Education A Tribute to the Memory of my good Schoolmaster— William Sanderson

Education
A Tribute to the Memory of my good Schoolmaster—
William Sanderson.
(Rudby School - Hutton Rudby)

I do not know one holier work on earth
Than that of training up the rising race
In health alike of body and of mind.
It is the safest polity for States;
The truest proof of love parents can give, 5
The noblest outcome of philanthropy;
And without it Religion would become
But Superstition to bind all in chains
To every sort of hateful tyranny.
Some six-score years have now pass’d o’er the world 10
Since a true poet sang in noble strains:—
“Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,
To teach the young idea how to shoot,
To pour the fresh instruction o’er the mind,
To breathe the enlivening spirit, and to fix 15
The generous purpose in the glowing breast!”[1]
A noble thought, utter’d in words of fire
Which Ignorance can ne’er extinguish, though
We yet have feeble intellect which fain
For this would ridicule dear Thomson’s name. 20
The car of Progress has run swiftly on
Since so he sang, and his melodious lyre
Silenced on earth, but its sweet echoes still
Stir human hearts, though we are only now
Just rising to the level of his thoughts: 25
For your true Poet is not one who can
Merely bedeck in decent verse what all
His fellows feel or know: but it is his
To lead the van in bravely marching on
From height to height, despite all earthly foes; 30
And those who ridicule the Teacher’s art,
Or look on it as drudgery, have ne’er,
Whate’er their bookcram, gain’d the mental light
Required of all true Teachers: unto them
’T would be indeed as hard a task as that 35
Which Jupiter enjoin’d on Sisyphus.

332
I had three Schoolmasters: but the former two ne’er gain’d
The least affection from the boys they sought
To teach in their own harsh mistaken way,
And to us all their deaths had been relief, 40
Instead of causing one to shed a tear.
In looking back upon the years I spent
Under their tyranny, which I forgive,
But never can forget, I cannot yield
Those days with that bright halo that endears 45
Our boyhood to us in declining years.[2]
But I shall treasure, to my dying day,
The love I bore to William Sanderson.
He was my last Schoolmaster, and my best,
Yea worth a thousand of the other two,[3]— 50
For he unlike to them, knew how to teach.
He had all learning at his fingers’ ends;
And best of all, was skill’d in teaching too.
A man may be in scholarship most rife,
Yet quite unfit to teach a tithe he knows. 55
Oh! that I longer could have profited
By my good Mentor! More that fifty years
Of varied trials I have waded through,
Since the necessity of earning bread
Forced me to leave him, when my anxious mind 60
Was just beginning to show healthy growth
Under his culture. But I never ceased
To love him whilst he lived, and since his death
None could have treasured more his memory.
“God rest his soul!” I can devoutly say; 65
For he was fitted whilst on earth for heaven:
Not by a bigot’s creed, or cant too oft
Mistaken for true piety; but a life
Of Christian virtue. Too mild to wrestle
In competition for a living here 70
With brutal men, his purse through life was poor;
But he had riches they can ne’er possess.


333
Euclid, Algebra, and the languages,
Hebrew, Greek, Latin, like our mother-tongue,
Were truly his. Had I remain’d with him 75
I too would have been a scholar deeply read
In lore which has been seal’d to me for aye.
How he delighted to encourage all
My boyish studies of antiquity
And of the maxims which should govern States 80
To make the peoples happy! Meekest man
I ever knew childlike simplicity
Wedded to wisdom gave the lie in him
To those who fancy knowledge puffeth up
With vile conceit those who have made it theirs. 85
Oh, much I owe to him, to be repaid
Only with gratitude! My evening hours
Were spent in his congenial company
After the studies of the school were done.
If fine, we wander’d forth in frost or sheen 90
Along the pleasant footpaths; if confined
By weather to his parlour, he to me
Read Greek and Latin Classics, Englishing
Each sentence as he read, as easily
As I could converse in my mother-tongue. 95
This was my baptism to communion
With the wise sages both of Greece and Rome,
Homer and Virgil both have seem’d to me
As friends I knew since then; Demosthenes
And Cicero through him spoke just to me 100
As plainly as to those who had of yore
Listen’d unto their marvellous eloquence,
And this most mild of men was stricken down
When he was rising in prosperity;
Robb’d of his bread, and exiled the town 105
Where he was teaching as few other could,
By Whitby Tories, because he quietly
Voted for Moorsholm when that post became
A parliamentary borough. Not the man
To canvass or make speeches, or i’ the press 110
To rouse the people with a Cobbett’s pen,
Or hate those who might not think like himself,





334
Yet he felt bound to be to conscience true,
And simply gave his vote. It was enough—
The ballot then affording such no shield, 115
But being call’d un-English, cowardly,
And something that must lead to ruin, by
The cravens who all used it in their clubs.
Methinks I see their shuddering souls when they
First met him in that Spirit Land where all 120
Our sins on earth are plainly seen as though
An open book contain’d the register.
’T is this, and such as this, which forms the Hell
Which blundering bigots would persuade mankind
Is sulphurous fire which ever burns 125
To torture with far greater pains than man
Or woman ever felt on earth—pangs which
When millions of years had o’er them pass’d
Would be no nearer to their end than when
They first began—God’s thoughtless erring ones. 130
And there are simple folks still hold this creed,
Most gloomy and blasphemous as it is,
Making our Heavenly Father more unkind
To his poor children than the basest man
Who ever practised horrid cruelties. 135
One master as to mine, teaching true wisdom
Calmly all his years; living its precepts;
Content with simplest necessities when
He could obtain them; but aspiring not
Even when forced to bear ills none should know 140
In any State call’d civilised; does more
For helping on the progress of our race
Than many brawlers; and I thank my God
That I in early life had such a friend
And teacher as good William Sanderson. 145


335
His life was one of spotless purity:
He had compassion for all living things,
And anger never raged in his calm mind.
In all my march through life, I never met
A man more Christlike, no forms or creeds 150
Held his as a professor before men,
And he never mix’d in their assemblies.
He made his heart the temple of the Lord,
And there he offer’d up incense more sweet
Than from a priestly censor rose. 155
Though in the flesh we never more can meet,
His spirit often seems to visit me
In a divine communion of soul;
And I look forward with a fervent faith
To meeting him again to part no more, 160
Where all our souls are purified like him
From those deep failings which prevent our earth
From being but a counterpart of heaven.

