in Blackburn, lived later in Glasgow, pub. Poems (Dudley, ?1860), Coventry poems (Coventry, ?1860), Dudley poems (Dudley, c. 1865), The courtship and wedding of Jock o’ the Knowe, and other poems, 2nd edn (Glasgow, 1878), The epochs: a poem (Glasgow, 1884), Poems (Glasgow, 1880), Poems and ballads (Scotch and English) (Glasgow, 1886). Ref: ODNB; Edwards, 1, 221-26; Miller, 274-77; Reilly (1994), 467; Reilly (2000), 458. [S]Thom, William (?1798-1848), of Aberdeen, ‘The Inverurie Poet’, weaver, later lived in London and Dundee, patron of J. A. Gordon. Pub. ‘The Blind Boy's Pranks’ (1841, first published in the Aberdeen Herald and much syndicated), ‘A Chieftain Unknown to the Queen,’ The Northern Star, September 1842; Rhymes and Recollections of a Handloom Weaver (London and Aberdeen, 1844; 2nd 1845). Ref: LC 5, 139-52; ODNB; Wilson, II, 202-6; Shiach, 36, 67-70; Maidment (1983), 84-5; Maidment (1987), 22 [image], 32-6, 63-5; Scheckner, 311-12, 343; Vincent, 151; Ashton & Roberts, ch. 3, 46-57; NCSTC; Miles, III, 249; Murdoch, 81; Zlotnick, 176; Burnett et al (1984), 311-12 (no. 696); Sales (2002), 84-94; Sutton, 946. [LC 5] [S]? Thomas, Ann (fl. 1782-95), of Millbrook, Cornwall, naval officer’s widow, pub a novel and a vol of poems by subscription; the latter is Poems on Various Subjects (1784). Ref: Backscheider, 410-11; Backscheider & Ingrassia, 888. [F]? Thomas, David (1759-1822), known as 'Dafydd Ddu Eryri', Welsh poet, schoolmaster and weaver, won prizes at multiple eisteddfodau under the auspices of the Gwyneddigion Society (1790, 1791); eventually left the Society because of ideological differences with William Owen Pugh, lexicographer, and Iolo Morganwg (Edward Williams); established his own literary societies in Arfon and taught the bardic arts (his students were called Cywion Dafydd Ddu, ‘Dafydd Ddu’s chicks’); published his students’ works along with a selection his own poetry in Corph y Gaingc (1810); students include William Williams (“Gwilym Peris’), Griffith Williams (‘Gutyn Peris’), Richard Jones (‘Gwyndaf Eryri’), Owen Williams (‘Owen Gwyrfai’) and John Roberts (‘Si?n Lleyn). Pub: Corph y gaingc (1810, 2nd posthumous edn in 1834). Ref: OCLW; ODNB/DNB. [W] [—Katie Osborn]Thomas, Ebenezer (Eben Fardd), (1802-63), schoolmaster and grocer, born in Llanarmon, Caerns. and settled at Clynnog Fawr; son of a weaver, his mother died in 1821; due to poverty, did not receive an education; “took to a wanton, drunken life and…lost his religious faith” but eventually returned to the Calvinist Methodists (1839); gained acclaim when he won the chair at the Powys Eisteddfod (1824) for an awdl (‘Dinystr Jerusalem’) imitating an epic poem by Owen Goronwy (qv); won two other chairs at Liverpool in 1840 and at Llangollen in 1858; pub: Gweithiau Barddonol (c. 1873); Detholion o Ddyddiadur Eben Fardd (ed. E. G. Millward, 1968). Ref: OCLW. [W] [—Katie Osborn]? Thomas, Frederick, Devonshire hatter, pub. Humorous and other poetic pictures: legends and stories of Devon (London and Plymouth, 1883). Ref: Reilly (1994), 467.Thomas, George (c. 1791-1872), born at Newtown, Montgomeryshire; owner of a corn-grinding business in Welshpool, later (1829) settled in Llandysil, Mont. as a schoolmaster and poet; wrote mainly mock-heroic and satirical verse; pub: The Otter Hunt and the Death of Roman (1817), The Welsh Flannel (nd), History of the Chartist and the Bloodless Wars of Montgomeryshire (1840), The Death of Rowton (nd), The Extinction of the Mormons (nd). Ref: OCLW; Charles Cox, Catalogue 51 (2005), item 273. [W] [—Katie Osborn]? Thomason, Mary, (1863-1937), dialect poet, teacher at a Wesleyan primary school in Leigh, her Warp and Weft: Cuts from a Lancashire Loom pub. posthumously (Leigh 1938). Ref: Hollingworth (1977), 155. [OP] [F]? Thompson, William Gill (1796-1844), of Newcastle, printer, journalist and poet, pub. The Coral Wreath and Other Poems (1821). Ref: Welford, III, 514-16.Thomson, Alex E. (1864-86), of Netherton, Brechin, factory worker, painter and poet. Ref: Edwards, 7, 353-5. [S]Thomson, Cecile McNeill, née Sword (fl. 1882), of Ardlissa, Argyllshire; father moved to Selkirk when she was a child, and leased a small farm; at 17 she became a dressmaker, but worked also as lady’s maid and nursery governess; pub. in newspapers and magazines, and a collection,’Tween the Gloamin’ and the Mirk: Poems and Songs (Aberdeen: A. King and Co.,1882). Her poems, generally sentimental and descriptive, included the titles ‘Grannie’s Bairn’ and ‘sunset on Loch Awe.’ Ref: Edwards, 4, 88-93; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Thomson, David (1806-70), of Roseneath, Dumbartonshire, shepherd’s son, rural keeper, pub. Musings among the heather: being poems chiefly in the Scottish dialect, by the late David Thomson, arranged and edited (Edinburgh. 1881), wrote a poem ‘To Robert Tennant [qv] (Airdrie’s Postman Poet)’ (Knox, 213). Ref: Edwards, 2, 112-17; Knox, 211-17; Reilly (2000), 459. [S]Thomson, Hope A. (b. 1863), of Bellshill, Lanarkshire, brother of William Thomson author of ‘Leddy May’, tailor, pub. in newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 15, 152-5. [S]Thomson, Hugh (b. 1847), of Rothesay, iron moulder, letter-carrier, pub. vol of Poems and Essays, and poems in Edwards. Ref: Edwards, 8, 205-9. [S]Thom[p]son, James (1763-1832), weaver of Kenleith, pub. Poems in the Scottish Dialect (Edinburgh, 1801); Poems, chiefly in the Scottish dialect (Leith, 1819); A Poem, chiefly in the Scottish dialect, on raising and selling the dead ... (Leith, 1821). Ref: Edwards, 15, 315-20; Johnson, items 905-6. [S]Thomson, James (1827-88), of Bowden, herder then wood turner, poems include ‘Hogmanay’, ‘Hairst’, pub. Doric lays and lyrics (Edinburgh, 1870; 2nd enlarged edn Glasgow, 1884). Ref: Edwards, 10, 266-73 and 12, xxiii; Douglas, 256-7, 313, Reilly (2000), 460. [S]Thomson, James (1832-1914), ‘Earnest’, of Wynd, Dundee, factory worker, ‘lapper to trade’, humorous and descriptive poet, pub. in local newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 1, 389-90; press cutting of a letter to the editor from his daughter (Mrs) Jessie Forbes (née Thompson) of Aberdeen, headed ‘A Dundee Song Writer’, paper unidentified but clearly Scottish and local, letter dated 14 February 1933, loose in a copy of Edwards, I in the NTU special collection. [S]? Thomson, James (formerly Thompson, ‘B.V., 1834-82), of Port Glasgow, orphaned son of a merchant ship’s officer and a dressmaker, major poet. Pub: The City of Dreadful Night (1880); Poems and Some Letters of James Thomson, ed. Anne Ridler (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1963). Ref: ODNB; Edwards, 7, 160-72; Leonard, 281-95; Miles, V, 327; Ricks, 442-56; Reilly (1994), 470; Tom Leonard, Places of the mind: The Life and Work of James Thomson (‘B.V.’) (London: Cape, 1993); Sutton, 948. [S]Thomson, James (b. 1835 [but Edwards gives 1825]), of Rothes, Speyside, Morayshire, crofter’s son, herder, gardener, pub. The captive chief: a tale of Flodden Field, and other poems, 2nd edn (Edinburgh, 1871), Northumbria; The captive chief, and other poems, 3rd edn (Alnwick, 1881). Ref: Edwards, 3, 380-4; Reilly (2000), 460; Murdoch, 260-2. [S]? Thomson, Margaret Wallace, daughter of a card-cutter and warper. She was distinguished in academic and musical accomplishments, working first as a teacher and then after marriage as a church organist. Arguably Thomson should be considered middle-class, by her own attainments. Ref: Brown, II, 556-62; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Thomson, Neil (b. 1823), of Glasgow, ‘The Hyde Park Foundry Man’ tinsmith, soldier, prison warder, pub. poems in newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 9, 388-94. [S]Thomson, Robert Burns (1817-87), weaver then mill manager, grandson of Robert Burns, pub. Ref: Edwards, 7, 151-60 and 12, xvi; Leonard, 235. [S]Thomson, Samuel (1766-1816), of Carngreine, County Antrim, Ulster weaver poet, schoolmaster, publisher of the United Irishmen publication Northern Star, met Burns; recently extensively recovered in the scholarship of Jennifer Orr (see refs). Ref: LC 3, 261-6; Radcliffe; Carpenter, 482; Jennifer Orr, ‘To Mr Robert Burns: Verse Epistles from an Irish Poetical Circle’, in Burns Lives! (undated online publication on the Electric Scotland web page); ‘Constructing the Ulster Labouring-Class Poet: The Case of Samuel Thomson’, in Class and the Canon: Constructing Labouring-Class Poetry and Poetics, 1780-1900, ed. Kirstie Blair and Mina Gorji (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 34-54, and Jennifer Orr (ed), The Correspondence of Samuel Thomson (1766-1816): Fostering an Irish Writers’ Circle (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2012). [I] [LC 3]Thomson, Thomas (1800-79), of Loanhead, Midlothian, house painter and portraitist, pub. poems in newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 8, 95-98. [S]Thomson, Thomas (b. 1848), of Edinburgh, compositor, reporter, printer’s reader, prose writer and critic. Ref: Edwards, 6, 78-82. [S]Thomson, William (‘Theta’, 1797-1887), of Kennoway, Fife, worked in linen manufacture, grocer and general merchant, postmaster at Kennoway, pub. Verses (1866); Poetical Recreations (Cupar, 1877). Ref: Edwards, 1, 321-2 and 12, xi; Reilly (2000), 460. [S]Thomson, William, shepherd, handloom weaver, trade-unionist, editor, Chartist; pub. poetry in the Chartist Circular, which he edited; he was also general secretary of the Scottish Chartists. Ref Schwab 21`8. [S] [C]? Thomson, William (1860-83), of Glasgow, tailor, contributor to newspapers and periodicals, pub. Leddy May, and other poems (Glasgow, 1883). Ref: Reilly (1994), 471, Edwards, 2, 156-7, 5 (183), 241-53 and 9 (1886), xxv. [S]Thorpe, Thomas (b. 1829), of Milton, Bowling, Dumbartonshire, block-printer, warehouseman, pub. poems in magazines. Ref: Edwards, 4, 22-7. [S]? Threlfall, Jeanette (1821-1880), of Blackburn, Lancashire, the daughter of Henry Threlfall, a wine merchant; she early became an orphan, shuttled between relatives, and later suffered two accidents – the former lamed and mutilated her; the latter rendered her a lifelong invalid. The misfortune visited upon Jeanette did not negate her devotion to God, and she dedicated much of her time to composing Christian poems and hymns. In 1873, as Jeanette mused upon the story of Palm Sunday, she wrote the poem, ‘Hosanna, Loud Hosanna’. It became a hymn that continues to be sung in many churches today. Pub. Woodsorrel; or, Leaves from a Retired Home (1856), Sunshine and shadow: poems by Jeanette Threlfall, with introduction (London 1873). Ref. Reilly (2000), 461-2; . [F] [—Tim Burke]Thwaite, John (d. 1941), of Hawes, Yorkshire, shopkeeper and auctioneer, largely autodidactic dialect poem whose poems on birds ansd animals such as ‘To a Kingfisher’ are ‘particularly distinctive’. Ref Smith, Dales, pp. 10-11, 22-6. [OP]Todd, Adam Brown (b. 1822), of Mauchline, Ayrshire, in a family of fifteen of whom six survived, ploughboy, herder for his father, journalist, pub. a vol. of verse in 1846, several other small vols and a novel; The Poetical Works of A. B. Todd with Autobiography and Portrait (1906). Ref: Edwards, 1, 130-5; Burnett et al (1984), Grian Books web page, visited July 7th 2014. [S]? Todd, Maggie (b. 1866), of Campertown, Dundee, daughter of farmer and miller who leased Windy Mill, Murroes; pub. in People’s Journal and a collection, Burnside Lyrics (Dundee, 1900); poems include ‘The Summer Queen,’ ‘We’re Scotland’s Bairns Yet,’ ‘The Bonnets o’ Bonnie Dundee,’ ‘My Laddie Days,’ and are often mildly comic and patriotic. Ref: Edwards, 13, 33-8; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]Towers, Walter (b. 1841), of Carronshore, Stirlingshire, pattern-maker, songwriter, pub. Poems, song and ballads (Glasgow, 1885). Ref: Edwards, 8, 345-9; Reilly (1994), 476. [S]? Townsend, David (b. 1807), of Kettering, Northants., singer-songwriter and violinist on the streets of Kettering, pub. The gipsies of Northamptonshire: their manner of life, festive amusements, and fortune telling, fifty years ago [poems] (Kettering, 1877), BL; Heroes of Kettering, and other records (Kettering, 1892). Ref: Reilly (1994), 477, Reilly (2000), 465.Train, Joseph (1779-1852), of Sorn, Ayrshire, apprentice, militiaman, manufacturing agent, exciseman; his father was a land steward and later forced to become day labourer; Train was apprenticed to a weaver but worked for most of his life as an exciseman and indulging his passion for antiquarian lore, which he collected in numerous substantial historical volumes (with mixed financial success). He corresponded frequently with Walter Scott and helped to secure items for Scott's museum; Scott, in turn, tried to support Train as he could and invited him for multiple visits to Edinburgh. Pub. Poetical Reveries (1806), Strains of the Mountain (Ballantyne, 1814), and other works including historical writings. Ref: ODNB; Wilson, II, 30-32, Johnson 46, no. 334. [S]Turnbull, Gavin (c. 1765 to c. 1816), of Hawick, Kilmarnock, poet and