Digital Victorian Periodical Poetry

Poet, song writer, and school teacher. Born in Crieff c. 1849. Taught at Motherwell Iron Works School in 1863, then appointed headmaster at Wishaw, Works School in Carfin, and then Baird School, Garngad Hill, Glasgow. The Chambers’s Journal ledger entry, for his poem published on 20 November 1869, gives his address as Jerviston School, Holytown, Lanarkshire (NLS Dep 341/310); for his poem published on 22 April 1871, the address is Simpson Square School, Wishaw (NLS Dep 341/310); and for his poem published on 13 July 1872, the address is Moss Bank School, Hogganfield, Glasgow (NLS Dep 341/368). In 1879 he became Secretary to the Baird Trust. Co-author of The Luck of the Redesdales (first published in Glasgow Herald). Prominent member of the Glasgow Ballad Club. Biographical information: Modern Scottish Poets, edited by D. H. Edwards, twelfth series, D. H. Edwards, 1889, pp. 313-14. (AC)