Digital Victorian Periodical Poetry

Working-class poet; hand-loom weaver. Known as the “Inverurie Poet.” Influenced by Robert Tannahill. Wrote in Scots. Born c. March 1798 in Aberdeen. Injured by a carriage accident at age 10, which made him lame. Went to a dame school, but was largely self-taught. Worked in the School Hill Factory, Aberdeen. Published poems in newspapers and periodicals, and also earned money playing as itinerant flute player and book seller. In 184o Thom was living in Inverurie, Aberdeenshire, and by 1841 his patron was J. A. Gordon (former M. P. and laird). Lived in London from the end of 1844 to 1847, and met major literary figures such as Dickens, and after that moved to Dundee where he died of tuberculosis. Author of Rhymes and Recollections of a Hand-Loom Weaver (1844, by subscription), and founder and editor of Inverurie Gossamer (1844). Biographical information: ODNB; J. Malcolm Bulloch, “Bibliography of Aberdeenshire Periodical Literature,” Scottish Notes and Queries, vol. 5, no. 2, July 1891, p. 17. (AC)