Author: Hewit, Alexander
Biography:
HEWIT, Alexander (1769-1850: Scotland’s People)
Rev. William Shillinglaw Crockett gave a sparse but well-informed account of Hewit’s life in Minstrelsy of the Merse (1893) (MM). It gave an incorrect year of birth (1778), however, and no details of a marriage. In what follows, parish registers and the 1841 census have been used to correct and supplement Crockett’s account. Alexander and his twin brother James were born on 1 June 1769 at Lintlaw, Bunkle, Berwickshire, the sons of Andrew Hewit and his wife Mary Burke. They received an elementary education at the local school in Lintlaw. James enlisted in the navy and was killed while assisting to quell a mutiny on board his ship. Alexander initially worked on a farm but later enlisted in the Hopetoun Fencibles for around six years and published Poems on Various Subjects (1798) at Berwick. After the Peace of Amiens (27 March 1802), he returned home and went to live in Ayton, Berwickshire, where he married Sarah Kerr on 18 Jan. 1805 at Coldingham, Berwickshire. They had at least three children who were still living with them at North Fallow Know, Coldingham, in the 1841 census. Crockett states that he worked as a ploughman on several farms, including one at Cairncross, from where he wrote a different version of Poems on Various Subjects (1807) and where he remained until at least 1823 when the third edition appeared. He became the tenant of a farm at North Fallyknowe (sic) in 1834 and died there in 1850 (MM). The burial record has not been traced and it is possible that he was the Alexander Hewit buried on 2 Feb. 1845 (no age given) at Ayton. The three editions of Poems on Various Subjects, listed here, all differ, with increasing use of Scots dialect. The first (1798) is mostly notable for its poem on the unsuccessful French invasion of Ireland in 1796 (“Bantry Bay”) and two poems on drunkenness (“The Drunkard Reformed” and “The Canteen”). The second (1807) adds witty denunciations (in Scots dialect) of Thomas Paine (“Bee-headed gowks approv’d his plan”) and Father John Murphy (one of the leaders of the 1798 Irish Rebellion). The third (1823) adds tributes to Sir Walter Scott and Edinburgh (“Auld Reekie”).(Scotland’s People; MM, 114-15) AA