Digital Victorian Periodical Poetry

Working-class poet, printer’s apprentice, school inspector, and journalist. Born in Thornliebank, Renfrewshire. Donald’s father (also a poet as well as a Chartist) shared the same name. Briefly attended a day school in St. Rollox, Glasgow, and later a night school at Thornliebank and at the Glasgow School of Art. Employed as apprentice for the printers J. & W. Crumm from the age of twelve, at sixteen as their pattern designer, and then at age twenty two worked in Glasgow warehouses. In 1858 became a journalist for the North British Daily Mail (mainly as the Paisley correspondent), and in 1870 became assistant inspector for the Govan School Board. Author of Poems: Reflective, Descriptive, and Miscellaneous (1865). Biographical information: D. H. Edwards, Modern Scottish Poets, second series, D. H. Edwards, 1881, p. 72; Robert Brown, Paisley Poets, with Brief Memoirs of them, and Selections from their Poetry, vol. 2, J. & J. Cook, 1890, pp. 229-30. (AC)