Digital Victorian Periodical Poetry

Working-class poet. Brother of poet John Bethune. Lived, like his brother, in extreme poverty. Born at Upper Rankeillor, Monimail, Fife. His family moved to Lochend, near the Loch of Lindores, in 1813. Worked as a labourer from age fourteen. Received very little formal education as a child, but attended night school at the age of twenty and began writing poems. Was briefly an apprentice to his brother John, and then with John became an outdoor labourer. Suffered serious injuries in 1829 and 1832 following explosions at a quarry. Published poems in newspapers, authored (with contributions by John) Tales and Sketches of the Scottish Peasantry (1838), wrote a memoir of his brother for his posthumous collection of poems in 1840, and published Scottish Peasant’s Fireside in 1843. Suffered from tuberculosis like his brother, and because of ill health he declined the editorship of the Dumfries Standard. Biographical information: ODNB. (AC)