Author: BAITMAN, W. J.
Biography:
BAITMAN, W. J. (1809-79: findmypast.co.uk)
He was probably the William Bateman (sic) born on 9 Dec. 1809 and baptised on 12 June 1810 at Alford, Lincolnshire, the son of David Bateman and his wife Frances Jevons, who had married in Lincoln in 1807. His father may have been the David Bateman of Alford, who enlisted in 1805 in the 69th Regiment as a Private (which he remained throughout twenty-one years of service, including a period in India where he married again). His mother died in 1813. This may explain why the young Baitman signed some poems from the “Workhouse, Alford.” Harpings of Lena (1833) consisted of the posthumous poems of Edward Lenton (q.v.) with a Memoir, and Baitman’s poems. A controversy erupted in Notes & Queries in 1882 and subsequently in local newspapers when issues of authorship were raised. The sister of Robert Uvedale Price claimed her brother was the author of Baitman’s poems. (The documents of the dispute have been assembled by Sarah Teasdale. See below.) Whatever the merits of the claim (and it has some), it does not explain the subsequent publication, Poetics and Prosaics (1835). What is clear, however, is that Baitman’s statements are not to be trusted. He was twice imprisoned: first for stealing handkerchiefs in 1840 for which he received three months hard labour in Louth, and second for vagrancy in 1857 for which he received one month, again in Louth. He claimed to have been with Byron in Italy, to have been made lame fighting for Garibaldi, and to have been born in Manchester. The first two claims are preposterous, the third almost certainly false. In 1851, as William Jevons Bateman, resident in North Somercotes, he claimed to be a schoolmaster and to have been born in Chalons sur Marne, France. His criminal record and later testimonies indicate that he was a Book and Tract Seller, or most likely a hawker. An 1882 testimony records that he had died three or four years before and a William Bateman’s death is recorded at Alford on 19 Apr. 1879, aged 67, retired schoolmaster. (findmypast.co.uk 10 Apr. 2023; Stamford Mercury 18 Feb. 1828; Sarah Teasdale, ‘’ ‘Owd Bill Baitman,” aboutalford.com/category/tales-from-the-past; GRO death cert; N& Q 1882: 18 Feb., 129, 18 Mar., 209-211, 22 Apr., 314, 13 May, 370-1, 27 May, 413-4, 23 Mar. 1889, 223-4) AA