Author: Castillo, John
Biography:
CASTILLO, John (1792-1845: ODNB)
He was born at Rathfarnham, Dublin, in 1792, the son of poor Roman Catholic parents, Patrick Castelow and Mary Bonas, who had married at Danby, Yorkshire, in 1789. There is no record of his birth or baptism. They returned to Ireland but around 1795 left again for England and settled at Lealholm Bridge, on the Banks of the River Esk near Whitby, Yorkshire. Three daughters were later born in England. His father died around 1803 and he left school to go into service in Lincolnshire. He displayed strong religious inclinations at an early age but also a love of singing his own compositions in small gatherings. He returned to Yorkshire about 1805, lived mostly at the hamlet of Fryup in the North Yorkshire moors, and took up the trade of stonemason. He gradually abandoned Roman Catholicism and embraced Wesleyan Methodism: “Under the Wesleyan ministry I was smitten again, and my heart broken to pieces” (“Life,” 21). He was formally admitted at Danby End Chapel on 5 April 1818 and thereafter became a revivalist preacher, often eschewing the pulpit for open-air meetings. He experienced an epiphany in 1819 and perceived the “plan for his salvation” (“Life,” 25). He joined the Pickering circuit in 1838. He died on 16 Apr. 1845 at Pickering, Yorkshire, and was buried at the Wesleyan Chapel there. His dialect poems had always been popular locally and were collected in a small edition as The Bard of the Dales (1850). A more comprehensive collection appeared as The Bard of the Dales; or, Poems and Miscellaneous Pieces; with a Life of the Author, Written by Himself (1858). A further edition was edited by George Markham Tweddel as Poems in the North Yorkshire Dialect (1878). His most popular poem, “Awd Isaac,” has received some scholarly attention but the poems on Wesleyan, topographical, and everyday themes such as sheep-marking, a trapped fox, moor birds in a storm, looking for work, and revivalist meetings, might be worth another look. (ODNB 25 July 2023; “Life,” The Bard of the Dales [1858], 13-36; Newsam, 217-8; Goodridge; Robert Bridge, John Castillo’s 'Awd Isaac,'” The Library 19, no. 4 [2018], 433-54) AA