actor, weaver, friend of Alexander Wilson, ornithologist (qv), friends with and supported by David Sillar (qv) and Robert Burns (qv). Burns wrote, ‘Possibly, as he is an old friend of mine, I may be prejudiced in his favour: but I like some of his pieces very much’ (ODNB). Poem subscriptions advertised in American publications though the volumes seem not to have been completed; pub. Poetical Essays (Glasgow, 1788, BL 1466.d.26), Poems (1794, BL 11632.b.53). Ref: ODNB; Radcliffe; Eyre-Todd. [S]Turner, Ben (b. 1863), of Holmfirth, West Yorkshire, weaver, Alderman, later a national trade union leader and socialist politician, has four Yorkshire dialect poems in the England anthology, including ‘Oh! Drat this Working Neet and Day’, and writes autobiographically of labour. Published poetry collections in 1909 and 1934; autobiography About Myself (1930). Ref Moorman, xxxvii, 81-2; Smith, West, 35-40; Burnett et al (1984), 322-3 (no. 721); England 18-19, 40, 53. [OP]Turner, George (1805-86), of Dumfermline, tailor, soldier, abstinence advocate. Ref: Edwards, 5, 261-4. [S]? Tweddell, Florence, nee Cole (b. 1833), of Stokesley, Clevelandm daughter of Thomas Cole, the Stokesley parish clark, married George Markham Tweddell (b. 1823, author of The People’s History of Cleveland—see Andrews 49-54), and was matron of Bury Industrial School. Pub. a ‘slender volumes of dialect verse and prose’, Rhymes and Sketches to Illustrate the Cleveland Dialect (1875), noted by Moorman for its implicity, homely charm and humour, ‘well-illustrated by the song, “Dean’t mak gam o’ me”’ Her ‘most sustained’ poem is ‘T’ Awd Cleveland Customs’, ans she is also well-known for her prose satory ‘Awd Gab o’ Steers’. Ref Andrews, 55-60; Moorman xxxii-xxxiii (mis-naming her as Elizabeth Tweddell), 43-6, 121-2. [F]Tweedale, Robert (b. 1832), of Ballymoney, Country Down, Johnstone and Paisley, shoemaker, son of an Irish agricultural labourer, author of ‘Co-Operation: The Brotherhood of Man’ in Brown, II, 355-7. Ref: Brown, II, 354-58; Leonard, 334-6. [I] [S]Twissleton, Tom (1845-1917), working farmer, of Settle, Yorkshire, autodidact, pub. dialect poems in the 1860s including ‘The Fair’, and ‘The Husband and Wife’; Poems ion the Craven Dialect (1869, ran through several edns);’a disciple of burns’ (Moorman). Ref Moorman, xxxiii-xxxiv, 56-62; Smith, Dales, pp. 9-10, 18-21.? Tyre, John (b. 1824), of Paisley, pattern-designer, poems in Brown. Ref: Brown, II, 193-97. [S]Umpleby, Stanley (1887-1953), N. Yorks. station master and dialect poet. Ref K. E. Smith, The Dialect Muse (Wetherby: Ruined Cottage Pubns., 1979), 22-3. [OP]Upton, Catherine, (fl. 1780s); according to Todd (311), grew up in Nottingham and moved to Gibraltar, ‘probably as the wife of a soldier.’ She was possibly widowed, as she wrote Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose and Verse: by Mrs. Upton, authoress of the Siege of Gibraltar (1784) to support several children. This collection was dedicated to General Boyd, the governor of Gibraltar. The Siege of Gibraltar was criticised for poor language and versification. Todd records that Upton protested that Dryden and Pope are praised when they take liberties with their metre. In a letter to her father in Nottingham, Upton describes London in terms of ‘rattling coaches’ and the ‘discordant cries’ of chimney sweeps. She shows annoyance at the double standards that ascribe virtue to women but education to men. This may explain the discrepancy between presenting herself as uneducated to the Critical Review and yet earning a living from teaching; it appears that women like Upton were expected to teach children, but not benefit from an education themselves. Ref: Todd, 311 [F] [—Dawn Whatman]Usher, John (1810-29), Lammermoor sheep-herder, attended Edinburgh University to train to become a minister, but died before he had qualified; author of ‘Lammermoor’, pub. in Crockett. Ref: Crockett, 208-9. [S]? Varley, Isabella, later Banks (1821-97), also known by her husband's name as ‘Mrs. G. Linneaus Banks’ (qv), member of the Lancashire Literary Association (formed from the ‘Sun Inn’ group of Manchester poets), novelist and poet, received numerous grants from the Royal Literary Fund, author of The Manchester Man, a popular novel. Her father, James Varley, was a chemist and amateur artist.?When she was a child, a smoky chimney damaged her eyesight.?The Manchester Guardian published Isabella’s poem, A Dying Girl to Her Mother, when she was sixteen, and her collection of poetry entitled Ivy Leaves was published in 1843.?Prior to her marriage to the journalist and poet George Linnaeus Banks in 1846, Isabella was forced to support herself running a school at Cheetham in Lancashire following a lawsuit in which her father lost ?10,000 over a bleaching process he had invented. ~ As a result of George's various job changes, the couple led quite an itinerant life, with three of their children being born in locations as disparate as Dublin, Durham and Windsor. Isabella contributed regular articles to the newspapers that George edited. ~ As a member of the Ladies Committee of the Anti-Corn Law League, Isabella campaigned successfully for the repeal of laws embodying an impediment to industrialisation and free trade.?Isabella’s second volume of poems, Daisies in the Grass (1865) – containing many poems on the theme of a woman’s difficult position in marriage – was published in the same year as her first novel, God’ s Providence House. ~ Despite the onset of chronic ill-health, Isabella persisted to write novels and became known as ‘The Lancashire Novelist’.?She is most noted for her 1876 work of ‘industrial fiction’, The Manchester Man, first serialised in Cassel’s Magazine, and seen as presenting ‘a vivid picture of Manchester in the 19th century; a time when men from humble backgrounds could make vast fortunes through mercantile activity’. ~ At the time of the 1891 census she was still living with her daughter, Esther, a dressmaker.?Isabella Varley Banks died in Hackney in 1897. Pub: Ivy Leaves (poetry, 1843); God's Providence House, (novel, 1865), Daisies in the Grass (poetry, 1865), Stung to the Quick, A North Country Story (novel, 1867), The Manchester Man, (novel, serialised in Cassel's Magazine, published 1876 in full and went through at least 11 editions), Forbidden to Marry (novel, 1883), Bond Slaves (novel, 1893). Ref: ODNB; Harland, 300, 364-5, 433-4, 448-9, 484-5; Vicinus (1974), 160; Sutton, 37 (many manuscripts and letters). See online resources: [], []. [F] [—Iain Rowley]Vaughan, Thomas (‘The Hereford Poet’, 1813-63), tailor, of Hereford, pub. Morah; or the Indian wife: a moral tale; also, Songs and ballads; and, The apparition: a tale of Hereford, founded upon fact (Hereford, 1863). Ref: Reilly (2000), 474.? Vedder, David (bap. 1789-1854), of Burness [Deerness], Orkney, orphan, cabin boy, ship’s captain, prolific magazine and anthology contributor. Pub: poems dedicated to “Burns” (presumably Robert Burns, qv) and Ebenezer Elliott (qv)., and The Covenanter’s Communion and Other Poems (1826), Orcadian Sketches [prose and verse] (1832), Poems—Legendary, Lyrical and Descriptive (1842), and others, including a memoir of Walter Scott (1832); Sutton, 964. Ref: ODNB; Wilson, II, 117-21. [S]? Verney, Thomas, author of A copy of verses humbly presented to all my worthy masters and mistresses in the ward of Castle-Baynard, by Thomas Verney, Bell-man (1742), BL 1870.d.1(64). Ref: ESTC.? Vernon, Henry, of Alnwick, Northumberland, pub. Thoughts of leisure hours: poems, songs &c. &c. (Edinburgh: Commercial Printing Company, 1871). Ref: Reilly (2000), 475; Charles Cox, Catalogue 53, item 271.Vernon, James (fl. 1842), of South Molton, Devon, and London, Chartist worker-poet, repeatedly prosecuted, got partial paralysis while in prison; pub. in The Northern Star and in separate booklets, including The Afflicted Muse (South Molton, 1842). Ref: Kovalev, 99; Scheckner, 313, 343; Schwab 219. [C]Vernon, William, author of ‘A Journey into Wales’, Gents. Mag. May 1757; Poems on Several Occasions by William Vernon, a Private Soldier in the Buffs (1758: BL 11642.de.27). Ref: LC 2, 97-114; Radcliffe; Gents. Mag., May 1757; Poole & Markland, 109-11. [LC 2]Waddell, James (fl. 1809), shoemaker ‘poet laureate of Plessy and the neighbouring villages’, pub. The Poetical Works of James Waddell (Morpeth, 1809). Ref: Iolo A. Williams, By-Ways Round Helicon: A Kind of Anthology (London: Heinemann, 1922), 137.Waddington, James (1829-61), b. Horton, near Bradford, lived at Saltaire, wool-sorter, weaver, supported an aged parent; author of Flowers of the Glen: The Poetical Remains of James Waddington, ed. by Eliza Craven Green (Bradford, 1862). Waddington was of ‘retiring habits’ and enjoyed reading, esp. Coleridge, lamb, Christopher North and Wordsworth. He was elected a first-class member of the Phonetic Society of Great Britain and Ireland and for some years edited two phonetic magazines, the Pioneer and the Excelsior, ‘to which he freely contributed essays, tales and short poems’ (biography by Revd A. H. Rix, printed in Forshaw). Ref: Holroyd, 81, 104-6, 133; Forshaw, 164-7; Maidment (1987), 187, 196-7; Vicinus (1974), 161, 171, Reilly (2000), 479.Wakefield, George (1821-88), of Uttoxeter, carpenter’s son, shoemaker, railway night watchman and porter at Uttoxeter station, pub. Poems on various subjects (1854); The River Dove and Human Life Compared (1856). Ref: Poole & Markland,173-5.Walker, James Bradshawe (b. c. 1809), of Leeds, ‘working man’, self-educated weaver who became a schoolmaster, though he ‘struggled most of his life in Leeds as a woollen cloth drawer’ (Cross); pub. Way-Side Flowers; or, Poems, Lyrical and Descriptive (Leeds, 1840) ‘with poems on Nidderdale, Laetitia Landon and leeds Moot-Hall’ and a ‘Song of the Aeronaut’; Spring Leaves of prose and poetry (London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co; Leeds: J.Y. Knight, 1845). Ref: Newsam 218-19; Holroyd, 44; Cross, 143; Charles Cox, Catalogue 51 (2005), item 282; COPAC.Walker, John, of Liverpool, shoemaker poet, pub. A Descriptive Poem On The Town And Trade Of Liverpool (1789). Ref: LC 3, 143-52; Johnson, item 932, may possibly also refer. [LC 3]Walker, John (b. c. 1747), farm labourer, pub. Poems in English, Scotch and Gaelic (Glasgow, 1817). Ref: Johnson, item 931. [S]Walker, John (b. 1845), of Blackburn, son of a working-man, largely self-taught, pupil-teacher, warehouseman, journalist. Ref: Hull, 272-87.Walker, John (b. 1857), of Rothesay, Glasgow factory worker, artist. Ref: Edwards, 10, 102-9. [S]Walker, John (1861-1932), of Wythburn, Thirlmere, Cumberland, worked in wool manufacture from an early age, wrote for newspapers, pub. Hubert and Emmeline: poems on nature, and other poems (Edinburgh, 1887). Ref: Reilly (1994), 493.Walker, Samuel, of Shaneshill (1803-85), contributed poems to Belfast journals but never had a separate collection. Ref. Hewitt. [I]Walker, William, ‘Bill Stumps’ (b. 1830), cattle-herder, quarryman, pub. poems in the People’s Journal. Ref: Edwards, 3, 102-6. [S]Wall, John (John William Henry (‘J.H.W.’) Wall, ‘Mervyn Dauncey’, 1855-1915), Bristol shoemaker, poet and activist, a leading figure in the Bristol Pioneers’ Boot and Shoe Productive Society and in the Bristol Evening Class Scholarships Association, Secretary of the local Trades Council, friend of John Gregory (qv), pub. poems (as Dauncey, including a train poem, ‘On the Rail’) and prose on local and historical matters in the Bristol newspapers. Ref Bristol Record Office, papers of John Wall ref 37886 (including memorabilia and press cuttings 37886/7/1, 37886/1/5, 37886/7/5, 37886/7/6); inf. Madge Dresser (UWE). ? Wallace, Alexander (b. 1816), of Paisley, draw boy, weaver’s apprentice, later university educated temperance writer and preacher, pub. Poems and sketches (Glasgow, London and Edinburgh, 1862). Ref: Reilly (2000), 482. [S]Wallace, Andrew (b. 1835), of Leslie, Fife, son of stonemason, clerk, emigrated to Canada, returned to Scotland, railway cashier, inspector of the poor, pub. Essays, sketches and poems (London and Glasgow, 1869). Ref: Reilly (2000), 482. [S]Wallace, Edgar (Richard Horatio, 1875-1932), of Greenwich, orphan, raised by the family of a Billingsgate fish-porter, began writing career while in the army as a private soldier, became the Daily Mail's war correspondent (1900), pub. The Mission that failed: a tale of the raid, & other poems (Cape Town, 1898), and numerous prose thrillers. Ref: ODNB; Reilly (1994), 495.Wallace, George (b. 1845), ‘The Spring Poet’, cooper, soft-goods manufacturer. Ref: Edwards, 14, 354-8. [S]? Wallace, William (b. 1862), of Edinburgh, later Glasgow, clerk at 13, telegraph messenger, porter. Ref: Edwards, 7, 202-4. [S]Waller, John Rowell (b. 1854), of Cragg Head, County Durham, joiner, ironmonger, engineering worker, lived at Wallsend, pub. Unstrung links: dropped from the disjointed chain of a toiling life, as the ringing chorus of nature’s music beat time on the anvil of a responding heart (Darlington, 1878); Ramblings and Musings (1886); Wayside Flowers: being, The Battle of Otterburn and other poems (Bedlington, 1881); Woodland and shingle: poems and songs (Darlington, 1883), and other volumes. Ref: Reilly (2000), 483; Reilly (1994), 495; Newcastle Lit & Phil Library.Walmesley, Luke Slater (b. 1841), of Blackburn, son of a factory ‘tackler’, schoolmate of Henry Yates (qv), member of the Billington circle of poets, and of the Mechanics’s Institute. Ref: Hull, 238-45.Walter, Rowland (‘Ionoron Glan Dwyryd’, 1819-84), native of Blaenau Ffestiniog, Merioneth, quarryman, emigrated to USA in 1852; pub: Lloffion y Gweithiwr (1852, Wales), Caniadau Ionoron (1872, Utica). Ref: OCLW. [W] [—Katie Osborn]Walsh, John (b. 1848), of Blackburn, printer’s devil, weaver, dialect and local poet. Ref: Hull, 302-14; biography, photograph and selection of poems online at: , Ann (fl. 1810), ‘cottage girl poet’, of Harlestone, Northamptonshire, pub. Original Pieces on Different Subjects, Chiefly in Verse (Harleston, Northants, c. 1810). Hold locates a copy in Local Studies at Northants Central Library, but it is not listed on COPAC or Northants Library Catalogue; nothing via Google or Google Books. Ref: Hold, 143-5. [F]? Wanless, Andrew (b. 1824), of Longformacus, Lammermoor, bookbinder, emigrated to Canada, pub. several vols of poetry and Sketches and Anecdotes (1891), dubbed the ‘Burns of the United States’. Ref: Ross, 125-35; Crockett, 228-36. [S]Ward, Edward, ‘Ned’ (1667-1740), probably born in the English Midlands to poor parents though he claimed endowed Leicestershire relatives, popular writer and (among many other roles) publican poet; pub. The Poet's Ramble after Riches (in Hudibrastic verse; London, 1691); many satirical poems, volumes and pamphlets, and other surviving prose works. Ref: ODNB; LC 1, 1-32; Christmas, 67; Sutton, 974. [LC 1]Ward, Richard (b. 1863), of Paisley, miner, emigrated to America but returned to Paisley, pub. pieces in papers. Ref: Brown, II, 507-11. [S]Wardrop, Alexander (b. 1850), of Whitburn, Linlithgowshire, weaver’s son, tailor, pub. Johnnie Mathison’s courtship and marriage with, Poems and songs (Coatbridge, 1881), Mid-Cauther Fair: a dramatic pastoral, with other poems, songs, and prose sketches (Glasgow, 1887); Robin Tamson’s Hamely Sketches (Glasgow nd. c. 1902). Ref: Edwards, 4, 81-4; Bisset, 226-36; Reilly (1994), 498. [S]Waters, Daniel (b. 1838), of Wick, house painter, pub. in Glasgow magazines. Ref: Edwards, 2, 253-6. [S]? Watkins, John (1809-1850), popular Chartist poet and lecturer, translator, edited the London Chartist Monthly Magazine, poems included ‘The Golden Age’, also wrote a play, John Frost, and a biography of Ebenezer Elliott (qv, his father-in-law). Ref: ODNB; Kovalev, 82-6; Scheckner, 314-17, 344; Schwab 219. [C]Watson, Alexander (1744-1831), of Aberdeen, tailor, author of ‘The Kail Brose of Auld Scotland’ and ‘The Wee Wifukie’; pub. The anti-Jacobin,?a hudibrastic poem in twenty-one cantos (Edinburgh, 1794). Ref: ESTC; Eyre-Todd, 46. [S]Watson, George (b. 1846) of Dundee, rope-spinner (‘The Roper Bard’), pub. Love’s task: poems and songs, 2nd ser (Dundee, 1899). Ref: Edwards, 14, 36-41; Reilly (1994), 501. [S]Watson, Jean Logan (d. 7 Oct. 1885), of Peebleshire, brought up on a farm, mother died when she was seven, lived and died in Edinburgh where she had a ‘large circle of friends’; wrote epitomes of Scottish lives, including Hugh Miller (qv), pub. numerous volumes of fiction and non-fiction prose and verse including Bygone days in Our Village; Round the Grange Farm, ‘and other books full of quaint simplicity and freshness, and breathing from every page, the delightful personality of the writer’ (Anderson). Ref: Edwards, 4, 126-31; Alexander Anderson (qv), Later Poems, p, 86 note. [F] [S]Watson, Jessie J. Simpson (b. 1854), of Greenock, miller’s daughter; poems include ‘We’re A’ Weel At Hame,’ ‘Dune Wi’ Time,’ and ‘Come Wi’ Me, Bessie’. Ref: Edwards, 3, 262-5, inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S]? Watson, John (1793-1878), of Fearn, near Brechin, farmer and poet, wrote agricultural reports for magazines and newspapers, pub. Samples in common sense, in verse, by a Forfarshire farmer (Brechin, 1875) [poems]. Ref: Edwards, 1, 38-40; Shanks, 156-8, Reilly (2000), 486 [S]? Watson, John (b. 1856), of Longside, Aberdeenshire, railway clerk. Ref: Edwards, 1, 291. [S]Watson, Richard (1833-1918), lead miner’s son, of Middleton-in-Teesdale, iron ore miner, pub. Poems (1862), revised and expanded as The Poetical Works of Richard Watson, of Woodland Collieries, late of Middleton-in-Teesdale, with a brief sketch of the author (Darlington: William Dresser, 1884), reprinted 1930; Egremont Castle, and miscellaneous poems (Whitehaven, 1868); Rhymes of a Rustic Bard: The Poems and Songs of Richard Watson (Barnard Castle: The Teesdale Mercury, 1979); this edition adds the substantial ‘Middleton-in-Teesdale Fair’. Ref: LC 6, 33-54; Reilly (2000), 486; Reilly (1994), 501; James McTaggart, Around the Hollow Hills [biography of Watson] (Barnard Castle: Teesdale Mercury, 1978); Bridget Keegan, ‘“Incessant toil and hands innumerable”: Mining and Poetry in the Northeast of England’, Victoriographies, 1 (2011), 177-201. [LC 6]Watson, Thomas, gardener of Lasswade, Midlothian, pub. A Collection of Poems (Edinburgh, 1835). Ref: ?Wilson, II, 540. [S]Watson, Thomas (1807-75), b. Arbroath, Angus, worked as a weaver then became a house painter, contributed to many Scottish periodicals, pub. Homely pearls at random strung: poems, songs, and sketches (Edinburgh and Arbroath, 1873). Ref: Reilly (2000), 487, Edwards, 2, 220-4. [S]Watson, Walter (1780-1854), of Chryston, Lanarkshire, cowherd, soldier, weaver, pub. vols of poems and songs in 1808, 1823, 1843, Poems and Songs, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (1853); selected works with a memoir by Hugh McDonald (?1853). Ref: ODNB; Glasgow Poets, 164-67; Macleod, 267-69; Wilson, II, 33-5. [S]Watson, William (fl. 1820-40), of Newcastle upon Tyne, author of the songs ‘Dance to thy Daddy’, ‘Thumping luck to yon Town’, ‘Newcassel Races’ and ‘Newcastle Landlords 1834’. Ref: Allan, 204-14.Watt, Alexander (b. 1841), of East Kilbride, weaver, slater, day-labourer, from a family of rhymers, pub. in local press, including prize poem on Janet Hamilton. Ref: Murdoch, 366-9; Edwards, 3, 136-41. [S]Watt, James E. (b. 1839), of Montrose, weaver, pub. Poetical sketches of Scottish life and character (Dundee, 1880). Ref: Edwards 1, 73-77; Reilly (1994), 503, Murdoch, 316-20. [S]Watt, Walter (b. 1826), of Edinburgh, later of Glasgow, tobacco-spinner, violin-maker, pub. Sketches in prose and poetry (Glasgow, 1881); The art of violin making [prose work] (1892). Ref: Reilly (1994), 503; Bisset, 145-50; Edwards, 8, 225-30 [S]Watt, William (1792-1859), ‘peasant poet and precentor’ (Edwards), of West Linton, Peebleshire, herder, weaver, singer, pub. vol. of songs in 1835, and Comus and Cupid (1844); Poems on Sacred and Other Subjects (1860). Ref: inf. Kaye Kossick; Edwards, 2, 51-5, Murdoch, 144-6. [S]Watts, John George, of London, Billingsgate fish market porter, pub. Fun, feeling, and fancy: being a series of lays and lyrics (London, 1861), The blacksmith‘s daughter, and other poems (London, 1874), A lay of a Cannibal Island And other Poems, Gay and grave (London: Judd and Co. Ltd, 1887). Ref: Reilly (2000), 487; Reilly (1994), 503.Watts, Thomas (1845-87), of Wexford, tailor, pub. Woodland echoes (Kelso, 1880). Ref: Edwards, 3, 70-76 and 12, xxi-xxii; Crockett, 190-7; Reilly (1994), 504. [I] [S]Waugh, Edwin (1817-90), hugely successful Lancashire dialect poet, son of a Rochdale shoemaker. Waugh published prolifically, in poetry and prose; the main works are listed below. A selection of unpublished letters to Waugh by budding local writers is included in Maidment, 350-2, and a selection from Waugh’s diaries, edited and abridged by Brian Hollingsworth, was self-published by Hollingsworth in 2008 as The Diary of Edwin Waugh: Life in Victorian Manchester and Rochdale. Principal pubs. are A Ramble from Bury to Rochdale (Manchester, 1853); Sketches of Lancashire Life and Localities (Manchester, 1855); Come whoam to thy Childer an me (Manchester, 1856); Chirrup [a song] (Manchester, 1858); Poems and Lancashire Songs (Manchester, 1859); Over the Sands to the Lakes (Manchester, 1860); The Birtle Carter’s tale about Owd Bodle (Manchester, 1861); The Goblin’s Grave (Manchester, 1861); Rambles in the Lake Country and Its Borders (Manchester, 1861); Lancashire Songs (Manchester, 1863); Fourteen days in Scotland... (Manchester, 1864); Tufts of Heather, from the Lancashire Moors (Manchester’ 1864); Besom Ben (Manchester, 1865); The Owd Bodle (Manchester, 1865); What ails thee, my son Robin (Manchester, 1865); Ben an’ th’ Bantam (Manchester, 1866); Poesies from a Country Garden: selections from the works, 2 vols (Manchester, 1866); Prince’s Theatre...The Grand Christmas Pantomime (Manchester, 1866); The Birthplace of Tim Bobbin (Manchester, 1867); Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk During the Cotton Famine (Manchester, 1867); The Owd Blanket (Manchester, 1867); Dules-gate; or a Frish through Lancashire Clough (Manchester, 1868); Sneck-Bant; or th’ owd Tow Bar (Manchester, 1868); A Guide to Castletown... (Manchester, 1869); Irish Sketches (Manchester, 1869); Johnny O’Wobbler’s an’ th’ Two Wheeled Dragon (Manchester, 1869); Lancashire Sketches (Manchester, 1869); An Old Nest (Manchester, 1869); Snowed-up (Manchester, 1869); Rambles and Reveries (Manchester, 1872); Jarnock (or, the Bold Trencherman) (Manchester, 1873); The Old Coal Men (Manchester, 1873); Old cronies, or Wassail in a country inn (Manchester, 1875); The Hermit Cobbler (Manchester, 1878); Around the Yule Log (Manchester, 1879); In the Lake Country (Manchester, 1880); Waugh’s Complete Works, 10 vols. (Manchester, 1881); Fireside Tales (Manchester, 1885); The Chimney Corner (Manchester, 1892). ~ Ref: LC 5, 315-30; ODNB; George Milner, Edwin Waugh (Manchester: Papers of the Manchester Literary Club, 1893); Harland, 316-17, 328-9, 343-4, 372-4, 408-10, 503-4, 529-33; Vicinus (1973), 750-3; Vicinus (1974), 167, 189; Hollingworth (1977), 155 [has b/w photograph]; Ashraf (1978), I, 26; Martha Vicinus, Edwin Waugh: The Ambiguities of Self-Help (Littleborough: George Kelsall, 1984); Cross, 161-3; Maidment (1987), 249-53, 350-2, 366-8; Zlotnick, 196-207; Goodridge (1999), item 124; Miles, X, vi; Reilly (2000), 487-8; Reilly (1994), 504-5; Brian Hollingworth, ‘Edwin Waugh: The Social Literary Standing of a Working-Class Icon’, in Class and the Canon: Constructing Labouring-Class Poetry and Poetics, 1780-1900, ed. Kirstie Blair and Mina Gorji (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 174-90; Sutton, 983; . [LC 5]Webb, John (‘Kenrick Prescott’), weaver of Haverhill, Suffolk, pub. Mildenhall (1771), Poems (1772), Haverhill, a Descriptive Poem and Other Poems (London: printed for the author and sold by J. Nunn, 1810), xxiv, 119, includes subscription list with numerous local residents, and is described as ‘poems by a journeyman weaver, born in the vale of obscurity...The poem is in the form of a narrative saga, with numerous direct or oblique References to local people, places, and events. As poetry it probably has little merit: as an illustration of working-class emancipation it may have rather more’ (John Drury Rare Books catalogue 104, 2000-2001, item 149). Haverhill, a long locodescriptive poem, dedicates several pages to memorialising Webb's friend James Chambers (qv); there was a seond edition in 1859. Ref: COPAC; Cranbrook, 243.? Webbe [Webb], Cornelius Francis (1789-1858), sometimes referred to by contemporaries as ‘Corny’ Webb, of Holborn, London, press proof-reader, friend of Keats, pub. poems in the Quarterly Review and New Monthly Magazine, as well as volumes Summer; An Invocation to Sleep: Fairy revels; and Songs and Sonnets (London, 1821); Sonnets, Amatory, Incidental, and Descriptive, with other Poems (1820); Lyric Leaves (1832). He later published successful essay collections and other prose works. Ref: ODNB; Cross, 133; Radcliffe; Sutton, 983 (letters).Webber, James B, of Melrose, pub. Rambles around the Eildons (Hawick, 1883, 2nd edn 1895). Ref: Reilly (1994), 506. [S]? Webber, John L. (‘The Dartmoor Poet’), pub. Poems on Widecombe-in-the-Moor and neighbourhood (Devonport, c. 1876). Ref: Reilly (2000), 488.? Webster, Ann, blind poet, pub. Solitary Musings (London, 1825), [BL 11642.bb.8]. Ref: MacDonald Shaw, 95-6; Jackson (1993), 363. [F]Webster, David (1787-1837), of Paisley, weaver, pub. an Ode to the memory of Tannahill (1828); Original Scottish Poems; Humorous and Satirical (Paisley, 1824), Original Scottish Rhymes with Humorous and Satirical Songs (Paisley, 1835), pamphlet: An Address to Fame, or Hints on the Improvement of Weaving, newspaper pubs. Ref: Brown, I, 181-88; Wilson, II, 540-41; Douglas, 304; Leonard, 92-102; NCSTC. [S]Webster, George (b. 1846), of Stuartfield, Aberdeenshire, herd lad, ploughman. Ref: Edwards, 10, 327-31. [S]Wedderburn, Alexander (b or d? 1836), of Aberdeenshire, farm labourer, ?shoemaker, pub. in the anthology, Poems by the People. Ref: Edwards, 6, 238-41. [S]Weekes, James Eyre (fl. 1745-56), shoemaker poet, of Dublin, pub. Poems on Several Occasions (Dublin, 1743), The Cobler’s Poem. To A Certain Noble Peer, Occasioned by the Bricklayer’s Poem (Dublin, 1745), The Resurrection (Dublin, 1745), The amazon, or female courage vindicated (Dublin, 1745), Rebellion. A poem (Dublin, 1745), A Rhapsody on the stage or, the art of playing. In imitation of Horace’s Art of Poetry (1746), The gentlemen’s hourglass, or an introduction to chronology (1750), A new geography of Ireland (1752), The Young Grammarian’s Magazine of Words (1753), Solomon’s Temple, an oratorio (1753). Ref: LC 2, 41-8; Christmas, 134-6. [LC 2] [I]Weir, Daniel (1796-1831), of Greenock, of humble parentage and limited education, bookseller, pub. poems in his edited collections The National Minstrel, The Sacred Lyre and Lyrical Gems. Ref: Wilson, II, 155-7. [S]Welsh, James C. (1890-1954), coalminer, born in the mining village of Haywood, Lanarkshire, as the fourth child of a fairly large family.?