George Markham Tweddell

Blank verse [in M/S], pp. 71-79.
[1] From the Scottish poet, James Thompson (1700-1748), in ‘Spring’ from ‘The
Seasons’ (1726). “Six-score years” this would make the date of GMT’s poem
about 1846. [see:
<www.luminarium.org/eightlit/thomson/bio.php>
[2] Alternative to this line:
“Our boyhood to us as death dreweth near”[3] One of these will have been Richard
Baker, mentioned in Pigot’s Yorkshire Directory for 1829.

More background here -
http://georgemarkhamtweddell.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/rudby-school-hutton-rudby-john-jackson.html

John Dunning

John Dunning
[Freemason and mayor of Middlesbrough 1875, †1885, from
www.middlesbroughfreemasons.org.uk/SockettsBook.pdf]

Hail to thee, Dunning! I have watched thee long,—
At first with some suspicion; for I heard
Thy name oft utter’d in a scornful mood
By men who might have known thy actions well,
And who, for aught I knew, judged thee aright. 5
A public servant thou, I knew full well
It was impossible thou couldst procure
The praise of all men, live where’er thou would,
And whatever thou might feel to be
The just and true. Yet I at times had doubt 10
Within my myself if thou wert the right man
In the right place. We met, and when I saw
Thy open countenance, I felt this man
May make mistakes, as men are prone to do,
And will be while they wear ‘this mortal coil’, 15
As Hamlet terms it; but he who owns that face
And cheery voice, is not the worst of men,
For there is not alone intelligence
To raise him from a humble sphere of Life,
But his the heart to feel another’s woe, 20
Like a true Mason; one into whose ear
The burden’d heart can pour its sufferings,
And not find mere relief, but sympathy.
And I rejoice, dear Brother of the Craft
We both do love, although it be not mine 25
To rise to wealth and honours, that for thou,
And such as thee, at times there is a road,
With patient plodding from the miller’s cart
Even to the civic chair. Thou art no fool,
Therefore can look with thankfulness, not pride, 30
Back on the gradual steps by which thou won
Thy present honours: and we value most
Those honours that our neighbours can confer,—
They who have known us from our infancy;
They who have play’d with us in boyish games;


330
They who in manhood have stood foot to foot
With us, or e’en against us, in the fight
For daily bread and other wants,
And who at last may bear us to the tomb.
Train’d in the peaceful principles of Friends, 40
With the pure precepts of Freemasonry,
With justice thou will mingle Mercy too,
Or thou art false to both.
To love thy friends
Is just; but so would any man who lives,
Not wholly base. To love and help thy foes, 45
This is still higher wisdom: yet wilt thou them
Accomplish it, or I mistake my man.
Prove, honest John! that thou canst bear the load
Of wealth and honours,—harder far to bear
Than poverty in humblest English cot. 50
Show that to friend and foe thou art the same
In thy strict justice and thy boundless love,
And men will ask, Is this the man we once
So far mistook? And evermore they may
Judge others with more justice.
Not to please 55
John Dunning’s ears pen I my simple lay,
But to encourage others from his rise
To droop not in despair, though men at times
May seem to do them wrong: for Nemesis,
Or soon or late, will make the rugged smooth, 60
Punish all guilt, reward all actions good,
And show the wrongs we have to bear in life
Are blessings in disguise, for some wise end,
Though we perceive it not when most we smart.
Thy life, John Dunning, will cheer many a one 65
To struggle on, through tempest and through sheen,
When thou and I repose beneath the sod.
Hence I rejoice to see the civic chair
Reach’d by a “Brother of the Mystic Tie,”
To whom the golden precepts of the Craft 70
Are nor merely random words, just learnt by rote,
A parrot could rehearse:* but things to do
To benefit mankind. So mote it be!
* “Words learnt by rote a parrot could rehearse,
But talking is not always to converse.” Cowper.

George Markham Tweddell
Blank verse [in M/S], pp. 67-70.

Poem written in London, Reflecting on Cleveland

Sonnets
Completed on the Monument in London when alone
there.













I
Upon the Monument this summer day,

With London’s ceaseless commerce all around,
How, at this height, there comes a murmuring sound,
As of the waves of ocean in their play
Along our Cleveland coast. Domes, towers, and spires 5
Of numerous churches crowd upon the scene,
Innumerable chimneys smoke between
Here and the neighbouring hills,—most of their fires
Fed from our northern coalfields. Father Thames
Bears on his bosom goods of every land. 10
How pleasant ’t is to calmly take one’s stand
And view yon busy crowd, whose very names
In a few years will mostly be forgot:
They lived—they died! such is the common lot.


