Everything about Samuel Laycock totally explained
Samuel Laycock (1826–1893) was a
dialect poet who recorded in verse the
vernacular of the
Lancashire cotton workers. He was born on 17th January 1826 at Intake Head, Pule Hill,
Marsden, West Yorkshire, the son of John Laycock, a hand-loom
weaver. He had no formal education apart from Sunday school and a few months at a local school. In 1837, when the family moved to
Stalybridge, Cheshire, he worked as a cotton weaver.
The
American Civil War (1861-1864) badly affected the Lancashire cotton towns as supplies of raw cotton dried up. Laycock was one of the thousands unemployed and tried to earn a meagre living by writing verses which the unemployed could set to music and sing in the streets for pennies. In 1964, he published
Lancashire Rhymes and in 1866,
Lancashire Songs, poems which documented the everyday life of cotton workers.
In 1865, Laycock became the librarian at Stalybridge
Mechanics' Institute, and in 1867, took up a similar post at The Whitworth Institute,
Fleetwood. He continued writing while working as a photographer, while his wife ran a lodging-house. Just before his death in 1893, he published a collection of poems,
Warblin's fro' an Owd Songster.
In 1850, Laycock married Martha Broadbent, a cotton weaver, but she died two years later, and he remarried in 1858 to Hannah Woolley, who died in 1863. His third marriage in 1864, was to Eliza Pontefract who survived him. He had several children by Hannah and at least two by Eliza, including Arthur, who became a novelist.
Laycock died of
bronchitis on 15th December 1893, at his home, 48 Foxhall Road, Blackpool. He was buried in
Layton Cemetery, Blackpool.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Samuel Laycock'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://samuel_laycock.totallyexplained.com">Samuel Laycock Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
