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- Myrmecologist Horace St. John Kelly Donisthorpe, 1870
- Poet Ebenezer Elliott, 1781
- 5th Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Roger Brooke Taney, 1777
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Ebenezer Elliott (17 March 1781 – 1 December 1849) was an English poet, known as the Corn Lawrhymer.
Elliott was born at the New Foundry, Masbrough, in the Parish of Rotherham, Yorkshire. His father, (known as "Devil Elliott", for his fiery sermons) was an extreme Calvinist and a strong Radical, and was engaged in the iron trade. His mother suffered from poor health, and young Ebenezer, although one of a family of eleven children, of whom eight reached mature life, had a solitary and rather morbid childhood. At the age of six he contracted small - pox, which left him ‘fearfully disfigured and six weeks blind.’ His health was permanently affected, and he suffered from illness and depression in later life.
He was first educated at a dame school, then attended the Hollis School in Rotherham, where he was ‘taught to write and little more.’, but was generally regarded as a dunce.
He hated school, and preferred to play truant, spending his time
exploring the countryside around Rotherham, observing the plants and
local wildlife. At about fourteen he began to read extensively on his
own account, and in his leisure hours he studied botany,
collected plants and flowers, and was delighted at the appearance of ‘a
beautiful green snake about a yard long, which on the fine Sabbath
mornings about ten o'clock seemed to expect me at the top of Primrose
Lane.’ When he was sixteen he was sent to work at his father's foundry, working for the next seven years with no wages beyond a little pocket money. In a fragment of autobiography printed in The Athenaeum (12
January 1850) he says that he was entirely self - taught, and
attributes his poetic development to long country walks undertaken in
search of
wild flowers, and to a collection of books, including the works of Young, Barrow, Shenstone and John Milton,
bequeathed to his father. His son - in - law, John Watkins, gave a more
detailed account in "The Life, Poetry and Letters of Ebenezer Elliott",
published 1850. One Sunday morning, after a heavy night’s drinking,
Elliott missed chapel and visited his Aunt Robinson where he picked up a botany book, Sowerby’s “English Botany.” He was entranced by the colour plates of flowers and when she
encouraged him to make his own flower drawings, he was thrilled to find
he had a flair for it. His younger brother, Giles, whom he had always
admired, read him a poem from James Thomson's
“Seasons” which described polyanthus and auricular flowers, and this
was a turning point in Elliott's life. He realised that he could
successfully combine his love of nature, and his talent for drawing,
with writing poems and decorating them with flower illustrations. In 1798, aged seventeen, he wrote his first poem Vernal Walk in imitation of James Thompson. He was also influenced by Byron and the Romantic poets and Robert Southey who later became Poet Laureate.
In 1808 Elliott wrote to Southey asking for advice on getting
published. Elliott was delighted when Southey replied. Their
correspondence over the years encouraged him and reinforced his
determination to make a name for himself as a poet.
Although they only met once, they exchanged letters until 1824, and
Elliott declared that it was Southey who had taught him the art of
poetry. Other early poems were Second Nuptials and Night, or the Legend of Wharncliffe, which last was described by the Monthly Review as the ‘Ne plus ultra of German horror and bombast.’ His Tales of the Night, including The Exile and Bothwell, were
considered to be of more merit, and brought him high commendations. His
earlier volumes of poems, dealing with romantic themes, received much
unfriendly comment, however the faults of Night, the earliest of these, are pointed out in a long and friendly letter (30 January 1819) from Southey to the author. Elliott
married Frances (Fanny) Gartside in 1806, and they had thirteen
children. He invested his wife's fortune in his father's share of the
iron foundry, but the affairs of the family firm were then in a
desperate condition, and money difficulties hastened his father's death. Elliott lost everything, and in 1816 he was declared bankrupt. In 1819 he obtained funds from his wife's sisters and began another business as an iron dealer in Sheffield. The business prospered, and by 1829 he had become a successful iron merchant and steel manufacturer. He remained bitter about his earlier failure. He attributed his father's pecuniary losses and his own to the operation of the Corn Laws and
the demand to repeal them became the greatest issue in his life. When
he was made bankrupt, he had been homeless and out of work; he had
faced starvation and contemplated suicide. He knew what it was like to
be impoverished and desperate and, as a result, he always identified
with the poor. He became well known in Sheffield for
his strident views demanding changes which would improve conditions
both for the manufacturer and the worker. He formed the first society
in England to call for reform of the Corn Laws:
the Sheffield Mechanics' Anti - Bread Tax Society founded in 1830. Four
years later, he was the prime mover in establishing the Sheffield
Anti - Corn Law Society and he also set up the Sheffield Mechanics' Institute. He was very active in the Sheffield Political Union, and he campaigned vigorously for the 1832 Reform Act. He took an active part in the Chartist agitation,
but withdrew his support when the agitation for the repeal of the corn
laws was removed from the Chartist programme. Until the Chartist
Movement advocated the use of violence, Elliott was one of the leaders
of the Sheffield organisation. He was the Sheffield delegate to the
Great Public Meeting in Westminster in 1838 and he chaired the meeting in Sheffield when the Charter was introduced to local people. The
strength of his political convictions was reflected in the style and
tenor of his verse, earning him the nickname " the Corn Law Rhymer", and making him internationally famous. The Corn Law Rhymes, first published in 1831, had been preceded by the publication of the single long poem The Ranter in
1830. They were inspired by a fierce hatred of injustice, and are
vigorous, simple and full of vivid description. The poems campaigned
against the landowners in the government who stifled competition and
kept the price of bread high. They were aggressive and sarcastic,
attacking the status quo and demanding the repeal of the Corn Laws.