II
I blame not those, but give them honest praise, 15
Who strive with industry of hand or brain
To earn all needful comforts. I would fain

Banish both Want and Crime; have sought to raise
Mankind to truest manhood. I can ne’er
Rest in content with such a state of things 20
As Earth has ever known since first the wings
Of Time flew o’er it. We need never fear
That we shall fail in bringing forth, to bless
Our children’s children, bright and happy days,
If we walk steadfastly in Virtue’s ways, 25
And learn that to ensure true happiness
We must aspire beyond mere worldly toys,
And seek in Light and Goodness all our joys


III
Here every virtue exalts mankind,
Here every sin that stains the soul, is found; 30
Knowledge and ignorance alike abound;
Here numbers roll in wealth; and here we find
In pinching poverty too many pine:
Her every art and science flourishes;
Here stolid Ignorance ever nourishes 35
Its baneful brood, who readily combine
In evil actions. These surely is a cause
For every deviation from the right;
And ’t is our duty manfully to fight
To bring all men obedient to the laws 40
Of the Most High: and London then will be
From ignorance, want, and crime, entirely free.

George Markham Tweddell
pp. 66, 67 & 68 [in Miscellaneous Sonnets]

The Late Learned John Oxlee

The Late Learned John Oxlee.

OXLEE, we wonder how a single brain,
During the few short years of life allow’d
For man to study here, could ever crowd
So much of learning there: or how to sustain
The load of languages when it was got. 5
Pliny, with wonder, told the Pontus’ king,
In twenty-two lands languages conversing;
Both Mithradates as well-nigh forgot;
Our Cleveland Walton’s name is dim by thine:
What was Bologna’s Cardinal to thee, 10
Who knew more books than other linguists see?*
Thy name o’er Mezzofanti’s e’en shall shine;
And, as the love of learning grows ’mongst men,
Thy fame it will increase beyond all mortal ken.
[Also Sonnet No. 5 in Cleveland Sonnets, Fifth Series Tractates
No. 38]
The above Sonnet originally appeared in the (London) Masonic
Magazine, edited by the late Rev. A. F. A. Woodford, M. A.,
Rector of Swillington, near Leeds, from 1847 to 1872, Past
Grand Chaplain to the Grand Lodge of England, and one of the
most sterling Freemasons I ever met: and the following
Footnote accompanied it:—“I have already noticed in the
Masonic Magazine the splendid library of this learned divine,
now in the possession of his son, my dear friend, the Rector of
Cowesby, in the North Riding of Yorkshire: a library too
valuable ever to be dispersed, and which ought to be secured
for the nation”

George Markham Tweddell

..................

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Oxlee (Where you can Read more)

John Oxlee, son of a well-to-do farmer in Yorkshire, was born at Guisborough in Cleveland, Yorkshire, on 25 September 1779, and was educated at Sunderland. After devoting himself to business for a short time he studied mathematics and Latin, and made such rapid progress in Latin that in 1842 Dr. Vicesimus Knox appointed him second master at Tunbridge grammar school. While at Tunbridge he lost, through inflammation, the use of an eye, yet commenced studying Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriac.

In 1805 he was ordained to the curacy of Egton, near Whitby. In 1811 he removed to the curacy of Stonegrave, from 1815 to 1826 he held the rectory of Scawton, and in 1836 the archbishop of York presented him to the rectory of Molesworth in Huntingdonshire.

Oxlee's power of acquiring languages, considering that he was self-educated, has rarely been excelled. He obtained a knowledge more or less extensive of 120 languages and dialects. In prosecuting his studies he was often obliged to form his own grammar and dictionary. He left among his numerous unpublished writings a work entitled "One hundred and more Vocabularies of such Words as form the Stamina of Human Speech, commencing with the Hungarian and terminating with the Yoruba", 1837–40. A large portion of his time he spent in making himself thoroughly conversant with the Hebrew law and in studying the Talmud. His only recreation was pedestrian exercise, and he at times walked fifty miles to procure a book in Hebrew or other oriental language. He was a contributor to the Anti-Jacobin Review, Valpy's Classical Journal, the Christian Remembrancer, the Voice of Jacob, the Voice of Israel, the Jewish Chronicle, the Jewish Repository, the Yorkshireman, and Sermons for Sundays and Festivals.

He died at Molesworth rectory on 30 January 1854, leaving two children by his wife, a daughter of John R. A. Worsop of Howden Hall, Yorkshire: John Oxlee (d. 1892), vicar of Over Silton 1848, rector of Cowesby 1863 (both in Yorkshire), and an unmarried daughter, Mary Anna Oxlee.

The Moors

The Moors.

I have no wish to live on the wild Moors,
Far from the dwelling of my fellow-men,
With none whom I could ever aid, for then
I should not be a hand to lend those powers
The poorest all possess to bless mankind. 5
Yet dearly do I love with some choice friend
Among the Moors for miles our way to wend,—
One who to Nature’s beauty is not blind.
But when the purple heather is in bloom,
And the bees murmur music all around— 10
And far and wide if heard no other sound
Save the sweet songs of birds—when whin and broom
Glow with their fires of gold both far and near—
A day on the wide Moors is joy for many a year.

George Markham Tweddell
[Sonnets on Trees and Flowers, p. 45]

Tansy (Tanacetum vulgare.)

Tansy
(Tanacetum vulgare.)

To gather Tansy calls up once again

My boyish rambles threescore years ago,
When in my native Cleveland I did go
Strolling by the bosky beck, down rustic lane,
On flower-deckt footpath, where my fingers fain 5
Would fill themselves with those delightful things
To youth, which Flora in her bounty flings
To all—alas! to most adults in vain.
E’en now I love the fragrant vermifuge; to me
Its golden buttons yet are beautiful; 10
And in old age I well delight to pull
And hand it to my grandbairns, and to see
Them prize it too: for whate’er gives them pleasure,
To my poor simple mind seems something I would treasure.

