Author: Whittell, Thomas
Biography:
WHITTELL, Thomas (1683-1731: findmypast.com)
The two titles listed here under Whittell’s name were rival editions of a “prior” author’s work published for the first time in 1815, both claiming to be based on the author’s manuscript. Hodgson gives a circumstantial account of the history of publication, essential parts of which are supported by public documents. Thomas Whittell or Whittle, “the Northumbrian poet” or “the licentious poet,” was baptised at Kirkwhelpington, Northumberland, on 10 Sept. 1683, the son of Thomas Whittle; his mother’s name is not given and no record of the marriage has been found. As a boy he transported goods on horseback for a miller. Later he moved to Cambo near Morpeth, in the same county. He first worked for a miller and later made a living as a painter of heraldic signs for public places such as churches. He died, apparently unmarried, at Hartburn, where he had painted a plaque for the church, and was buried there at St. Thomas’s on 19 Apr. 1731. The year of death is usually given as 1736 but that appears to be a confusion with another man of the same name. His poems and songs circulated in the district and some were eventually printed as chapbooks, notably The Midford Galloway’s Ramble, of 8 pages, printed about 1790. The Newcastle schoolmaster and satirist William Robson (d 1821) was promised Whittell’s manuscript but it was intercepted by someone else who transcribed it and began having it printed. Robson retrieved the ms and rushed it into print; according to Hodgson he softened some but not all of the original obscenities. The whereabouts of the manuscript, if it is still extant, is unknown. (findmypast.com 31 May 2024; Goodridge; John Hodgson, History of Northumberland [1827], 2:281n; Henry Frowde, A Bibliographical List of Works Illustrative of the Dialect of Northumberland [1896], 38) HJ