Author: TURNBULL, Gavin
Biography:
TURNBULL, Gavin (1764-1816: ancestry.co.uk)
He was born in Hawick, Roxburghshire, the son of Thomas Turnbull, a wool dyer, and his wife Beatrix Ruecastle. He was baptised in Hawick on 16 June 1764. The family moved to Kilmarnock where Thomas Turnbull had a reputation as a carouser and plans to ensure that his son was well-educated came to nothing: after a brief period in school, Gavin Turnbull was put to work in a carpet factory. In about 1787 the family moved to Glasgow where Turnbull arranged the publication by subscription of his Poetical Essays. He corresponded with Robert Burns (q.v.) who admired some of his verse and helped to find subscribers. Turnbull became involved with the theatre and he married; the name of his wife is not known but she may have been an actor. They emigrated to America and were in Charleston SC by Mar. 1798 when proposals for publishing by subscription his “Poems in the Scottish Dialect” were advertised. Another book, “Poems,” was advertised in 1800. No trace of these books has been found and likely neither was actually published. Turnbull corresponded with Alexander Wilson (q.v.), another Scottish poet who emigrated to America in 1794; it was probably through Wilson that Turnbull contributed verse to the Port Folio, a Philadelphia literary magazine. He died on 1 Mar. 1816 and was buried in the First Scots Presbyterian cemetery in Charleston. Proposals for reprinting his poems by subscription to benefit his widow were advertised in 1816 but evidently without success. (ancestry.co.uk 13 Dec. 2021; ODNB 13 Dec. 2021; Observatory, Charleston, 1 Mar. 1798; South Carolina State Gazette 15 Oct. 1800; City Gazette, Charleston, 17 May 1816)