George Markham Tweddell
[Sonnets on Trees and Flowers, p. 61]
207

To Castillo (John Castillo - Bard of the Dales)

To Castillo
(John Castillo The Bard of the Dales)
Although our creeds might vary, Castillo,

And our amusements might not be the same,
(For thou wouldst look with horror on my love
Of the fine dramas with which Sophocles,
Euripides, and Terrence moved the souls 5
Of Greeks and Romans in the days of old;
And those of Marlow, Shakspere, and the rest
Of England’s noblest dramatists, would scorn
To dance around the Maypole with a maid
Fair as the lily and as spotless too; 10
Yet as thou loved my Cleveland’s hills and dales,
And had compassion for her people’s souls,
And strove to gain them from their wicked ways;
Though thou too oft might in confusion blend
Mere innocent enjoyments with their abuse; 15
I love thee, noble if mistaken soul!
And would much rather err with Puritans—
Earnest, thou much too solemn—than defile
My spirit in the brutalizing pools
Of sensual debasements. And I would fain 20
Pay thee such honour as thou merited,
Among our Cleveland poets, though thy rank
Be not the highest: thou hast gained the hearts
Of numbers whom no other bard has won;
And as the vocal songsters of the grove 25
Vary in compass and in melody,

Yet all are welcome to the naturalist,
So in our poesy: not Homer’s strains,
Not Dante’s visits to the nether realms,
Nor Milton soaring to eternal day, 30
Are for all readers. Humble lays like thine
Solace the lab’ring dalesman in his toil,
Help him to bear the numerous ills of life,
And teach his soul to look from earth to heaven.

‘Peter Proletarius.’ (George Markham Tweddell)
[Castillo’s Dialect Poems ed. Geo. M. Tweddell (1878)]

Tweddell published Castillo's work in 1878 after the poet's death and in the Cleveland Dialect. He also wrote about him in The Bards and Authors of Cleveland and South Durham in 1872. John Castillo was well published though with a number of anthologies out.

Lealholm Bridge

From Wiki - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Castillo


John Castillo (1792 – 16 April 1845), often referred to as the "Bard of the Dales", from his first published book - "The Bard of the Dales - Poems by John Castillo" was a poet who lived for much of his life in the village of Lealholm. Castillo's work is treasured as having recorded the ancient language of the dales from oblivion.

John's father, a traveller, met his spouse in Eskdale and they both returned to Ireland where John was born in 1792 near the small village of Rathfarnham, close to Dublin, today a suburb of the city. At the age of two, the family decided to return to Lealholm and moved to the site that now bears the name Poet's Corner. At the age of 12 he moved to Lincolnshire and began work as a servant on a country estate and soon became note for his talent as a poet, singer / song-writer.

Later returning to Eskdale, he began work as a farm hand, and soon turned his skills to stonemasonry. Methodism was popular across the Dales, and John converted from Catholicism in 1818. Following thoughts of suicide he became a lay preacher, but continued his stone work and poetry. He often wrote using local dialect and is most well known for the poems "Aud Isaac" and "The Steeplechase" although he also used standard English. Very few of his works have been published since the early 1900s.

He died in the town of Pickering aged 53, and is buried at the Methodist Chapel in Hungate. His gravestone reads an epitaph of his own creation.

Sonnet Written in York Castle

Sonnet Written in York Castle

During an arbitrary Incarceration of Forty Days, in the autumn of
1846 for “Contempt of Court”

Think not, because a prison’s massive wall
Deprives my body of its liberty,
That stones, and locks, and iron bars call thrall
The scaring mind, which, mounting over all,
Can freely roam o’er each declivity, 5
And mountain-steep through groves, o’er verdant plains,
Visiting scenes of pleasures past or pains;
For tyrants ne’er can keep the soul in chains.
The heart that’s nobly learn’d to soar above
Mere worldly wealth, and rank, and lawless power, 10
Of human life,—the heart that in its love
And all the sensual play-things of the hour
Can comprehend the meanest things that crawls,
Defies all terror of your castle-walls!

George Tweddell
[To be found in the Special Collection, Brotherton library,
Leeds University and included here with kind permission.]

York Castle Prison
http://www.yorkcastleprison.org.uk/york-castle-prison.html

Bolckow and Vaughan

Bolckow and Vaughan

Written on reading an account of Unveiling the Statue of the late H.
W. F. Blockow Esq., M. P., at Middlesbrough, October 6th 1881.

Honour to those who honour’d Bolckow’s name!
’Twas fit that Cleveland should all honours pay
To her illustrious dead: but who dare say
The worker Vaughan, shall share not in his fame?
Castor and Pollux—sans their cruelty— 5
Around their heads the flames indeed did play,—
Smelting the iron-ore! The self-same bay
Should crown each brow; for in their industry
Alike they fought and conquer’d. Unto each
We owe our equal gratitude; for one 10
Without his partner never could have done
The things they did. Had Bolckow’s statue speech,
In voice as loud as Stentor’s we should hear,—
“Honour not me if ye neglect my Partner dear!”

Rose Cottage, Stokesley George Markham Tweddell
[Tweddell’s Illustrated Annual 1881-1882, p. 40]

Here is Tweddell's celebrated history of Middlesbrough, appreciated by historian Asa briggs in Victorian Cities. http://georgemarkhamtweddell.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/tweddells-history-of-middlesbrough-1890.html

The full manuscript book is in the reference section of Middlesbrough Library between C800 and C900 - near a box with his People's History of Cleveland. This is the extract from Bulmers North Yorkshire directory 1890 in which, halfway down is a good account of Bolkow and Vaughan.

