Author: O'BRYAN, Henry Ross
Biography:
O’BRYAN, Henry Ross (fl 1819)
Although his name is proudly and prominently displayed on the title-page of Sandy-brow and an address on Union-Street (Stockport, Manchester) was attached to the dedication (to Rev. Joseph Harrison), O’Bryan is hard to identify with confidence. No public record or newspaper article has been found that includes the middle name “Ross.” The surname is subject to variant spellings. And no other publication appeared under this name. “O’Bryan” and its variants are common in Ireland and he might have come from there, but the name is not in O’Donoghue or DIB. Given the inflammatory nature of the poem, the name could be a pseudonym. Internal evidence does provide a few clues. The author describes himself as being “of humble birth, and poor and friendless, too.” Sandybrow, in Manchester, was a gathering-place for anti-government protests on several occasions leading up to the Peterloo Massacre of 16 Aug. 1819. The poem celebrates a meeting of 15 Feb. 1819 when protesters raised a Cap of Liberty and were attacked by armed Loyalists. A magistrate then read the Riot Act although, according to O’Bryan, “there was no riot, but that which his Minions had created.” In a prefatory note, O’Bryan refers to the first party as “Friends of Radical Reform and Universal Suffrage” and to the second as “the creatures of Corruption.” The text names names and hails the Rights of Man. The work was printed at the office of the Manchester Observer, a leading radical newspaper that existed only from 1818 to 1822. No further information about O’Bryan has as yet been found. (ancestry.com 11 Mar. 2024; findmypast.com 11 Mar. 2024; O’Donoghue; DIB; “The Manchester Observer,” digitalcollections.manchester.ac.uk 11 Mar. 2024)