From the meadow pipits, skylarks and standing stones of Ilkley Moor to the river at Saltaire where he met his end, a new audio documentary from the University of Leeds’ Cultural Collections unearths the chaotic, charismatic story of Bingley’s forgotten working-class poet.
Known as The Airedale Poet, The Orpheus of Bradford and The Bingley Byron, John Nicholson spent most of his life in the lowly day job of woolsorter; went from Methodist preacher to the depths of addiction, twice; got arrested in London for arguing with a bust of Shakespeare; became a pawn in one of the great political spats of the 19th century; played the oboe; fathered nine children; and ad-libbed untold quantities of rhyme for his mates in the pub, most of which has been lost to intoxication and the passage of time.
His fame briefly reached as far as London and, although he never had the fleeting success of his contemporary ‘Peasant Poet’ John Clare, he was a celebrity in Yorkshire’s West Riding, laureate of both the moors and the burgeoning textile mills and iron works of the Industrial Revolution. After his untimely death on the banks of the Aire at Saltaire on the morning of Good Friday 1843, a crowd of a thousand turned up to his funeral. Queen Victoria apparently contributed to the support of his widow and orphans.
Dr Adam Bridgen, Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow in Durham’s Department of English Studies, contributed historical and literary context to the series. In an interview with Durham University, Dr Bridgen said:
What first drew me to Nicholson (1790-1843) was the combination of his extraordinary local reputation and his relative obscurity today. As a wool-sorter his poetry emerged directly from the industrial and rural landscapes of West Yorkshire, and yet his drowning in poverty, in the Aire river marked a tragic end to a remarkably active life and wide range of topics he wrote upon for local audiences as well as wealthy industrial patrons. That combination made him a fascinating subject both as a poet and as a historical figure.
I hope that this series, and the surprising level of interest we’ve received — being listed among the ‘Best Podcasts of the Week’ at the Guardian — will draw more radio and sound producers towards recovering the local and literary lives of working-class poets. They are an important but unfairly overlooked part of our literary and cultural heritage, and also offer important ways of thinking about our connection to nature and the processes which have gradually distanced us from it. My more ambitious hope is that podcasts like this will also inform how we might improve our relationship with nature going forwards, supporting the work of ‘Right to Roam’ writer-activists like Guy Shrubsole and Nick Hayes.
You can find out more from Dr Bridgen via the interview here: https://www.durham.ac.uk/departments/academic/arts-humanities/news/durham-researcher-helps-bring-forgotten-working-class-poet-to-life-in-acclaimed-podcast/
Season 1 of Death of a Poet has been released via the University of Leeds Cultural Collections & Galleries’ Gloves Off podcast platform.
Part 1: https://glovesoffleeds.podbean.com/e/death-of-a-poet-episode-i-birth-of-a-poet/,
Part 2: https://glovesoffleeds.podbean.com/e/death-of-a-poet-episode-ii-life-is-wasting-death-is-hasting/.
Part 3: https://glovesoffleeds.podbean.com/e/death-of-a-poet-episode-iii-the-summer-of-his-life/
Part 4 (and the finale for season 1): https://glovesoffleeds.podbean.com/e/death-of-a-poet-episode-iv-a-poet-poacher/
It can be found on Apple podcasts too: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/gloves-off-stories-from-cultural-collections-galleries/id1860678848.
Season 1 has just concluded, and Season 2 will begin in Spring next year. You can watch a trailer here.
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Death of a Poet.