Redcar

Redcar

Redcar! Upon thy firm, smooth sands, I love

To loiter in the pleasant Summer time,

When Phoebe drives his fiery wain aloft,

And zephyrs waft the fragrance of the vale,

Mix’d with the coolness of the old Ocean’s breath, 5

Acceptable alike to youth and age,

Joy to the hale, and healing to the ill.

See what a fleet of vessels gaily glide,

Like happy swans, upon the glassy sea,

Bringing the riches of each foreign land 10

In happy exchange for our industry.

Another day, perchance on angry waves

These ships will toss; grim Neptune in his rage,

Like raving madmen, striving to destroy

All that hath taken years of toil to make. 15

But now in calm the sea-god seems to sleep,

And Cleveland’s maidens, in the limpid waves,

Bathe their fair limbs, as Dian did of old;

Whilst the sands sparkle, as with diamonds strewn.

Peter Proletarius (George Markham Tweddell)

[Tweddell’s North of England Illustrated Annual for 1879-1880, p. 38]

Poem also in Tweddell's book Visitor's Guide toe Redcar, Coatham and Saltburn 1863, which can be download free via Google books via this page on the Tweddell Hub. http://georgemarkhamtweddell.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/redcar-coatham-and-saltburn-tweddells.html

The Rev. John Graves

The Rev. John Graves.

“Hail! Patient plodder in the useful mine of our antiquities:

Cleveland owes to thee

Honour, as one who made her History

From out the darkness of the Past to shine;

And evermore thy brows we will entwine 5

With bays that will not fade. Although no bard

To sing her greatness, yet thou labour’d hard,

In nervous prose, to make her name divine

In our land’s letters. Pioneer wert thou

For Ord to follow; and now I aspire, 10

To pen in prose, and sometimes tune my lyre

To sing, of Cleveland in the Past and Now.

May thy industrious labours, Graves to me

Prove such an example, that I equal thee!”

‘Peter Proletarius’ George Markham Tweddell

[Bards and Authors, p. 384 & Tractates No. 37 Cleveland

Sonnets (Fourth Series - 1890)]

Author of The History of Cleveland 1808 - More info to come.

Frank Wilkinson

Frank Wilkinson.

“He wooed the Muses on thy banks, fair Tees!

And oft, in distant Burmah, sigh’d once more

Bardlike to loiter in the pleasant fields

And flower-strewn footpaths of his native land:

And when he sang by Sitong’s eastern stream, 5

His songs breathed love for home, and Hurworth Rose

In hid ‘mind’s eye,’ with all its quiet homes

And dear familiar faces, till he wept,

And felt himself a child again.”

‘Peter Proletarius’ George Marham Tweddell

[Bards and Authors, p. 350]

More info to come to this.

James Clephan

James Clephan.

“His leisure only to the Muse he gives;

By writing prose, not singing verse, he lives.”

‘Peter Proletarius’ George Markham Tweddell

From the intro to the chapter on James Clepham in Tweddell's [Bards & Authors, p. 295]

Info to come to this.

Bishop Brian Walton

From Tweddell's Bards and Authors 1872

Bishop Brian Walton.

“He lived in troubled times. Let us forget

How paltry squabbles about tithes would fret

His soul and those of others: nor need we

Fight o’er again, with paper chivalry,

The struggle anent lectures. ’T is alone 5

As scholar Brian Walton will be known

Age after age: for ne’er will be forgot

His famous bible cleped the Polyglot”

‘Peter Proletarius’ (George Markham Tweddell )

From the intro to the chapter on Brian Walton in [Bards & Authors, p. 224]

More info here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Walton_(bishop)

John Reed Appleton.

John Reed Appleton.

 “Scoff not at antiquarian research,
As useless in results; for it throws light
Upon the darkness of the past to aid
Humanity along its devious way”.

‘Peter Proletarius’   - George Markham Tweddell
[ Bards and Authors , p.201]

............................
Note: This poem was written as an intro to a chapter on John Reed Appleton for Tweddell's Bards and Authors of Cleveland and South Durham 1872

Bards and Authors can be downloaded free (with the chapter in) from the Tweddell hub here http://georgemarkhamtweddell.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/bards-and-authors-of-cleveland-and.html

John Reed Appleton was a writer and close walking companion of Tweddell.
More to be added here!

And another poem on him from the Illustrated Annual.


John Reed Appleton, F.R.A.
Poet and antiquary, both combined!
Why not? All truth is beautiful; and truth
Must circulate through all the poet’s soul,
E’en as the blood through arteries and veins,
Past, present, future, to the bard are one 5
Unending circle of humanity:
And the true antiquary loves the past
For all its teachings in the search for truth.
Peter Proletarius
[Tweddell’s North of England Illustrated Annual for 1879-1880, p. 5]



Sonnet to John Appleton of Durham, F.S.A.

Oft, as I muse beside my winter’s fire,
The scene where we have rambled rise to view
In all their beauty: in fancy I review
Our sea-side visits; nor do I desire
A purer pleasure than we two enjoy’d 5
By bosky streams—on mountains—or beside
Ruins of fabrics once our country’s pride,—
Castles and monasteries: never cloy’d
Their histories and legends to our taste;
And now I half rehear the genial talk 10
Which we enjoy’d in many a rustic walk,
To shorten which we never felt in haste.
These rambles serve me for a glorious theme,
And linger in my brain as if a pleasant dream.

