Author: Lewis, Stewart
Biography:
LEWIS, Stewart (c 1756-1818: ODNB)
He was born at Ecclefechan, Dumfriesshire; he may have been the Stewart Armstrong Lewis baptised at Ecclefechan on 23 Apr. 1760. If so, his father was Joseph, innkeeper, farmer, and Jacobite (he named one son Stewart and the other Charles). The father died when Lewis was very young; he was briefly educated at the parish school before being sent to a relation at Chester to learn tailoring. He set up business with a partner who later absconded with the firm’s money, leaving Lewis to return to Ecclefechan as impoverished as when he had left. He worked as a tailor, married (his wife’s name is not known but they had at least five and possibly as many as ten children), and became celebrated as a poet and the town’s chief literary figure who set up a subscription library and debating club. During the war with France, he served in the Hopetoun Fencibles until the regiment was disbanded in 1799. His Collection of Songs (1797) belongs to this period; he is said to have augmented his military income by writing songs for officers. He lived for a time in Manchester and, later, was a wandering poet but he spent his earnings on alcohol. His wife was the family’s mainstay and Lewis was “distracted by grief” when she died in 1817. He travelled restlessly throughout Scotland attempting to sell his poems and, on his return to Dumfriesshire, died of fever at Ruthwell possibly following a fall into the river Nith. The death notice states that he died on 22 Sept. 1818 and was buried with his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. The writer (possibly Robert Chambers) of the Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal essay about him had known Lewis personally; he laments the intemperance of those Scottish poets like Lewis who followed Burns’s example but concludes that “the race of tippling authors, like the ancient race of wandering minstrels, is extinct.” (ODNB 30 Sept 2019; Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal 3 [1835]; ancestry.co.uk 23 Dec. 2021; Caledonian Mercury 3 Oct. 1818; contributions from AA)
Other Names:
- Stuart Lewis