Digital Victorian Periodical Poetry

Working-class poet, essayist, and editor. Known as The Collier Poet. A Tyneside miner from the age of seven. Self taught. In 1863 briefly worked as the librarian for the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society and was also custodian of Shakespeare’s birthplace (1889-1891). Married Sarah Anne Hendley in 1864. Author of Poems, Songs, and Ballads (1862), The Collier Lad and Other Lyrics (1864), Poems (1871), A Books of Miscellaneous Lyrics (1878; expanded as A Books of Lyrics in 1881), and Carols from the Coalfields (1888), Songs and Lyrics (1892). General Editor of the Canterbury Poets series in the 1880s. Received a civil list pension. Biographical information: ODNB. (AC)