Author: Withy, Nathan
Biography:
WITHY, Nathan (c. 1747-99: ancestry.co.uk)
Almost nothing is known of him although he appears to have been a minor local celebrity in his day in the famed picturesque landscape of Hagley, Worcestershire. At an unknown date he had been accidentally blinded and worked as a farm labourer. He was subsequently given a cottage rent-free by Lord Lyttelton on part of his estate at Clent, near Halesowen, where local gentry visited him as they toured the Clent Hills. He began publishing in the early 1770s (although first and second editions of Miscellaneous Poems have not been located) and continued into the 1790s so may have been the Nathan Wythy (sic) who was buried at Hagley on 6 Jan. 1799 (with no age given). He described himself as “the blind Bard of Clent” and the unnamed daughter who wrote down his verses as “the Shepherdess of the Clent Alps.” She was possibly the Ann Withy, daughter of Nathan and Ann Withy, baptised 23 May 1772 at Hagley. If so, she can have been his amanuensis only for his later works. Three Ann Withy burials are recorded at Hagley: 1774, possibly his wife; 1791, possibly his daughter; and 1807, possibly his mother, aged 82. No-one has ever established dates for any of the events in his life. In 1835 William Timings, a historian and topographer, said he had lived in a cottage “about thirty years ago” and reprinted a few poems. Given the probability of a high margin of error in speculations about his death, his wife, daughter, and mother, details of his life have yet to be properly established. (ancestry.co.uk 26 May 2024; findmypast.co.uk 26 May 2024; William Timings, A Guide to Clent Hills [1835]) AA
Other Names:
- Nat. Withy
- N. Withy