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Author: Brooks, William

Biography:

BROOKS, William (1770-c. 1841: ancestry.co.uk)

He was, as his title page states, clerk to the weavers’ guild in Musselburgh, Midlothian. The son of James Brooks and his wife Isabel Milcolme, he was born on 15 Mar. 1770 and baptised in Musselburgh on 18 Mar. 1770. He married Agnes Easton on 9 Dec. 1794; they had a number of children including a son William who became a tailor and a daughter Agnes who drowned in a boating accident in 1819. He was a merchant with premises on the High Street in Musselburgh; he is listed in the 1841 Census but may have died soon after that date. Musselburgh fair, now called Musselburgh Festival, is held every year; Brooks’s introductory poem states that in 1809 he wrote his poem because of the death of Patrick Tait (q.v.) who previously had celebrated the fair in verse. (ancestry.co.uk 28 Feb. 2022; Caledonian Mercury 20 May 1819)

 

Books written (2):

Edinburgh/ Musselburgh/ Fisherrow: printed by James Muirhead/ the author/ William Begg, 1809