Author: Walker, James Scott
Biography:
WALKER, James Scott (1791-1850: ancestry.co.uk)
pseudonym Jeremy Jumper
He was born on 25 Dec. 1791 and baptised 23 Jan. 1792 at Saint Cyrus, near Montrose, Scotland, the second son of the Rev. William Walker and his wife, Margaret Scott, who had married in 1788. His parents died early and his education devolved to relatives. A cousin, the Glasgow merchant and shipowner Hercules Scott, sent him to his trading establishment in Trinidad. After Trinidad, he went to Curacao, La Guayra, and Caracas where he witnessed the great earthquake of 1812. He learned French and Spanish and visited many of the islands in the West Indies. Returning home to Dumfries around 1815, he published The South American, a Spenserian travelogue with Byronic influences. He also married at Dumfries, on 10 Dec. 1815, Mary Radcliffe. They had three sons and a daughter. Around 1817, he moved to Liverpool and continued to trade with the West Indies.Apart from the period 1831-9, when he moved to Preston as editor of the Preston Chronicle, he spent the rest of his life as a journalist and editor in Liverpool, working first on the Liverpool Mercury and later on the Liverpool Standard. In 1827 he set up, edited and contributed many poems to the Lancashire Literary Museum. His wife died in 1846. He died 21 August 1850 in Liverpool. A posthumous collection, The Privateer, or The Island of St. Andrew . . . With Other Tales and A Few Poems (1853) contained a selection of early poems: "The Curse of Slavery," "The Earthquake," "Extempore Lines on the Death of Lord Byron," "The Three Chimney Sweeps." In addition to his poetry, he also wrote An Essay on the Education of the People (1825) and An Accurate Description of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (1830). (ancestry.co.uk 25 Jul. 2021; Scotland's People; Spenserians; Preston Chronicle 2 May 1846; Liverpool Standard 27 Aug. 1850; GM Dec. 1850, 667; John Evans, Lancashire Authors and Orators [1850], 289-93) AA
Other Names:
- J. S. Walker