Rose Cottage, Stokesley George Markham Tweddell
[Tweddell’s Illustrated Annual 1881-1882, p. 8]


To a Young Friend

On his being articled as an Attorney-at-law
ALFRED! thine is a truly noble name!
It has been borne by one who was a king
In thought and deed, both on and off the throne;
And whoso bears that name should prize its fame.
With thee I’ve rambled o’er our Cleveland hills, 5
And mark’d thy young eyes sparkle with delight
To view these scenes thy sire* so well has sung.
To-day thou enters on the tedious path
Of legal studies;—tedious to the drone
Whose servile soul ne’er soars above the fees 10
Which future years, he hopes, will pluck from fools
That knaves like him may feed and batten on.
But to the pure of heart, my Alfred dear!
The study of the law can nerve the soul
To shield the innocent, and strike down Wrong; 15
Corruption to weed out, and rear a pile
Of Strength and Beauty, Justice makes her home.
Be it thine, brave youth (though others waste their time
In vain frivolity), to master all
Highways and byways of thy country’s laws, 20
Both past and present, in true student mood;
And thy wilt find in ev’ry task a pleasure
That Ignorance wots not of. And in time
Thy manly voice may thunder in our courts,
Demanding justice for the wrong’d, when I 25
Am dust below the sod.

Stokesley, Sept. 2nd 1871 George Markham Tweddell
*John Reed Appleton, F.S.A. &c., whose fine blank verse upon
Cleveland (forming No. 1 of the North of England Tractates), is a
valuable addition to our local literature. G. M. T.
Tweddell’s Middlesbrough Miscellany (1871), p. 83
Woodcut

Joseph Reed

Joseph Reed.
  
“Old all the amusements that the world o’er saw, 
The Theatre is chief; yea, worth them all.” 

‘Peter Proletarius’  - George Markham Tweddell
[ Bards & Authors , p. 178]  

...............................
Note: This short poem was to introduce Tweddell's chapter on Stockton playwright Joseph Reed in Bards and Authors of Cleveland and South Durham 1872.

You can download the book free on this page here via the Tweddell Hub - http://georgemarkhamtweddell.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/bards-and-authors-of-cleveland-and.html

There is also a chapter in William Hall Burnett's book Old Cleveland - Local Writers and Local Worthies, downloadable from the page on the Tweddell hub. http://georgemarkhamtweddell.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/old-cleveland-local-writers-and-local.html

Some more material to come to this post.


JOSEPH REED (1723 - 1787)

"The poet and playwright was born the son of a rope-maker in Stockton on Tees, and ran the business with vigor both in Stockton and London all his life. In 1750, he married Sarah Watson in Middlesbrough.

Reed always considered himself an amateur writer, despite his many publications and the success of several plays. He early developed an interest in combative pamphleteering, and between 1761-76 wrote four plays including his two most successful, The Register Office and the comic opera Tom Jones. Both derived from his relationship with the great Henry Fielding. The former work caught the public interest and became a standard afterpiece. The character Margery Moorpout, incidentally, extols Roseberry Topping. His tragedy Dido marked a collaboration with David Garrick, but trouble dogged the work. Joseph Ritson (q.v.) a friend of Reed, prepared it for the press in 1792 but it was not printed until 1808, and then perished in a fire."

From http://www.sclews.me.uk/m-reed.html



Margery Moorpout was performed at Dury Lane.

William Martin

William Martin.

“I stood beside a newly-open’d grave,
And gazed upon a coffin placed therein,
When straight before mine eyes a vision pass’d
Changing like human life. At first a youth
Full of high thoughts of heaven-born Poêsy, 5
Row’d me along the Leven in his boat;
And, as we floated on the crystal stream,
We held discourse of bards long pass’d away,
Whose songs will not die till ‘the crack of doom.’
It vanished and another pass’d met my view. 10
It was a populous city, and I met
My friend still wooing Poêsy,
And full of high philanthropy. Anon
We met in lodge Masonic, as brethren of
The ‘mystic tie,’ loving the dear old craft, 15
Which none that understand it can despise

Returning to my native vale again,
We met as wont: but health had left his cheeks,
Disease had seized upon his noble frame,
With lion-grip, that could not be removed, 20
Save by Death’s icy hand. The coffin now
Hid from my eyes all that with us remain’d
Of my dear friend. From laurel growing by
I pluck’d a branch, and dropped it in his grave,
Nor could forbear my tears. Let all his faults 25
Be buried with his bones, for they were few
And venial; let his virtues ever live,
Treasured in his friends’ memories, for they were manifold.”

‘Peter Proletarius’ (George Markham Tweddell)
[Bards & Authors, p. 171]

This poem was also an introduction to a chapter on William Martin in Tweddell's Bards and Authors of Cleveland and South Durham 1872.

The original book can be downloaded free on the Tweddell hub on this post - http://georgemarkhamtweddell.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/bards-and-authors-of-cleveland-and.html

According to Tweddell in Bard's and Authors, "William Martin was born in Newcastle in 1825. In early youth he was adopted by his kind hearted maiden Aunt - Miss Martin, a member of the society of Friends at Great Ayton. William martin was inspired by the works of Burns. Tweddell first published him in his newspaper - Stokesley News in 1844, and though he never published a volume, he continued to write occasional pieces for the press up until his death. He wrote a poem called Be Kind to the Poor for Tweddell's proposed collection of poems to raise funds for the Bury Ragged School of which Tweddell was Master but which never got published.Tweddell published his poem in Bards and authors. He became the manager of his Aunt's leather warehouse in Oldham Street, Manchester. He was one of the founders and past master of the Cleveland Lodge of  free and accepted Masons and provincial grand sword-bearer of the North. He died in 1863 and buried in the Friends Burial Ground in Great Ayton. his funeral was attended by a great number of acquaintances for miles around - especially by his  brothers 'of the mystic tie'.

