Working-class poet, writing in Scots. Born in Partick. Worked as a silk weaver and
then kept a hotel in Glasgow’s Trongate. After he became bankrupt he went back to
silk weaving. He published *Poems and Songs, chiefly in the Scottish dialect* (1805)
and *The Wandering Muse* (1813). Biographical information: Charles Rogers (ed.), *The
Modern Scottish Minstrel*, Adam & Charles Black, 1856, vol. 2, pp. 106-7. (AC)