~ At the time he began attending school, the Welsh household’s struggle against poverty was felt most keenly.?Recalling that he would marvel at his mother’s fortitude, Welsh later wrote, in his introuduction to Songs of a Miner: ‘I never cease to feel that there is an insane ordering of temporal things, which condemns the women of the class to which I belong to unreasonable and unnecessary suffering’.?He proceeds to extol those working-class women who begot a generation of miners: ‘Women who can give the world sons like these have virtues worth immortalizing’.?After leaving school at eleven, Welsh went on to labour in the mines at every phase of coal getting up until around 1915, when he was appointed checkweigher. ~ Although Welsh admits that life in the pit was ‘irksome’, he states that it was ‘by no means destitute of joy’, particularly as it allowed him to explore an interest in Trade Union affairs.?He went on to work closely with Glasgow socialists in the Independent Labour Party and was elected to the House of Commons for Coatbridge in the 1922. General Election. ~ Since early life, Welsh harboured dreams of being a writer – ‘when?I wanted to express a certain mood I knew no peace until it was on paper’ – and with the singular encouragement of Mr J. Harrison Maxwell, a Glasgow teacher, and his wife, published Songs of a Miner in 1917.?Resisting the dominant literary world’s labeling of him as a ‘miner poet’, Welsh affirms in his introduction: ‘“Ploughmen poets”, “navy poets”, “miner poets” appeal only to the superficialities of life.?The poet aims at its elementals’.?In any case, a critic in The New Age (May 9, 1919) responded: ‘After reading Mr Welsh’s verses, I join with him in wondering why his occupation is mentioned at all.?Except possibly for two poems, this volume might have been written by a stockbroker or a chimney-sweep… his verses are not distinctive in any way’.?More recently, Pamela Fox (1994, 2) writes: ‘Inscribed with a range of anxious gestures, they proudly claim, and just as insistently deny, their own class specificity’. ~ In 1920, Welsh published a successful socialist coalfields novel, The Underworld: The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner.?It is recognised by The Cornhill Magazine as the book that brought Welsh into the public eye,?‘a very moving story… probably the most vivid tale of a Trade Unionist’s life since Mary Barton’. ~ Pub. Songs of A Miner (London: Herbert Jenkins, 1917); The Underworld: The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company Publishers, 1920, available at ). Ref: The Cornhill Magazine (1860); The New Age, 23, no.2, May 9th 1919; Burnett et al (1984), 333-4 (no. 743); H. Gustav Klaus, ‘James C. Welsh: Major Miner Novelist’, Scottish Literary Journal, XIII, no. 2 (1986), 65-98; Pamela Fox, Class Fictions – C: Shame and Resistance in the British Working-Class Novel, 1890-1945 (Duke University Press, 1994); HYPERLINK "" grian.demon.co.uk. [OP] [—Iain Rowley]Welsh, William, Peebleshire cottar of Romanno Bridge, pub. Poetical and prose works, new enlarged edition (Edinburgh, 1856, 3rd edn Edinburgh, 1875). Ref: Reilly (2000), 489. [S]? West, Jane (née Iliffe, 1758-1852), of London, moved to Desborough, Northamptonshire, farmer’s wife, self-taught poet, patronised by Percy, wrote novels, poetry, children's literature, and conduct tracts. Pub. Miscellaneous Poetry, Written at an Early Period of Life (London, 1786); The Humours of Brighthelmstone: a Poem (1788); Miscellaneous Poems and a Tragedy [‘Edmund’] (1791); An Elegy on the Death of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke (1797); Poems and Plays (vols. 1 and 2, 1799; 3 and 4, 1805); and The Mother: a Poem in Five Books (1799). She also wrote numerous novels, including The Advantages of Education (1793, under the pseudonym 'Prudentia Homespun') and her most popular work, A Gossip's Story (1796), as well as an account of a tour in Wales and Ireland that includes several poems (manuscript owned by University of Cambridge, item in Add.738). Ref: ODNB; Radcliffe; Hold, 152-54; Rizzo, 243, Jackson, 364-5, Lonsdale (1989), 379-85; Andrew Ashfield (ed), Romantic Women Poets, 1770-1838 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995), 153; Paula R. Feldman, British Women Poets of the Romantic Era, 1770-1840 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 792-5; Backscheider & Ingrassia, 889; Sutton, 991. [F]Westbury, Eliza (1808-28), of Hackleton, Northamptonshire, who `During the last two years of her life’ wrote ‘about one hundred and fifty Hymns, besides other poetry’; these were ‘composed while she was earning her living at lace-making and which she used to write at her leisure’. Pub. Hymns; by a Northamptonshire village female. To which is added, a short account of her life (Northampton, 1828). Ref Sibyl Phillips, Glorious Hope: Women and Evangelical Religion in Kent and Northamptonshire, 1800-1850 (Northamptonshire: Compton Towers Publishing, 2004), 203-65 and ‘An Introduction to the Life, Hymns and Poetry of a Northampton Lacemaker: Eliza Westbury (1808-1828)’, The Hymn Society Bulletin of Great Britain and Ireland Bulletin 17 (2005), 309-18; Nancy Cho, ‘“The Ministry of Song”: Unmarried British Women’s Hymn-Writing, 1730-1936’, PhD dissertation, University of Durham, 2007; Johnson, item 957. [F]? Westray, C., Chartist poet. Ref: Kovalev, 100-1; Scheckner, 318-19. [C]Westwood, James (b. 1850), of Alloa, piecer (weaver), pub. ?a volume (but nothing on COPAC or Google books). Ref: Edwards, 8, 258-63. [S]Whalley, Robert West (b. 1848), of Blackburn, weaver from age 10, overlooker, local and dialect poet. Ref: Hull, 290-302.Wheatley, Phillis (1753?-1784), of Boston, MA, African-American slave, author of Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773; Dobell 2004-5). Ref: ODNB; Gents. Mag. XLIII (1773) 226; Lonsdale (1984), 616, 851; ESTC; TLS, 13 June 1986, 649; Dobell, Jackson (1993), 366-9; Basker, 170-82; Vincent Carretta, ‘Phillis Wheatley’s First Effort’, PMLA, 125, no. 3 (May 2010), 795–97. [F]Wheeler, James (c. 1718-88), labouring man, pub. The Rose of Sharon: a Poem by James Wheeler, a Labouring Man (London, 1795), a ‘dire volume’ posthumously published to raise money for widow. Ref: LC 3, 177-8. [LC 3]Wheeler, Thomas Martin (1811-62), of London, woolcomber, Chartist, poet and novelist, an autodidact who ‘wandered through England’ and ‘tried his hand at various occupations’ (Schwab); contributor to Northern Star and later The People’s Paper. Ref: Ashraf (1978), I, 25; Kovalev, 102-3;Scheckner, 320-1, 344-5; Schwab, 220. [C]Whitaker, John Appleyard, of Haworth, of a well-known Methodist family, apprenticed to a Leeds Draper, later an assistant at Cleckheaton, then in business himself at Great Horton. His father died when he was 13. he wrote and popularly recited poetry from childhood; first poem on Haworth church; other poems on religious themes, and took to publishing in local papers. Forshaw prints ‘To Our Bards’ and ‘The Preacher’. Ref: Forshaw, 168-70 (includes photograph).Whitaker, William (fl. 1870-82), of Blackburn, painter, dialect and local poet. Ref: Hull, 205-13.White, George (1764-1836), former slave turned Methodist preacher, became literate at age 42; pub. a narrative of his life in 1810 that includes poetry. Ref: Basker, 687-8.White, Henry Kirke (1785-1806), Nottingham butcher’s son, famous as a tragic prodigy, won two prizes from the Monthly Preceptor (1800) and wrote regularly for the Monthly Mirror, became ill and died while at Cambridge. Pub. Clifton Grove, a Sketch in Verse, with other Poems (1803) and a posthumous collected works by Southey for the benefit of his family (The Remains of Henry Kirke White...with an Account of his Life, 2 vols, 1807; eventually went to ten editions, including two in America). Ref: ODNB; Unwin, 118-19; Maidment (1983), 84; Meyenberg, 229-30; Richardson, 257-8; Goodridge (1999), item 125; Vincent, 145-7; Miles, X, 81; Basker, 625; Sutton, 993-4.White, Isabella (fl. 1869), of Laurencekirk, powerloom weaver, published The Lovers of the Mountain and Other Poems (Brechin: Printed by D. Burns, Advertiser Office, 1869). The prefatory material offers her sincere thanks to ladies and gentlemen who have encouraged her to publish. Her volume contains romantic ballads, such as ‘On Cluny Castle, Invernesshire,’ and other verses, among them ‘On Laurencekirk—The Birthplace of the Authoress,’ which briefly describes her childhood. Ref: inf. Florence Boos. [F] [S] White, John (b. 1859), of Whitburn, tailor, violinist, comic songwriter, poems in Bisset. Ref: Bisset, 268-70. [S]? White, Robert (1802-74), farmer’s son of Roxburghshire, poet and antiquarian. Pub. The Wind. A Poem (1853); England. A Poem (1856); his prose ‘Autobiographical Notes’ were published in a handset limited edition of 90 in 1966 (Newcastle upon Tyne: Eagle Press, the University Library). Ref: ODNB; Wilson, II, 257-60, Welford, III, 604-9; Burnett et al (1984), 336-7 (no. 749a); Sutton, 994-5. (Johnson, item 962 may relate.) [S]? White, Walter (1811-93), of Reading, upholsterer, librarian and writer, emigrated to America (New York and Poughkeepsie) but returned in 1839, then moved to London and became a librarian at the Royal Society. Pub. The Prisoner and his dream: a ballad (?1885). Ref: ODNB; Reilly (1994), 510.Whitehead, Harry Buckley (1890-1966), of Diggle, Oldham, dialect poet, millworker from age 13 to retirement, pub. Rhymes of a Village Poet (1963). Ref: Hollingworth (1977), 156. [OP]Whitehead, John (1797-1879), of Duns, shoemaker, pub. in the newspapers. Ref: Crockett, 131-2. [S]? Whitelaw, James (1840-87), of Dundee, compositor, sub-editor of the People’s Friend. Ref: Edwards, 11, 256-62. [S]Whitmore, William (fl. 1850-59), Chartist poet, housepainter and friend of William Jones, correspondent of Leatherland (qv), published poems in Cooper’s Journal (1850) and Firstlings, a collection of his verse appeared in 1852 (Leicester and London: John Chapman). Through his friendship with John Roebuck, a member of the London Working Men’s College, his work was brought to the note of Tom Hughes, who sponsored the publication of a further selection of his verse in 1859 under the title Gilbert Marlowe and other poems, with a preface by the author of ‘Tom Brown's school days’ (Cambridge: Macmillan, 1859). Ref: Schwab, 220; Ashton & Roberts, 62; Star Of Freedom, 7 August 1852, 3; inf. from contributor. [C] [—Ned Newitt]Whittell, Thomas (1683-1736), of Northumberland, ‘The Northumbrian poet’, ‘The Licentious Poet’, miller and humorous poet, pub. The Midford Galloway (Newcastle?, 1790?); Poetical Works (1815). Ref: ESTC; Welford, III, 613-15.Whittett, Robert (b. 1829), of Perth, worked in Aberdeen and Edinburgh as a printer, returned to Perth then emigrated, in 1869 purchasing a plantation in Virginia to set up in business, became senior partner in a publishing firm; pub. The Brighter Side of Suffering and Other Poems (1882). Ref: Ross, 110-16. [S]Wickenden, William S., farm labourer of Etloe in the Forest of Dean, ‘The Bard of the Forest’, ‘as little blessed by education a fortune’, friend and neighbour of Edward Jenner, poet and novelist, pub. Count Glarus, of Switzerland. Interspersed with some Pieces of Poetry (Gloucester, 1819), Bleddyn: a Welch national tale (London: Baldwin, Cradock and Joy, 1821, two edns), Prose and poetry of the Bard of the Forest (Cambridge: Harwood & Hall, 1825). Ref: James Burmester Catalogue 47, items 168-9, 254; inf. Bob Heyes.? Wight, William, Cottage Poems (Edinburgh: James Ballantyne & Co, 1820). Ref: Jackson (1985); information of Bob Heyes. [S]Wightman, Margaret Theresa, born in Ireland, lived in Dundee, mantle and millinery shopworker, pub. The Faithful Shepherd, and other poems (Edinburgh and Glasgow, 1876). Her poems are accomplished; several praise a Dundee pastor and one is about ‘The Factory Girl.’ Ref: Reilly (2000), 495; Boos (2008), 22; inf. Florence Boos. [F] [I] [S]? Wildman, Abraham (1803-70), of Keighley, of Quaker stock, wrote verses early and worked for the Board of Guardians before becoming involved in the shorter hours movement. As its secretary he wrote to the Duke of Wellington among others. He drew up petitions in defence of factory workers. He was later in business (unsuccessfully) and worked as a wool-sorter. He suffered a number of family misfortunes; his daughter was crippled in a mill accident, his son disappeared to Australia and his wife died. He became unable to work and a subscription was raised for his Lays of Hungary to alleviate poverty. Pub. Miscellaneous Poems (London: Simpkin and Marshall, 1829); Lays of Hungary. (dnk; untraced on Google, COPAC or Library of Congress catalogue). Holroyd prints his poem ‘Labour’; mentioned by Ashraf; Forshaw prints his ‘The Factory Child’s Complaint’ and ‘Lines Composed on the Banks of the Aire’. Through the intervention of Sir Titus Salt he was alloted an almshouse, whre he moved with his disabled daughter, and saved from the workhouse, which he had feared. Ref: Forshaw, 171-4; Holroyd, 122; Ashraf (1978), I, 37.Wildon, Robert Carrick (1817-57), of North Bierley, Yorkshire, of humble parentage, job tailor, who married young and whose later life was ‘one continual struggle with poverty and sickness’. He ‘contrived to educate himself in a way one can hardly realize, when we consider his scant means and opportunities’. As these quotes suggest, the headnote on Wildon in Forhsaw, written by George Ackroyd who had interviewed him, is interesting in its small details and describes an interaction in which Ackroyd suggested themes to the poet. He published a number of volumes, died in Bradford infirmary and is buried in Bingley cemetery, a ‘few yards away’ from John Nicholson the Airedale poet (qv). Pub. The Poacher’s Child: Founded on Facts (London: J. Watson, 1853); Tong, or a Summer’s Day; The Forbidden Union; and other Poems (Leeds: Christopher Kemplay, 1850); The Beauties of Shipley Glen, Saltaire, and lines on visiting the grave of Nicholson, the Airedale poet (Bingley: John Harrison and Sons, 1856), and A Voice from the Sycamore, on Elm Tree Hill, Bingley (Bingley: J. Dobson, 1856). Ref Forshaw 175-7; Holroyd II; COPAC.Will, Charles (b. 1861), of Methlie, Aberdeenshire, asylum attendant, police officer, pub. in newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 9, 365-8. [S]Williams, Alfred (Owen Alfred Williams, 1877-1930), born in South Marston, near Swindon, Wiltshire, railway factory worker, self-taught folklorist and poet, wrote about rural and industrial life. Pub. Songs in Wiltshire (1909), Poems in Wiltshire (1911), Nature and other Poems (1912), Cor Cordium (1913), Selected Poems with an Introduction by John Bailey (London: Erskine MacDonald, 1926), and the prose works Life in a Railway Factory (1915) Folk Songs of the Upper Thames (London: Duckworth, 1923), and Tales from the Panchatantra (1931). Ref: ODNB; Unwin, 165-89; Leonard Clark, Alfred Williams of Swindon (Bristol: William George’s Sons and Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1945; Alfred Williams, In a Wiltshire Village: Scenes from Rural Victorian Life, ed. M. J. Davis (Alan Sutton; 1981, 1992). Link: [OP]? Williams, Anna (1706-83), blind poet, born at Rosemarket, Pembs. but moved to London at age twenty-one and spent the rest of her life there; in 1727, her father moved into the Charterhouse, a school and almshouse for gentlemen under financial duress, though it is unclear if he was a supporter or a dependent; Williams became blind after an operation on her eyes in 1752; she was acclaimed and supported by Samuel Johnson, who helped her with Miscellanies in Prose and Verse (1766). Ref: OCLW; Gramich & Brennan, 60-63, 395. [W] [F] [—Katie Osborn]Williams, E., working man of Bristol, pub. The City at Night, and other poems (London, 1864). Ref: Reilly (2000), 497.Williams, Edward (‘Iolo Morganwg’, 1746-1826), Glamorgan born stonemason, poet and antiquarian, an important and controversial figure in Welsh cultural history; now the subject of a multi-volume research project from the University of Wales Press and the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, Aberystwyth, including a three-volume edition of his Letters, three monographs and a collection of essays. ~ Williams was born at Pennon, Glamorgan, the eldest of four sons to Edward, a stonemason, and his wife Ann Matthews, the well-educated ‘daughter of a gentlemen who had wasted a pretty fortune’.?Deprived of formal schooling due to wretched health, Williams learned to read by watching his father inscribe letters onto gravestones and through his mother teaching him songs from The Vocal Miscellany. ~ Williams adopted his father’s profession, while finding time to explore Welsh verse and develop his poetic craftsmanship with the aid of local bards such as Lewis Hopkin and Rhys Morgan.?As a wandering stonemason in London and Kent from 1773 to 1777 he encountered the Society of Gwyneddigion and became an active participant in the vibrant Welsh sector of the capital.?It was during this period that Williams’s imagination was stirred by the manuscript poems of Dafydd ap Gwilym. ~ After returning to Glamorgan, Williams married Margaret Roberts in 1781, ‘apostrophising her as Euron in love poems imitating those of Dafydd ap Gwilym’ (Morgan).?The relationship grew trying as Williams moved from farming in Monmouthshire to building in Llandaff to trading along the Bristol Channel, attempting to offset the frustrations of such drudgeries by copying ancient manuscripts and composing fake Welsh medieval poetry.?Williams fled to Wales to evade his debt creditors in England before undergoing a spell in Cardiff gaol in 1786-7.?Of the four children he and his wife bore, two survived. ~ Williams’s discourse on Welsh metrics, ‘The Secret of the Bards of the Isle of Britain’ – illustrating that ‘Glamorgan bards had never accepted the classical rules of Welsh poetry agreed in 1453’ (Morgan) – was a product of his time in prison.?Additionally, he produced poems that were redolent of Dafydd ap Gwilym’s verse to the point of being included as an appendix in a 1789 edition of Dafydd’s works and deemed to be Dafydd’s authentic compositions for over a century. ~ Williams’s conception of Glamorgan bards uniquely perpetuating primeval druidic tradition was submitted in The Gentleman’s Magazine (November 1789), and in 1791 he revisited London, declaring that he was the conduit for all the mysteries of Druidism.?He staged the first ceremony – as well as inventing the rites and rituals – of ‘The Gorsedd of Bards of the Isle of Britain’ at Primrose Hill the following year.?As a figure aiming to preserve and revitalise Welsh heritage and tradition, Williams became known by his bardic name of Iolo Morganwg, and the ceremony later became one of the chief attractions at the National Eisteddfod.?Williams stayed in London until 1795, supported by a large circle of friends, including Robert Southey, who granted him a moving tribute in the epic poem Madoc (1805). He indulged in his laudanum habit – of which he wrote: ‘Thou faithful friend in all my grief, / In thy soft arms I find relief, / In thee forget my woes’ –?and the publicising of myths such as America’s discovery by the twelfth-century Welsh price Madoc, and the existence of a manuscript at Raglan Castle representing a record of the bardic institution traced back to the settlement of Britain.?He even planned an expedition to America in search for a tribe of Welsh-speaking Indians, but ultimately left his young recruit to journey alone. ~ In 1794, Williams produced his first genuine work, Poems Lyrical and Pastoral, a two-volume set so popular that its subscribers ostensibly included George Washington and the Prince of Wales.?Tim Burke (LC3, 276) suggests that there is considerable ambition in Williams’s attempt ‘to fuse the genres of lyric and pastoral, in order to construct a new sense of the relationship between the aesthetics of solitude and the ethics of community’.?Reviewing the volume, the British Critic (1794) wrote: ‘Highly indeed do we disapprove of the violent and intemperate spirit which distinguishes Mr Williams in his preface, and many of his notes, but we are nevertheless equally ready to do him justice as a poet, and to confess that a portion of genius, harmony, and taste marks his compositions’. ~ Despite the warm reception of Poems, the near-starvation of his family led him back to masonry in Flemingston and then shopkeeping in Cowbridge.?He joined Owen Jones and William Owen Pughe as editors of The Myvyrian Arcaiology (3 vols., 1801-7)—the first printed corpus of?Welsh medieval literature.?After several years delving into Unitarianism, Williams became a founder of the South Wales Unitarian Society in 1802, the author of its book of regulations and a considerable quantity of hymns published a decade later. ~ Williams spent his later years in his cottage at Flemingston working on his magnum opus, ‘The History of the British Bards’, hoping to illuminate the entire history of the Druids to the world, surrounded by manuscripts.?He died in 1826 before he could complete it, and the massive collection of material was donated to the National Library of Wales in 1916, just prior to Griffith John Williams’s commencement of his lifetime study of Edward Williams.?He concluded that ‘although a pioneering Romantic poet in Welsh, and the most talented writer of the eighteenth-century Welsh cultural renaissance, he had forged a vast quantity of Welsh historical material’ (Morgan). Numerous publications. Ref: OCLW; LC 3, 275-96; ODNB; Radcliffe; Prys Morgan, Iolo Morganwyg (Cardiff, 1975); Geraint H. Jenkins, Facts, Fantasy and Fiction: The Historical Vision of Iolo Morganwg (Aberystwyth, 1997); A Rattleskull Genius: The Many Faces of Iolo Morganwg, ed. Geraint H. Jenkins (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2005, 2009); Geraint H. Jenkins, Ffion Mair Jones and David Ceri Jones (eds.), The Correspondence of Iolo Morganwg (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2007), 3 vols; Mary-Ann Constantine, The Truth Against the World: Iolo Morganwg and Romantic Forgery (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2007); Cathryn A. Charnell-White, Bardic Circles: National, Regional and Personal Identity in the Bardic Vision of Iolo Morganwg (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2007); Marion L?ffler, The Literary and Historical Legacy of Iolo Morganwg 1826-1926 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2007); ; Sutton, 999-1000 (his collected papers are owned by the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth). [LC 3] [W] [—Iain Rowley]? Williams, Eliseus (Eifion Wyn, 1867-1926), schoolteacher and accountant; born at Porthmadog, Caerns., received little education outside of Sunday School, but still became a teacher in Porthmadog and later at Pentrefoelas; in 1896 he began work as a clerk and accountant for the North Wales Slate Company; some of his hymns and poems are still popular as recitation pieces. Pub: Telynegion Maes a Mor (1906), Ieuenctid y Dydd (1894), Y Bugail (c. 1900), Caniadau’r Allt (posthumous, 1927), O Drum I Draeth (posthumous 1929). Ref: OCLW. [W] [—Katie Osborn]Williams, Griffith (‘Gutyn Peris’, 1769-1838), quarryman, born at Waunfawr, Caerns. but lived most of his life in Llandygái; student of Dafydd Ddu Eryri (David Thomas, qv); participated in a bardic ceremony organized by Iolo Morganwg (Edwards Williams, qv) during the Dinorwic Eisteddfod in 1799; defended the cynghanedd form against Ieuan Glan Geirionydd (Evan Evans, qv) in Y Gwyliedydd, a Wesleyan newspaper; pub: Ffrwyth Awen (1816). Ref: OCLW. [W] [—Katie Osborn]? Williams, Huw Owen (‘Huw Menai’, 1888-1961), variously employed, weigher and journalist; son of a miner, he was born at Caernarfon, and began work as a weigher at Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorgan in 1906; political agitator and left-wing journalist and wrote and read in both English and Welsh; began to write poetry during WWI; ‘wrote from time to time about the miner’s life, but his work is in large measure that of a nature poet in the tradition of Wordsworth’ (OCLW); pub. Four volumes of poetry: Through the Upcast Shaft (1920), The Passing of Guto (1929); Back in the Return (1933); The Simple Vision (1945). Ref: OCLW. [W] [OP] [—Katie Osborn]Williams, John (1808-66), of Lecha, west Cornwall, miner, self-taught village schoolmaster, clerk, pub. Miscellaneous Poems (1859); Poems, by the late John Williams, Edited by his son, Thomas Williams (London H. Southern & Co., 1873), which includes a memoir; the songs of largely of a Christian character; they include a poem ‘On the Emancipation of the Slaves in the West Indies in 1834’. Ref: Reilly (2000), 498; Roger Collicott catalogue no. 79, 2007; inf. Bob Heyes.Williams, John Owen (‘Pedrog’, 1853-1932), gardener and lay preacher; orphan brought up by his aunt at Llanbedrog, Caerns. where he worked as a gardener; got a job