He returned to Great Ayton in 1860 and took over the Cleveland Tanneries which his family had carried on for many years." George Markham Tweddell

Francis Mewburn. (Solicitor for the Stockton and Darlington Railway / Author

Francis Mewburn.

“A form erect and manly; the body
Fit emblem of his rectitude of mind.
His hair, now bleach’d as white as winter’s snow,
After a life of honest industry,
Reminds us that his days are nearly done 5
On earth; yet will his influence survive
When he is dust, and many wish to tread
In his sure footsteps; for a well-spent life
Is never lived in vain.”

‘Peter Proletarius’ (George Markham Tweddell)
[Bards & Authors, p. 105]

This was written as a poetic introduction to a chapter in Tweddell's Bards and Authors of Cleveland and South Durham 1972 on Francis Mewburn.
You can download the original book free on this page of the Tweddell Hub. You'll find the chapter on Francis Mewburn in the book. http://georgemarkhamtweddell.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/bards-and-authors-of-cleveland-and.html

Tweddell also writes about him in his book The History of the Stockton and Darlington Railway and its various Branches. - which you can download free on this page of the Tweddell Hub
http://georgemarkhamtweddell.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/the-history-of-stockton-and-darlington.html


Francis Mewburn (bio) from http://www.bermac.co.uk/the_peases.html

"Mewburn was born at Bishop Middleham in 1785, he was said to be the legal brains behind the S&D Railway. He was also credited as being ‘Chief Bailiff’, which was a Mayoral position and which ceased on his death in 1867. Mewburn and Raisbeck were joint solicitors on the S&D project, but in 1828 Raisbeck resigned. Mewburn was not flattered by a remark made by Joseph Pease, when he told him he had the heart of a chicken; his family motto was ‘Festina Lente’, hasten with caution. Mewburn attended school at Ormsby near Middlesbrough, then later he was articled to a solicitor at Durham; he moved to Darlington in 1809 and it was here he began his law business. He married the daughter of Mr. Smales, Elizabeth, in 1813; they had a rather large family of girls and lived in a large house at the junction of Larchfield Street, and Coniscliffe Road, Darlington. St. Augustine's Church Hall is on this location in the present day. The house was originally owned by the Backhouse family and named by them ‘Paradise’, this was quickly changed by Mewburn. By the time the railway was progressing, in 1818, his solicitor practice was flourishing, this was when the population was around 5000. Francis attended St. Cuthbert’s Church, his family not being Quakers, and in the present day a window is dedicated in his honour. This window features St. Andrew and St. Barnabas; he was born and died on their feast days. For all he was not a Quaker he was chosen to assist Edward Pease and Jonathan Backhouse in the litigation leading to the birth of the S&D Railway. He also attended ‘The Holy Trinity Church’, in Woodland road and here again there is a plaque erected in his honour.

As stated, Mewburn became chief Bailiff of Darlington being the Bishop of Durham’s, representative. In 1846 Mewburn died of Bright’s disease, (kidney disease). The position of Bailiff ceased when Darlington became a Borough in 1868. Mewburn performed many duties one being the laying of the foundation stone for Skerne Bridge, in 1824 (on the back of a £5 note). He also started the Blackwell Bridge, in 1832. Mewburn was best known however for the legalities of the S&D Railways, and it was October 27th 1829 that he presided at a dinner at the Croft Spa Hotel, to celebrate the opening of the Croft branch.

He predicted that Darlington people would be able to leave Darlington any morning attend an opera at London in the evening and be home again by breakfast time, but breakfast should have read tea time.The well-attended inaugural meeting concluded, and the people, having full confidence in these respectable people, appointed a 40 strong management committee, made up from those prepared to subscribe £500 to the project." Read more here - http://www.bermac.co.uk/the_peases.html

Cedmon (caedmon)

Cedmon.

“The old Brigantes from our bosky brooks
And heather-covered hills far were driven;
The Roman legions had been call’d away
From Britain’s isle, to cross their swords with men
Who, rear’d in savage wilds, had over-run 5
Fair Italy, and sought to rule the world;
The hardy Saxons, from Teutonic woods,
Had made our shores their own, and fixed their feet
So firmly on the sod, that nought could shake
Their footsteps from our soil; when he arose, 10
Cedmon, the humble herdsman of the swine
That fed on mast of Cleveland’s oaks and beeches,
Or tended beeves that then were wont to graze
In Cleveland’s pastures. He heard old ocean
Dash his wild waves in fury at his feet 15
Of Cleveland’s Iron cliffs, and saw them foam
As if with rage,—anon lie sleeping on
Our silver sands, their motion as serene
As maiden’s breasts, which merely heave with breathing;
He saw the morning sun rise in its beauty, 20
Shine in its glory, and in splendour set;
The moon and stars for him adorn’d the night,
As they had done for Homer; flowers came forth
In all their rustic beauty at his feet;
And birds and bees made music for his ears; 25
And he became—a poet!”

George Markham Tweddell  as (Peter Proletarius)

From [Bards and Authors of Cleveland and South Durham p. 21, under ‘Peter Proletarius’]
Written to introduce a chapter on Caedmon.

