Bard of Tyneside: Robert Gilchrist (1797-1844)

This research project examines the life and writings of my great-great-great grandfather, Robert Gilchrist (1797-1844). Robert was a sailmaker and poet. He won some local renown for his verse, which attempted to emulate the likes of Robert Burns through romantic poems that dealt with the themes of love, loss and landscape; though he also retained a sharp eye for his local surroundings, producing some intriguing dialect verse that celebrated the local characters and eccentrics that inhabited Newcastle's quayside. Gilchrist published in the local press and three volumes of his verse appeared during his lifetime. His work was reproduced in local song collections, notably Fordyce's 1842 Newcastle Song Book, Joseph Robson's 1849 Songs of the Bards of the Tyne, and Thomas Allan's 1862 Tyneside Songs and Readings, which also featured a lengthy biography of him. Robert Gilchrist was part of a culture of self-educated local poets whose existence is partly responsible for the development of music hall in the mid- to late-nineteenth century and the popular entertainments we enjoy today. My aim is to explore his biography and writings, which continues my fascination with fame and reputation, and work and leisure identities, though also reveals something about the making of the English working-classes and its distinct local and regional cultures. The sociological and analytical significance of genealogical research and literary recovery are also central to this project.

Several research questions are raised:

1. What is involved in the recovery of literary history? Does it require sensitivity to both social and political history and aesthetic judgement?

2. What is the sociological significance of genealogy and finding famous ancestors? Does it authenticate our own identities and personas?

3. What did the labouring-class poet observe? Does their writing reflect a political consciousness?

4. Did the democratisation of print culture open 'humble' or 'labouring-class' poets to ridicule or critique? What was the bourgeois reaction to their efforts?

'Bards of the Tyne' by Charles Purvis, 1812

Ye sons of Parnassus, whose brains are inspir’d
With envy or madness, dame dullness, or wine,
Who wish to be flatter’d, or prais’d, or admir’d,
Leave thinking, and fly to the banks of the Tyne:
No wit is requir’d
To make you admir’d,
Let doggrel run limping thro’ each crippled line;
No humour degrades,
Nor genius pervades
The verses sublime of our Bards of the Tyne.