for a merchant firm and began preaching in Liverpool in 1878; prolific periodical writer; ‘won more prizes at eisteddfodau than any other poet before or since his day’ (OCLW, 1986); pub: autobiography Stori ’Mywyd (1932). Re: OCLW. [W] [—Katie Osborn]Williams, Owen (‘Owen Gwyrfai’, 1790-1874), cooper, from Waunfawr, Caerns.; student of Dafydd Ddu Eryri (David Thomas, qv); composed elegies, epitaphs, copied Welsh poetry, and collected genealogies, as well as worked on composing a dictionary, called Y Geirlyfr Cymraeg. Pub: Y Drysorfa Hynafiethol (only four parts published, 1839); selection of poetry called Gemau M?n ac Arfon (posthumous 1911); memoir by his son, with a selection of poems, called Gemau Gwyrfai (Thomas Williams, 1904). Ref: OCLW. [W] [—Katie Osborn]? Williams, Richard (‘Dic Dywyll, Bardd Gwagedd’, c. 1790-1862?), blind balladeer, born in either Anglesey or Caernarfornshire; little is known of his life, but he was “described by his contemporaries as a short, fat man, he used to put his little finger in the corner of his eye when singing ballads” (OCLW); reputed to be “the king of all the balladsingers in South Wales”; witnessed Merthyr Rising and Rebecca Riots; seventy-three of his ballads are preserved in manuscript at the National Library of Wales. Ref: OCLW. [W] [—Katie Osborn]Williams, Richard (‘Gwydderig’, 1842-1917), country poet and miner; born in Brynaman, Carms, and emigrated to Pennsylvania, USA as a young man, where he worked in a mine; spent the last years of his life in his native town in Wales; a great competitor at eisteddfodau, he won more prizes than anyone except Elisius Williams (qv). Pub: Detholion o Waith Gwydderig (posthumous, ed. J. Lloyd Thomas, 1959). Ref: OCLW. [W] [—Katie Osborn]Williams, Robert (‘Robert ap Gwilym Ddu’, 1766-1850), farmer and hymn-writer, from Llanystumdwy, Caerns.; bardic tutor of Dewi Wyn o Eifion (David Owen, qv); influenced by Goronwy Owen (qv); ignored contemporary trends in poetry, especially the popularity of the mock epic, and wrote about “the everyday events of his neighborhood” (OCLW); his most famous hymn, ‘Mae’r gwaed a redodd ar y Groes’, was first published in 1824 in the periodical Seren Gomer. Pub: Gardd Eifion (1841); twenty hymns can be found in Aleluia neu Ganiadau Cristionogol (collected by J. R. Jones, 1822). Ref: OCLW. [W] [—Katie Osborn]Williams, Robert (‘Trebor Mai’ [‘I am Robert’ backwards], 1830-77), tailor, of Llanrwst, Denbighsire; tutored by Caledfryn (William Williams, qv); pub: Fy Noswyl (1861), Y Geninen (1860), Gwaith Barddonol Prif Englyniwr Cymru (ed. Isaac Foulkes, posthumous, 1883). Ref: OCLW. [W] [—Katie Osborn]? Williams, Taliesin (‘Taliesin ab Iolo’, 1787-1847), stonemason, schoolmaster and poet; son of Iolo Morganwg (Edward Williams, qv) and said to have been born in Cardiff Gaol while his father served a bankruptcy sentence; named after a famous poet of the late sixth century; worked as a stonemason and kept various schools, serving the longest at Merthyr Tydfil, where he died; assisted his father in preparing Cyfrinach Beirdd Ynys Prydain (1829) and believed all of his father’s fabrications; won Chair at the Cardiff Eisteddfod (1834) and a prize at the Abergavenny Eisteddfod (1838). Published two poems of his own, Cardiff Castle (1827) and The Doom of Colyn Dolphyn (1837). Ref: OCLW. [W] [—Katie Osborn]Williams, Thomas (‘Eos Gwynfa’, ‘Eos y Mynydd’, c. 1769-1848), weaver; native of Montgomeryshire; pub: Telyn Dafydd (1820); Ychydig o Ganiadau Buddiol (1824); Newyddion Gabriel (1825); Manna’r Anialwch (1831); Mer Awen (1844). Ref: OCLW. [W] [—Katie Osborn]Williams, Thomas (‘Brynfab’, 1848-1927), farmer, lived in Eglwys Ilan, Glamorgan, “on the hillside above Pontypridd” (OCLW), well-known literary figure and member of Clic y Bont, a circle of Pontypridd poets and musicians; a prolific periodical contributor, his verse remains uncollected; pub: a novel, Pan oedd Rhondda’n bur (1912). Ref: OCLW. [W] [—Katie Osborn]Williams, Watkin Hezekiah (‘Watcyn Wyn’, 1844-1905), miner and teacher; born in Brynaman, Carms.; worked underground from age eight to thirty years old; in 1874 joined the Presbyterian ministry and served as principal at a Nonconformist school; pub: Caneuon (1871); Hwyr Ddifyrion (1883); C?n a Thelyn (1895); a translation into Welsh of Sankey and Moody, Odlau’r Efengyl (1883); and two novels. Ref: OCLW. [W] [—Katie Osborn]Williams, William (1801-69), known by bardic name ‘Caledfryn’, son of a Welsh weaver, worked for his father for eight years before becoming a teacher and finally a Congregational minister; participated in the Cymreigyddion Society, won national reputation at the Beaumaris eisteddfod (1832), and was thereafter much in demand at local eisteddfod, winning a silver in 1850 at the Rhuddlan eisteddfod. Pub. A guide to reading and writing in Welsh, Cyfarwyddiadau i ddarllen ac ysgrifennu Cymraeg (1822); and poetry: Grawn awen (1826); Caniadau Caledfryn (1856). His autobiography, Cofiant Caledfryn (1877, ed. by Thomas Roberts), includes previously unpublished verse. Ref: OCLW; ODNB/DNB. [W] ? Williams, William (‘Gwilym Cyfeiliog’, 1801-76), kept a wool shop at Llanbrynmair, Montgomeryshire; wrote strict-meter verse, englynion, and hymns; pub: Caniadau Cyfeiliog (posthumous, 1878). Ref: OCLW. [W] [—Katie Osborn]Williams, William (‘Creuddynfab’, 1814-69), farm-labourer and railwayman, stonemason’s son, received little formal schooling; born at Creuddyn, Llandudno, Caerns, and began farm work there; worked on a railway in the Pennines from 1845-1862, and became friends with John Ceiriog Hughes (qv); served as first secretary of the National Eisteddfod Association; as a critic, he censured the Neoclassicism of poets like Caledfryn (William Williams, qv) and encouraged younger poets to write in free meter; pub: Y Barddoniadur Cymmreig (1855). Ref: OCLW. [W] [—Katie Osborn]Williamson, Daniel (b. 1843), of Clyth, Caithness, ‘the blind poet’ of Inverness and Perthshire, carpenter’s son, worker in many trades, pubs. include a pamphlet, On beholding the Moon for the last Time, which ran to a second edition, and Musings in the Dark. Ref: Edwards, 15, 53-60. [S]Williamson, Effie (1815-82), of Selkirk, later a Galashiels weaver, daughter of another poet, ‘Mrs Williamson’ (qv); pub. The tangled web: poems and hymns (Edinburgh and Galashiels, 1883); Peaceable Fruits by Effie (Edinburgh, 1885). The author of the volumes may not be the same Effie Williamson as the factory worker whose poems are featured in Edwards. The latter was a native of Galashiels, ‘poetess of Gala Water,’ who lived for a few years in Ireland. She received little education, but was ‘fated to attend the loom, and keep the shuttles busy flying.’ She published in Chambers’s Journal, and wrote sentimental poems on the countryside, the pains of winter, and her weaving; whereas the two volumes are almost exclusively religious. Ref: LC 6, 319-24; Edwards, 2, 304-8 and 8, 192-5; Reilly (1994), 515; inf. Florence Boos. Link: wcwp [F] [I] [S] [LC 6]Williamson, George Joseph (b. 1816), of Rochester, Kent, fisherman’s son, charity school, errand boy, fisherman, Wesleyan Sunday school teacher, pub. The ship’s career, and other poems (London, 1860, seven edns to 1874). Ref: Reilly (2000), 499.Williamson, John, (b. 1864), of Brandon, County Durham, coalminer at Wheatley Hill pit. Ref F. R. Brunskill, Life of John Williamson (of Meadowfield, Durham) (Willington, Durham: E. Paxton, 1923); inf. Stephen Regan.Williamson, Mrs (1815-82), of Selkirk, mother of Effie Williamson (qv), daughter of a ploughman, Robert Milne (qv? [an exceptional man who wrote for the Kelso Chronicle]), in service until marriage, wrote prize-winning essays and poems for local papers and anthologies. Ref: Edwards, 8, 192-5. [F] [S]Willis, James (b. 1774), of Sheffield, ‘the topographical tailor’, pub. The Contrast, or The Improvements of Sheffield (1827), a popular pamphlet published by the Sheffield Iris. Ref: info Yann Lovelock.Willis, Matthew, farm labourer, self-educated poet with only ‘two half-days’ of schooling, pub. The Mountain Minstrel; Or, Effusions of Retirement. Poems (York, 1834). Ref: Johnson, item 972; Newsam 170.Wills, Ruth (1826-1908), of Leicester, daughter of a soldier, educated at a dame school, her father died when she was seven, she worked in warehouses from eight, pub. Lays of Lowly Life (London, 1861, 2nd edn 1862) Lays of Lowly Life Second Series (London, 1868), both in Bodleian. Ref: ABC, 577-80; Reilly (2000), 500; Boos (2008), 219-37. Link: wcwp [F]Wilson, Alexander (1766-1813), of Paisley, author of Lochwinnoch, weaver, pedlar and packman, later eminent American ornithologist, pub. Poems (Paisley 1790), Poems: Humorous, Satirical, and Serious (1791), The Shark or Land Mills Detected [political satire] (1793), Poems chiefly in the Scottish dialect (London, 1816), American Ornithology (from 1808). Ref: LC 3, 179-92; ODNB; Radcliffe; Harp R, xxvii-xxxii; Wilson, I, 418-27; Johnson, items 974-6; Brown, I, 43-58; Leonard, 8-32 & 373; LION; Sutton, 1003. [LC 3] [S]Wilson, Alexander (1804-46), of the Manchester ‘Sun Inn’ poets group, youngest of Michael Wilson’s (qv) seven sons, brother of Thomas (qv), painter, author of dialect poems and ‘The Poet’s Corner’ (The Festive Wreath, 1842), and famed for ‘Johnny Green’. See also The Songs of the Wilsons, with A Memoir of the Family, by John Harland (London: Simpkin, Marshall, 1865). Ref: Maidment (1987), 163-6; Vicinus (1969), 35-6; Vicinus (1973), 746; Vicinus (1974), 160; Hollingworth (1977), 156; Hollingworth (2013), 295-8.? Wilson, Alexander Stephen, of Rayne, Aberdeenshire, son of tenant farmer, land surveyor, engineering, assisted Charles Darwin, wrote on physics, pub. A creed of to-morrow (London, 1872); Songs and poems (Edinburgh, 1884); The lyric of A hopeless love (London, 1888). Ref: Reilly (2000), 501; Reilly (1994), 517. [S]Wilson, Anne, author of Teisa: A Descriptive Poem of the River Teese, Its Towns and Antiquities. By Anne Wilson (Newcastle upon Tyne: Printed for the Author, 1778), describes herself as poor and living in rented accommodation. Ref: LC 2, 363-74; Lonsdale (1989), 354-5; Jackson, 377; Keegan (2008), 98-121. [F] [LC 2]Wilson, Arthur (b. 1864), of Dalry, Ayrshire, weaver from age 10, miner at 15; pub a ‘neat little volume of poems’ (Kilmarnock: James McKie, 1884). Ref: Edwards, 7, 182-5. [S] Wilson, Charles (1891-1968), coal miner and local poet of Willington, County Durham; leaving school at 13 to work as a miner, he attended night school, became a staunch trade unionist, and gained promotion in his work. Pub. Light and Liberty (Durham, 1914), a prose work giving a ‘rather muddled case for the need for the planned land reform’ which the outbreak of war would stop; this work paved the way for some of his poetic and political themes, with its concerns about topics like rural depopulation, absentee landlords, corruption and city living. Poetry vols. include four short collections locally printed in 1915-16, The Poetical Works of Charles Wilson, The Pitman Poet (London: Arthur H. Stockwell, 1916), and a number of later works. Wilson was interested in Joyce and modernism, and in October 1930 persuaded Aldous Huxley to speak to his local WEA classes. In later life Wilson met with mixed success and failure, but perhaps the most dispiriting detail of Lewis Mates’s fine biographical essay is the information that after his death in a care home at Crook, most of his papers were burned, unread. Ref: inf. Stephen Regan; Lewis H. Mates, ‘Charles Wilson, the Pitman’s Poet’, Dictionary of Labour Biography, Vol. XIII, ed. Keith Gildart and David Howell (Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 372-81. [OP]Wilson, Daniel (1801-81), of Pineberry Hill, Halifax, self-taught, preacher, bookseller, pub. Justice and mercy: a sacred poem (Halifax, 1883), Ref: Reilly (1994), 517.Wilson, Gavin (fl. 1788), shoemaker poet, pub. A Collection of Masonic Songs and entertaining anecdotes, for the use of all lodges (Edinburgh, 1788), Advertisement of thanks, in verse (Edinburgh, 1780?, 1789, 1790). Ref: LC 3, 133-4; Winks, 313. [LC 3] [S]Wilson, Hugh C. (b. ?1845), ‘Cowper Spearpoint’, of Cumnock, Ayrshire, herdsman, woodman, bailiff in Beckenham, Kent, pub. The rustic harp: a collection of poems, songs, etc., English and Scotch (Bournemouth, 1874); Wild sprays from the garden (1879). Ref: Edwards 1, 70-2; Reilly (2000), 501, Murdoch, 406-8. [S]Wilson, Joe (1841-72), of Newcastle upon Tyne, son of a cabinet maker and a bonnet-maker, apprentice printer, publisher, highly popular entertainer, publican; a ‘traditional working class songwriter’ and performer of ‘drolleries’, a form of stand-up comedy in rhyme and prose. He sang in dialect to great effect in songs like ‘Keep Yor Feet Still Geordie Hinney’, ‘Dinnet Clash the Door’, ‘Maw Bonnie Gyetside Lass’ and ‘Aw Wish Your Muther Wad Come’. His Tyneside Songs and Drolleries. Readings and Temperance Songs (Newcastle upon Tyne: Thomas and George Allan, n.d.) went through a number of editions in the last decades of the nineteenth