Author: Ogden, James
Biography:
OGDEN, James (1717/18-1802: ODNB)
Little is known for certain about the poet James Ogden. Beginning with accounts in R. W. Procter’s Literary Reminiscences (1860) and W. E. A. Axon’s preface to an 1887 reprint of Ogden’s A Description of Manchester (1783), much that has been written about him is uncorroborated, inaccurate, or incorrect, His birth year is invariably stated as 1718 and his birthplace as Manchester. Yet the only James Ogden baptized in the vicinity of Manchester in 1718 appears not to have been the poet. The poet may instead have been the son of Richard Ogden, baptized at Middleton on 20 Nov. 1717; or he may have been the son of John and Ann Ogden, baptized at Oldham on 22 Feb 1717. He certainly married Mary Aldred, on 17 Sep. 1751 in Manchester Cathedral, and had at least three sons, Thomas (d 1787), Titus (1752-1793), and Isaac (1754-1785). Titus attended Manchester School in 1764, as did Isaac in 1770. All three boys emigrated to the United States. He may have had a fourth son, also James (dates unknown). A 1794 municipal directory records James Ogden the elder, “poet”, and James Ogden the younger, “fustian shearer”, at 27 and 26 Wood Street, respectively (the elder Ogden was at that address as early as 1785). Procter and Axion identify the radical printer William Ogden (1753? d 1822) as Ogden’s son. Evidently James was related to William, but no evidence proves they were father and son. By 1807, William Odgen, father and son, printers, had replaced James Ogden and son at 26 and 27 Wood Street. Procter and Axion state that Ogden travelled to France, Germany, and the Netherlands and that he witnessed the 1743 battle of Dettingen; if he did so, perhaps it was in the company of his patrons, the aristocratic Ducie family. A reviewer in MC (1762, 316) had fun with Ogden’s profession: “Ecce signum! the unfortunate author of the British Lion rous’d … we are told [was bred] to the laudable occupation of Fustian-weaving … none but poetic fustian weaves he now.” He died at Manchester on 13 Aug. 1802 at age 84. All of Ogden’s poems are of a strongly loyalist cast. It is therefore relevant, perhaps, that in the 1790s the younger James Ogden was, variously, president, chairman, and secretary of the Manchester Loyal Association. (ODNB 4 May 2023; ancestry.com 5 May 2023; Ogden Papers, Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina; Admission Register … Manchester School [1861], 1:119) JC