They also drew attention to the dreadful conditions endured by working
people, and ruthlessly contrasted their lot with the sleek and
complacent gentry. In 1833 - 1835 Elliott also published The Splendid Village; Corn - Law Rhymes, and other Poems (3 vols.), which included The Village Patriarch (1829), The Ranter, an unsuccessful drama, Keronah, and other pieces. His poems were published in the USA, and in Europe. The French magazine, Le Revue Des Deux Mondes, sent a journalist to Sheffield to interview him. The Corn Law Rhymes were initially thought to be written by an uneducated Sheffield mechanic who
had rejected conventional Romantic ideals for a new style of working
class poetry aimed at changing the system. Elliott was described as "a
red son of the furnace " and called " the Yorkshire Burns"
or " the Burns of the manufacturing city ". The journalist was
surprised when he found Elliott to be a mild man with a nervous
temperament. Asa Briggs called Elliott "the poet of economic revolution" while Elliott himself observed: "I
claim to be a pioneer of the greatest, the most beneficial, the only
crimeless Revolution, which man has yet seen. I also claim to be the
poet of that Revolution - the Bard of Freetrade; and through the prosperity, wisdom and loving - kindness which Free - trade will ultimately bring, the Bard of Universal Peace." He also contributed verses from time to time to Tails Magazine and to the Sheffield and Rotherham Independent.
In 1837 his business failed and he again lost a great deal of money.
This misfortune was also ascribed to the corn laws. He retired in 1841
with a small fortune and settled at Great Houghton, near Barnsley, where he lived quietly until his death in 1849 aged 68. He was buried in Darfield churchyard. (From: the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition) In 1850 appeared two volumes of More Prose and Verse by the Corn - Law Rhymer. Elliott lives by his determined opposition to the bread - tax, as he
called it, and his poems on the subject are saved from the common fate
of political poetry by their transparent sincerity and passionate
earnestness. An article by Thomas Carlyle in the Edinburgh Review (July
1832) is the best criticism on Elliott. Carlyle was attracted by
Elliott's homely sincerity and genuine power, though he had small
opinion of his political philosophy, and lamented his lack of humour
and of the sense of proportion. He thought his poetry too imitative,
detecting not only the truthful severity of Crabbe, but a slight bravura dash of the fair tuneful Hemans. His descriptions of his native county reveal close observation and a vivid perception of natural beauty. His obituary appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine in February 1850. Two biographies were published in 1850, one by his son - in - law, John Watkins, and another by January Searle (G.S. Phillips). A new edition of his works by his son, Edwin Elliot, appeared in 1876. The People's Anthem was one of Elliott’s last poems. It was written for music in 1847, and was usually sung to the tune "Commonwealth". The People’s Anthem first appeared in Tait’s Edinburgh Review in 1848. The refrain “God save the people!” parodies the British national anthem, God Save the Queen and
demands support for ordinary people instead. Despite its huge
popularity, some churches refused to use hymn books which contained it,
as it can also be seen as a criticism of God. In his notes on the poem,
Elliott demanded that the vote be given to all responsible
householders. “The People’s Anthem” was a great favourite for many
years, and in the 1920s it was suggested that Elliott’s poem qualified
him to be designated Poet Laureate of the League of Nations. The People's Anthem Towards
the end of his life, Elliott suffered much pain and depression. His
thoughts often turned to his own death and he wrote his own epitaph: The Poet's Epitaph After his death, John Greenleaf Whittier wrote a poem in his memory, titled Elliott. A bronze statue of Elliott by Neville Northey Burnard,
paid for by the people of Sheffield and Rotherham, was erected in 1854
in Sheffield marketplace at a cost of £600. The statue was moved
to Weston Park, Sheffield, in 1874, where it remains.