century and there are modern reprints of it. There have been numerous revivals of his work; for example, a Tyneside Theatre production by Alex Glasgow and John Woodvine took up the singer’s life and works in Joe Lives (1971), and like other north-eastern labouring-class poet-songmakers of his era, notably Tommy Armstrong (qv) his work remains popular in folk circle. In 2011 the band The Unthanks included their arrangement of Wilson’s hymn to the unreliable Geordie male, ‘The Gallowgate Lad’, in their live set and on their album Last. Ref: ODNB; LC 6, 145-74; Allan, 473-82; Vicinus (1974), 144. [LC 6]? Wilson, John (b. 1731-1818), of Paisley, ‘bar-officer in the Sheriff Court’, but also worked in a weaving factory and ‘was the first man in Paisley who wrought a silk web’. Ref: Brown, I, 27-29. [S]Wilson, John, of Longtown (b. 1835), joiner, businessman, temperance writer, pub. Selections of Thought from the Leisure Hours of a Working Man (1874), Saved by Song: or How John Strong became a Teetotaler (1882). Ref: Edwards, 5, 377-82. [S]Wilson, Michael (1763-1840), son of a handloom weaver, printer and furniture-broker, radical, dialect poet (as were his sons Thomas and Alexander, qqv). See The Songs of the Wilsons, with A Memoir of the Family, by John Harland (London: Simpkin, Marshall, 1865). Ref: Hollingworth (1977), 156; Hollingworth (2013), 295-8.Wilson, Susanna(h) (b. 1787), servant, pub. Familiar Poems (1814); described as ‘A servant girl who has evinced some respectable talents in a volume which has been published by subscription for her benefit’. Ref: John Watkins and Frederic Shoberl, A Biographical Dictionary of the Living Authors of Great Britain and Ireland ... (London: 1816, p.393). [F] [—Dawn Whatman]Wilson, Thomas (d. 1856), of Manchester, weaver’s son and dialect songwriter. brother to Alexander (qv), spent time in prison for breaking the blockade against France and smuggling gold. See The Songs of the Wilsons, with A Memoir of the Family, by John Harland (London: Simpkin, Marshall, 1865). Ref Hollingsworth (2013), 255-8.Wilson, Thomas (1773-1858), of Gateshead, poet, son of a miner, sent down the pit at eight as a trapper boy, later a merchant, schoolmaster and alderman, wrote The Pitman’s Pay in miner’s patois, first pub. in Mitchell’s ‘Newcastle Magazine’ in 1826, 1828, and 1830, reprinted by G. Watson of Gateshead, ‘but this incorrect edition was soon out of print’. Other poems were pub. in the Tyne Mercury, some reissued with notes by John Sykes, compiler of ‘Local Records.’ A collective edition of Wilson’s works, The Pitman’s Pay and Other Poems was pub. in 1843, reprinted 1872, with some additional poems and notes by the author, with a portrait and memoir. Ref: LC 4, 257-74; ODNB/DNB; Allan, 43, 258-77; Welford, III, 650-3; Klaus (1985), 72-4; Sutton, 1006 (diary). [LC 4]? Wilson, Thomas (fl. 1839), of Leeds, Chartist, poet; imprisoned in 1839; pub. poems in the Northern Star. Ref: Kovalev, 110; Scheckner, 322, 345; Schwab 222. [C]Wilson, Thomas (d. 1852), of Newcastle upon Tyne, dealer in smallware, son of Michael Wilson (qv), for most of his life worked as partner in a counting-house in Newcastle, dialect poet. Pub. popular poem The Pitman's Pay in Newcastle Magazine (1826, 1828, 1830), later republished as The Pitman's Pay and Other Poems (1843, 1873; the 2nd edn contains additional poems, memoir and notes by the author). Ref: ODNB; Hollingworth (1977), 156.Wilson, William (1801-60), of Creiff, known by pseudonyms ‘Alpin’ and ‘Allan Grant’, cowherd, cloth-lapper, coal-seller, journalist, bookseller and publisher, moved to Glasgow then emigrated to the USA (1833), died at Poughkeepsie, posthumously pub. Poems (1870, 3rd enlarged edn, 1881), devised ‘Poets and Poetry of Scotland’, pub. by his son James Grant Wilson, in 1877. Ref: ODNB; Ross, 77-83; Edwards, 4, 29-31 and 13, 223-31. [S]Wilson, William (1817-50), weaver, of Paisley, pub. 12-page collection, Poetical Pieces Composed by a Young Author (Paisley, 1842). Ref: Brown, II, 66-71; Leonard, 118. [S]Wilson, William (b. 1830), of Burntisland, blacksmith and watchmaker, pub. Echoes of the Anvil: Songs and Poems (Edinburgh, 1866, 1885). Ref: Reilly (1994), 519; Edwards, 8, 69-76. [S]Wingate, David (1828-92), of Cowglen, Renfrewshire, miner from the age of nine, later colliery manager, pub. Annie Weir and Other Poems (Edinburgh, 1866), Poems and Songs, 2nd edn (London and Edinburgh, 1863; Glasgow, 1883), Lily Neil: a poem (Edinburgh, 1879). Ref: LC 6, 55-64; Glasgow Poets, 364-68; Wilson, II, 459-65, Ashraf (1975), 242-3, Klaus (1985), 74-5, 76, Leonard, 241-60, Reilly (2000), 503-4, Reilly (1994), 519-20, Edwards, 2, 283-9 and 13, 84; see also John Macleay Peacock, ‘To David Wingate, the Collier Poet’, in his Poems (1880), 101-3. [S] [LC 6]Wingfield, Alexander H. (b. 1828), of Blantyre, Lanarkshire, sent to work in a cotton factory in Glasgow at age 9, emigrated to America in 1847, to Auburn, NY, later to Hamilton, Ontario, working as a mechanic on the Great Western Railway for 18 years, then for the Canadian Customs Department. Ref: Ross, 136-43. [S]Withers, James Reynolds (1812-98), ‘The Cambridgeshire Poet’, of Weston Colville, Cambridgeshire, shoemaker poet, pub. Poems upon various subjects, 3 vols (Cambridge, 1856-61), Rustic song and wayside musings, 4th edn (London, 1867), Poems (London, 1869). Ref: Maidment (1987), 314-16l Reilly (2000), 504-5.Withy, Nathan[iel], ‘The Wandering Bard’, of Wolverhampton, self-taught protegé of Lord Lyttelton, who gave him a cottage on the Hagley estate; he made mathematical rhymes and sold his versified multiplication tables door-to-door, author of Miscellaneous Poems (4th edn, Wolverhampton, 1777, Dobell 2101, BL 11632.aa.52); An Admonition to the Watermen (Worcester, 1786?, BL 11622.c.22(2)); A History of England (Wolverhampton, 1785, BL 16098/4724). Ref: Dobell; Poole & Markland, 97-9; Hepburn, II, 484, 555n.? Wood, Benjamin, Lancashire dialect writer, pub. “Sparks for a smithy”: Lancashire recitations, suitable for public readings or social gatherings (Bury and Manchester, 1879). Ref: Reilly (2000), 505.? Wood, Athol John, Chartist poet, pub. political poems in The Red Republican, The Friend of the People and Notes to the People, for example ‘Thou Art a Self-Degraded Slave’ (Friend of the People, 1851) Ref: Kovalev, 133-4, Scheckner, 322-4. 345; Schwab 222, 229. [C]? Wood, John Wilson (1834-85), of Cupar, Fyfe, baker’s son, apprentice baker, studied law, lived in America, returned as grocer and spirit merchant, town councillor, pub. The serpent round the soul: a poem (Edinburgh and Cupar, 1870); The gipsy heir, and other poems (Cupar-Fife, 1883); Ceres races. Ref: Reilly (2000), 506; Reilly (1994), 522; Edwards 9, xxiii. [S]Wood, Robert (b. 1850), of Newmilns, Ayrshire, handloom weaver, poems in Murdoch. (Edwards includes a Robert Wood of Newmills, Ayrshire as being of a retiring disposition and being employed in a large Glasgow warehouse, probably the same man.) Ref: ?Edwards, I, 381; Murdoch, 422-3. [S]Wood, William, weaver, of Eyam, Derbyshire, pub. The Genius of the Peak and other Poems (London and Sheffield, 1837). Ref: Johnson, item 990.Woodhouse, James (1735-1820), of Rowley Regis, Staffordshire, shoemaker poet. ~ Woodhouse, born in Rowley, near Birmingham, was a village shoemaker, and although he had been removed from school at seven years old, supplemented his meagre income by teaching literacy. He described balancing his cobbling work on one knee and a book on the other, switching between the pen and the awl throughout his daily routine. ~ Woodhouse’s earliest poems represented petitions to William Shenstone, who had prohibited ‘the rabble’ from visiting his ornamental gardens, The Leasowes, due to their propensity for picking flowers - rather than admiring the scenery with a detached comportment. Keegan (2002) suggests that Woodhouse’s affirmations to Shenstone respond to the conviction that the role of the lower orders in tilling the earth and concentrating on the produce it might yield precluded an ability to appreciate nature’s beauties. However, in constructing himself as an exception to the rule, Woodhouse paradoxically buttresses social distinctions even as he tries to transcend them. ‘An Elegy to William Shenstone, Esq; Of the Lessowes’ (1764) contains the following ingratiating lines: ‘Once thy propitious gates no fears betray'd, / But bid all welcome to the sacred shade; / ’Till Belial’s sons (of gratitude the bane) / With curs'd riot dar'd thy groves profane: / And now their fatal mischiefs I deplore, / Condemn'd to dwell in Paradise no more!’ Nonetheless, the overall vision is one that ‘ranks the peasant equal with the peer’ through an inherent affinity for recreation in nature. ~ Shenstone permitted Woodhouse entry not just to the grounds, but also to the library, which extended his knowledge beyond what he had gleaned from magazines. Five years following the introduction to his benefactor, Woodhouse’s collection of poems was published, in quarto, priced three shillings. Southey (1831, 117) notes: ‘It appears from a piece addressed to Shenstone, upon his ‘Rural Elegance’, that books to which his patron had directed his attention, had induced him to write in a more ambitious strain, and aim at some of the artifices of versification’; Woodhouse speaks of ‘He who form’d the fount of light, / And shining orbs that ornament the night; / Who hangs his silken curtains round the sky; / And trims their skirts with fringe of every dye’. However, it should be noted that these lines are extracted from a volume published nearly forty years after the original edition, quite possibly signaling a process of modification to bring them in line with fashion; indeed, with regard to the development of both Woodhouse and Duck’s poetry, Southey (1831, 118) opines that the freshness and truth of their language becomes compromised when they start to ‘form their style upon some approved model… they then produce just such verses as any person, with a metrical ear, may be taught to make by receipt’. ~ Owing to the patronage of Shenstone and public curiosity concerning a shoemaker Dr. Johnson felt prompted to meet Woodhouse in 1764. Boswell indicates that Johnson viewed Woodhouse’s celebrity status with derision, proclaiming: ‘Such objects were, to those who patronised them, mere mirrors of their own superiority. They had better… furnish the man with good implements for his trade than raise a subscription for his poems’ (cited Southey 1831, 192). However, in the biography prefixed to the collected edition of Woodhouse’s works, Johnson is said to have altered his verdict in light of the poet’s subsequent accomplishments. ~ Shortly following his rise to prominence, Woodhouse left the shoemaking trade to become a carrier, and then a bailiff on Edward Montague’s estate — where he was dismissed for having contrary political and religious attitudes. As Keegan points out, his falling out with Elizabeth Montagu – who, after Shenstone died, engendered his shift from ‘royal patronage of “natural genius” through the agency of Thomas Spence, to the moralizing charity of being made a “bluestocking” cause’ – prefigured her more well-known involvement in the dispute between Hannah More and Ann Yearsley. In 1788, Woodhouse prefixed an ‘Address to the Public’ to a volume of poems, lamenting that he had been ‘growing grey in servitude, and poorer under patronage’, struggling to support his ailing wife and their 27 children. ~ His 28,000-line autobiographical poem The Life and Lucubrations of Crispinus Scriblerus was published in 1795. It includes an ambivalent delineation of Birmingham and Wolverhampton. The images of Birmingham’s ‘multiplying streets and villas bright… And Wolverhampton’s turrets… Near northern boundaries tipt with burnish’d gold; / fields, countless cotts and villages, between’, that ‘give life, and lustre to the social Scene’, give way to the violent menace of human industrial activity: ‘Deep, sullen, sounds thro’ all the regions roll, / Shocking with groans, and sighs, each shuddering Soul! / Here clanking engines vomit scalding streams… Obtruding on the heart, each heaving breath, / Some vengeful Fiend, grim delegate of Death!’ Woodhouse also published a collection of nine epistles entitled Love Letters to My Wife (1803), which are in actuality discourses on social and religious matters, featuring attacks on upper-class tyranny. Overton (2006) writes: ‘Like his versification – quite elaborate iambic pentameter couplets, varied by occasional alexandrines – the form is highly artificial, but it provided an acceptable cover for views that might, if expressed more directly, have provoked censure.’ ~ Woodhouse spent the last 35 years of his life as the proprietor of a book and stationery shop in Oxford Street. In the way of curiosity and anecdote, it is claimed that Woodhouse was six feet six inches tall and possessed of tremendous strength. Apparently, he once confronted a ferocious bull with a stick and made it ‘lay down and fairly cry for mercy’ (Southey 1831, 193). Pub. Poems on Sundry Occasions (1764); Poems on Several Occasions. Second edition, corrected, with several additional pieces never bfroe published (London: Dodsley, 1766; subscribers and benefactors include Edmund Burke and David Hume); Poems on Several Occasions (1788); Love Letters to my Wife; written in 1789; Norbury Park, A Poem; With Several Others, Written on Various Occasions (1803); The Life and Lucubrations of Crispinus Scriblerus...A novel in verse. Part I (1804); The Life and Poetical Works of James Woodhouse, 2 vols. (1896); The Life and Lucubrations of Crispinus Scriblerus, A Selection, ed. Steve Van-Hagen (Cheltenham: Cyder Press, 2005) Ref: LC 2, 141-234; ODNB; Southey, 114-21, 192-4; Poole & Markland, 81-5; Reginald Blunt, Mrs Montagu, “Queen of the Blues”, Her Letters and Friendships from 1777 to 1800, ed Reginald Blunt (Boston and New York: Houghton Miflin, 1923), two vols; Unwin, 71, 74-6; Tinker, 97-9; Winks, 296-7; Klaus (1985); 6-21, Cafarelli, 78-9, 81; Rizzo, 243, 254-8; Richardson, 257; Goodridge (1999), item 131; Christmas, 17, 183-210, 215; Keegan (2008), 37-64; Bill Overton, ‘The Verse Epistle’, in Gerrard (ed) A Companion to Eighteenth-Century Poetry (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006); Sutton, 1009 (letters to Elizabeth Montagu). [LC 2] [—Iain Rowley]Woodley, George (bap. 1786-1846), born in Dartmouth, began writing at age eleven while on board a British man-of war, a seaman who published several volumes of verse, and in 1820 was ordained and went to the Scilly isles as a missionary; pub. Mount-Edgcumbe, a descriptive poem; the shipwreck, a naval eclogue; and miscellaneous verses on several occasions. With notes [Mt. Edgcumbe, with The Shipwreck, and Miscellaneous Verses] (1804, published anonymously); The Churchyard and other Poems (1808); Britain's bulwarks; or, The British seaman: a poem (1811); Portugal delivered, a poem (1812); Redemption (1816); The divinity of Christ proved, from his love to mankind ... and the true Church of Christ ascertained (1819, 2nd edn 1821); Cornubia: a poem (1819), A view of the present state of the Scilly islands (1822). Ref: ODNB.Woodrow, William (b. 1817), of Paisley, pub. poems in periodicals, 1878 collection. Ref: Brown, II, 77-82. [S]Work, Thomas Lawrence (b. 1838), of Aberdeen, printer, emigrated to Australia. Ref: Edwards, 12, 211-19. [S]Wrigglesworth, John (‘Hubert Cloudesley’, 1856-1903), of Castleford, coal miner, pub. Grass from a Yorkshire village (Westminster, 1897). Also published several works under the pseudonym, Hubert Cloudesley, including a collection of essays entitled Passing Thoughts of Working Man (London: Elliot Stock, 1890); a novel, Adventures of the Remarkable Twain (London: Digby, Long & Co, 1899); and a short story collection, Idylls of Yorkshire. By Hubert Cloudesley, Author of “Passing Thoughts,” “The Sweetest Maid in Glowton,” “Grass from a Yorkshire Village,” “Adventures of the Remarkable Twain. etc. (Eland: Henry Watson Lt, n.d. ? 1900). Ref: Reilly (1994), 526.Wright, David, of Aberdeen, ‘footpost’, post office messenger, Chartist activist and organiser and occasional poet. ref Klaus (2013), 151-6. [S] [C]Wright, Joseph (b. 1848), of Airdrie, hairdresser’s son, umbrella manufacturer, friend of Janet Hamilton (qv) from childhood, read to her after she became blind. Ref: Edwards, 4, 274-80; Knox, 253-8 (gives birth as 1847). [S]Wright, John (1805-c. 1846), ‘The Galston Poet’, born in Sorn, Ayshire, Ayrshire weaver, pub. The Retrospect or youthful scenes. With other Poems and Songs (Edinburgh, 1st edn 1830, 2nd edn 1833; begun in 1824 and inspired by an episode of unrequited love); The whole poetical work of John Wright (Ayr, 1843). Ref: ODNB/DNB; Edwards, 3, 121-30; Southey, xv; Wilson, II, 541-2. [S]Wright, Orlando, mechanic, of Birmingham and York, pub. A Wreath of leisure hours: poems, including an elegy on the Hartley Colliery catastrophe (Birmingham, 1862), Clifton Green: a poem, etc. (London, York and Scarbro, 1868), Maxims and epigrams (London, 1876). Ref: Reilly (2000), 510.Wright, William (‘Bill o’ th’ Hoylus End’, b. 1836), of Hermit Hole, Haworth, Yorkshire, musician’s son, warp-dresser, strolling player, soldier, ‘wanderer and conscious eccentirc’ (K.E. Smith in the England anthology), wrote ‘The Factory Girl’, pub. in his Poems (Keighley, rev. edn., 1891), also pub. Random rhymes and rambles, by Bill o’ th’ Hoylus End (Keighley, 1876). Ref: Forshaw, 180-3 (includes a full-plate etched portrait); Burnett et al (1984), 347-8 (no. 776); Maidment (1987), 272-4; Reilly (1994), 47 & 527; Reilly (2000), 510; England, 25, 43, 56.Wrigley, Ammon (1862-1946), of Saddleworth, millworker, dialect poet, pub. Saddleworth: Its Prehistoric Remains (Oldham D E Clegg 1911); Songs of a Moorland Parish with Prose Sketches. A Collection of Verse and Prose, Chiefly Relating to the Parish of Saddleworth (Saddleworth: Moore and Edwards, 1912), and other works, all apparently post-1900. Ref: Hollingworth (1977), 156; Burnett et al (1984), 349 (no. 780); England, 12, 67. [OP]Wynd, James (1832-65), of Dundee, painter, poem in Blackie’s book of Scottish song, died in Newcastle upon Tyne. Ref: Edwards, 1, 381-2. [S]Yates, Henry, of Blackburn, handloom weaver, son of a railwayman, living first at Summit then at Blackburn, dialect and local poet, pub. Songs of the Twilight and the Dawn. Ref: Hull, 221-37; inf. Bob Heyes.? Yates, James (fl. 1578-1582), ‘serving man’, patronised and employed by Henry and Elizabeth Reynolds, pub. The Castell of Courtesie, [whereunto is adjoyned The holde of humilitie: with The chariot of chastity thereunto annexed] (London, 1582; 'entered on the Stationers' register on 7 June 1582. Three copies are known to survive' [ODNB]). Ref: ODNB; Cranbrook, 247. [OP]Yearsley, Ann Cromartie (1752-1806). Born in Clifton, a village in Gloucestershire. Known also as ‘Lactilla’ or ‘the Poetical Milkwoman of Bristol’, Yearsley followed her mother’s calling as a milk woman, and learnt to read and write under the guidance of her brother William Cromartie. In 1774, she married John Yearsley, a poor yeoman farmer, and devoted the subsequent ten years to developing her writing while fulfilling her onerous duties as a farmer’ wife and mother of six children. After battling destitution in the winter of 1783-84—her family salvaged from veritable starvation—Yearsley came to the attention of the affluent Hannah More and other members of the ’Bluestocking’ circle, who enabled Poems on Several Occasions to be published by subscription. A public wrangle over control and income bore a permanent rift in Yearsley’s relationship with her patron. Hereafter, Yearsley would produce her subsequent works independently. In the 1790s social upheavals in France exacerbated a silencing of the underclass in many quarters, and Yearsley’s main income in her later years came from a circulating library she opened in Bristol in 1793. She died in obscurity in Melksham, Wilts, and it was not until the final quarter of the twentieth century that Yearsley began to emerge from the shadows of literary history. Yearsley tackled various forms but demonstrated a particular proclivity for occasional, commemorative and meditative lyric poetry, abounding with personifications and figures of eighteenth-century verse, including classical allusion. Her work covers a wide range of concerns. The melancholy that accompanies Yearsley’s preoccupation with death is mitigated by her veneration of friendship (the ‘social angel’) and her celebration of motherhood (‘A mother only can define her joy’). In A Poem on the Inhumanity of the Slave-Trade, she exposes the false sensibility that the slave trade is grounded in, attacking the ‘crafty merchants’ defiling Bristol. Pub: Poems on Several Occasions, (London: Thomas Cadell, 1785), Poems on Various Subjects (1787), facsimile edition (Oxford and New York: Woodstock Books, 1994), A Poem on the Inhumanity of the Slave Trade (London: G.G.J. and J. Robinson, 1788, online at: ), The Rural Lyre: A Volume of Poems, 1796, reprinted in The Romantics: Women Poets, 12 vols, (London: Routledge, 1996). Yearsley also wrote a novel, The Royal Captives: A Fragment of Secret History (4 vols 1795), and a play, Earl Goodwin (pub. 1791). In addition to Tim Burke’s useful selection, Ann Yearsley: Selected Poems (Cyder Press, 2003), there is now a full scholarly library edition of her work, The Collected Works of Ann Yearsley, ed. Kerri Andrews, three vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2014): Vol. 1 : Poetry and Letters; Vol. 2: Earl Goodwin; Vol. 3: The Royal Captives; see also Andrews’s monograph on Yearsley and More: Ann Yearsley and Hannah More: Patronage and Poetry (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2013), Gender and Genre series, no. 11. ~ Ref: LC 3, 57-102; ODNB/DNB; Southey, 125-34, 195-8; Tinker, 99-104, 6-10, 15-17, 20-1; Unwin, 68, 77-81; Radcliffe; Cafarelli, 79-81; Christmas, 18-19, 23, 235-66; Goodridge (1999), item 134Heinzelman, 101-24; Klaus (1985), 6-10, 15-17, 20-1; Landry (1990); Lonsdale (1989), 392-401: Milne (1999), 139-73; Richardson, 252-4; Rizzo; Rowton, 184-6; Sales (1994); Shiach, 45, 56-9; Keegan (2008), 77-80; Backscheider, 412; Backscheider & Ingrassia, 891-2; Kord, 270-1; Basker, 373-7; Sutton, 1031. [F] [LC 3] [—Iain Rowley]Yeats, William (fl. 1792), of Airdrie, flesher, born on a farm, pub. ‘Airdrie Fair’ in 1792, reprinted in Knox. Ref: Knox, 306-10. [S] Yewdall, John (1795-1856), ‘the Hunslet Toll-Keeper’, born in Quarries, Leeds, ‘received only three weeks’ formal education’ (ODNB). Pub. The Toll-Bar and Other Poems (Leeds, 1827), written in the style of Byron’s Don Juan, includes autobiographical account. Ref: ODNB; Johnson, item 999; Johnson 46, no. 340.Yool, James (1792-1860), of Paisley, weaver, active in founding Paisley Literary and Convivial Association, helped to publish ‘The Caledonian Lyre’ a magazine, in 1815, contributed to Harp R and later edited Paisley Literary Miscellany to which he contributed, pub. The Rise & Progress of Oppression, or the Weavers’ Struggle for their Prices, A Tale (Paisley, 1813), The Poems and Songs and Literary Recreations of James Yool, Collected and Collated for the Paisley Burns Club by William Stewart (Glasgow, 1883), his works were collected posthumously in manuscript. Ref: Brown, I, 257-64; Leonard, 63-73. [S]? Young, D. (b. 1852), of Carmyllie, reporter, farmer, a collection in prospect in 1880. Ref: Edwards, 1, 99-100. [S]Young, David (1811-1891), of Kirkcaldy, ‘The Solitary Bard’, mechanic and millwright in a linen factory, journalist and poet, pub. in newspapers. Ref: Edwards, 15, 282-4. [S]Young, John (1825-91), of Milton of Campsie, Stirlingshire, moved to Glasgow, boilermaker, carter, disabled in an accident, 1853, lived in the poorhouse for six years, almost blind in later years; pub. Lays from the poorhouse: being a collection of temperance and miscellaneous pieces, chiefly Scottish (Glasgow, 1860 [but Murdoch gives 1859]); Lays from the ingle nook: a collection of tales, sketches, &c. (Glasgow, 1863); Homely pictures in verse, chiefly of a domestic nature (Glasgow, 1865); Poems and lyrics, chiefly in the Scottish dialect (Glasgow, 1868); Lochlomond side, and other poems (Glasgow, 1872); Pictures in prose and verse: or, personal recollections of the late Janet Hamilton [qv], Langloan: together with several hitherto unpublished poetic pieces (Glasgow, 1877); Selections from my first volume, Lays from the poorhouse: (published November 1860), with an appendix containing some hitherto unpublished poems (Glasgow, 1881). Ref: Edwards, 1, 276-81 and 16, [lix]; Glasgow Poets, 358-60; Reilly (2000), 514; Reilly (1994), 531, Murdoch, 184-8. [S]Young, John (b. 1827), of Paisley, drawboy and weaver, pub. poems in newspapers; a proposal to publish vol. is on record. Ref: Brown, II, 244-47. [S]Young, Robert (b. 1800), of Fintona, County Tyroe, nailer, granted a Civil List pension of ?40 in 1866; pub. The Poetical Works of Robert Young of Londonderry: comprising historical, agricultural, and miscellaneous poems and songs, with copious notes (Londonderry, Derby and Dublin, 1863). Ref: Reilly (2000), 515. [I]Young, Robert, of Bothwell, Lanarkshire, working man; pub. Love at the Plough, and other poems (Biggar, ?1888). Ref: Reilly (1994), 531. [S]Younger, John (1785-1860), born at Ancrum, Roxburghshire, shoemaker, accomplished angler known as the ‘Tweedside Gnostic’; pub. Thoughts as They Rise (1834), River Angling for salmon and trout, more particularly as practised in the Tweed and its tributaries with a treatise on salmon (1840); The Scotch Corn Law Rhyme (1841); The Light of the Week (1849); Autobiography of John Younger, Shoemaker, of St. Boswell’s (Kelso, 1881). Ref: ODNB; LC 5, 75-82; Winks, 319-21; Burnett et al (1984), 350-1 (no. 783). [S] [LC 5]Yule, John T (b. 1848), of Milnathort, Kinrossshire, shoemaker, letter-carrier, pub. Mable Lee: A Sketch (Selkirk, 1885). Ref: Edwards, 3, 225-9; Reilly (1994), 532. [S] ................
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