Here is a link to a downloadable original copy of  Bards and Authors of Cleveland and South Durham 1872 by George Markham Tweddell in which you'll find the first chapter is about Caedmon. http://georgemarkhamtweddell.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/bards-and-authors-of-cleveland-and.html

Following on from Tweddell's history of Cleveland's bards and authors, William Hall Burnett (poet and editor of the (Middlesbrough) Daily Exchange included a chapter on Caedmon in his book Old Cleveland (Local Writers and Local Worthies) 1886 - downloadable here http://georgemarkhamtweddell.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/old-cleveland-local-writers-and-local.html

The Late Professor Phillips (Professor of Geology)

The Late Professor Phillips.*

Fain would I to thy honour pay,

My e’er-to-be-remembered gifted friend;
For in thy greatness thou did condescend
To kindly notice me. O for a lay
Of nobler praise than I can sing or say 5
Of thy true worth such as Burns would have penn’d
If he had known thee. Minds like thine can bend
To humbler talents, and they show always
Respect unto the poorest who may strive
To find the truth and live it. Thus to me 10
Thou show’d the author’s kind sympathy,
By thy kind praise and aid, to keep alive
In me that love of knowledge which in thee
Shone with such light of heavenly brilliancy.

Rose Cottage, Stokesley George Markham Tweddell

* John Phillips, M.A., F.G.S., F.R.S., successively Professor of Geology in the
Universities of London, Dublin, and Oxford, and an able writer on the history and
geology of Yorkshire.
[Bards and Authors, stuck inside cover, Teesside Archives copy 2, U/TW/1/18]

More information here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Phillips_(geologist)

His book on Yorkshire geology - The Rivers and Mountains and Sea Coast of Yorkshire (with essays on the Climate, Scenery and Ancient Inhabitants of the County 1855 (PDF version here Free http://www.geology.19thcenturyscience.org/books/1855-Phillips-Yorkshire/htm/doci003.html

Daybreak in Spring.

Daybreak in Spring.


















I love to view the Daybreak when it glows,
With roseate hues, above our Cleveland Hills;
And see how soon the horizon it fills
With its full flood of light; which freely flows
From the grand Sun, which seems to us to rise 5
From clouds where he had taken his repose.
What though the merest schoolboy haply knows
That Sunrise is deception to the eyes,
Which Science has explain’d long years ago!
Yet Daybreak is as beautiful as when 10
Earth’s movements were unknown, and tongue and pen
Of great Galileo had ne’er brought woe
To the wise thinker. Are we wider grown
If we make beauty not still more our own?

To rich and poor daybreak is free, 15
If they have eyes to see and souls to feel
Those sights of Nature, which have power to heal
Great portions of all human misery.
Daybreak awakes to life and voyancy
Not merely man, but bird and butterfly, 20
The sheep and cattle that in pasture lie,
And on the wing brings forth each busy bee;
The flowers unfold their petals to the light,
And Cleveland soon is musical with song
Of feather’d choristers, which all day prolong 25
Their melody; the streams are all bedight
In silvery sheen: and Cleveland seems to be
A district form’d for true felicity.

George Markham Tweddell

Photos by Trev Teasdel

Capt. Thomas Thrush

Capt. Thomas Thrush.

Foremost ’mongst Cleveland heroes, honest THRUSH
Deserves high praise from every Cleveland bard:
Bravely with arms his native coast to guard
To him was a pleasure,—ever first to rush
Where duty calls invasion vile to crush, 5
His life he did not value, so that he
Could aid in keeping his dear country free
From foreign force. By merit he did push
His way to great distinction and reward.
But when, in after years, War seem’d to be 10
To him to be opposed to Christianity,
He to resign his Pension did not fear;
Holding that Poverty was better far
Than riches he had won, e’en by valour, in a War!

George Markham Tweddell

Read the book on line here

http://www.archive.org/stream/letteraddressedt00thrurich#page/n3/mode/2up

Mulgrave Wood

Mulgrave Wood.

All who love Nature must delight to roam
Along the sylvan glades of this old wood,
Where noble tress have many ages stood,
And many song-birds long have made their home.
Here trees of every form and hue are found, 5
And wildflowers ’neath their branches freely bloom:
For thousands, town-pent now, there here is room
To gladden eye and ear with sight and sound;
For miles of primroses are seen in Spring,
Bees sweetly hum in blossoms of the sloe; 10
Summer and Autumn too have flowers to show
By millions; birds and insects on the wing
Fill the whole air with melody; and e’en
Keen Winter all adorns with silvery sheen.

George Markham Tweddell

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulgrave_Castle

Our Future Men and Women.

Our Future Men and Women.

Written Impromptu on seeing a Procession of several Hundred
happy-looking Children at Stokesley, June 29th, 1887, in honour of
the Queen’s Jubilee.

It is a pleasant sight, indeed, to see
Those happy Children, Boys and Girls so dear;
Let us be kind to them, that we may rear
A race of Men and Women who will be
Healthy and virtuous: then liberty 5
For our loved land will rest on a sure base,
And they will help to bless the human race
With all things leading to felicity.
Our future Men and Women! Oh, may ye
Grow up i’ knowledge of all things that are good,— 10
The Girls true patterns of pure Womanhood,
The Boys of noble Manhood, so that we
May leave the world assured that in our place
Others will stand who ne’er their country will disgrace.

George Markham Tweddell

This Stokesley photo is maybe later than 1887 but is the nearest fit for the poem.

Darnley, Husband of Mary Queen of Scots.

Darnley, Husband of Mary Queen of Scots.

For years at Whorlton Castle might be seen
The “long lad,” as Queen Bess did rightly call
Her relative, young DARNLEY. He was tall,
But never manly! weak in mind, and mean,
Despite his royal blood. On various thrones 5
His ancestors had sat: he was unfit
To rule o’er man or beast. True love ne’er knit
His heart to gentle Mary; the very stones
She trod on loved her quite as much as he
Was capable of doing. Rizzio’s groans, 10
His shrieks for mercy, and his dying moans,
Must oft echoed in his memory.
At last the murd’rous libertine was sent
To his account by means to which one cannot give assent.

George Markham Tweddell

Whorlton Castle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Stuart,_Lord_Darnley

Lord Darnley