Author: Ord, John Walker
Biography:
ORD, John Walker (1811-53: ODNB)
The son of Ann (Ovington) and Richard Ord, a partner in a leather business, he was born on 5 Mar. 1811 (baptised 4 Apr. 1811) at Guisborough, Yorkshire, and attended local schools before going to the University of Edinburgh as a medical student. He was apprenticed to Robert Knox, the anatomy lecturer who became infamous for employing the body-snatchers, Burke and Hare. Ord had started writing poetry before going to university and he contributed to Edinburgh periodicals and met John Wilson and James Hogg (qq.v.); he wanted to marry one of Wilson’s daughters (probably Margaret) but was refused. He and Matthew Smith Milton (q.v.) are said to have found themselves in legal difficulties over satirical verses they had published and they left Scotland before Ord completed his studies. Ord travelled to Wales and Holland with Knox but by 1836 he was in London where, with Milton, he founded the Metropolitan Journal of Literature. This folded after sixteen issues but Ord and Milton then launched the Metropolitan Conservative Journal. Milton died in 1838 and the periodical was amalgamated with The Church of England Gazette, edited by Ord and Michael Augustus Gathercole. By 1839 Ord was back in Edinburgh and he applied to the RLF citing an action for libel from William Maginn for which he had to pay £300. The RLF awarded him £20 and £10 more in 1840. Ord moved to Sunderland where he managed The Northern Times. The 1841 census shows him in Guisborough with his parents but in 1842 he applied again to the RLF saying that his employment had been terminated. Refused further assistance, he wrote that he must then appeal "to the colder charity of the Workhouse or the grave!". On 13 Dec. 1847 Ord was admitted to the York Hospital lunatic asylum where he stayed for seven months. At the time of his death on 29 Aug. 1853 he was in Guisborough writing an epic poem, “Bible Oracles.” He was buried at St. Nicholas, Guisborough, on 1 Sept. 1853. His other publications include History and Antiquities of Cleveland (1846), an edition with a memoir of Thomas Pierson’s (q.v.) Roseberry-Toppin (1847), and Rural Sketches and Poems (1850). (W. H. Burnett, Old Cleveland [1886], W. C. Newsam, The Poets of Yorkshire [1845]; ancestry.co.uk 21 May 2020, 3 Sept. 2025; ODNB 21 May 2020; RLF file 961) SR