Ralph Dowey (1844 – 1909) was a
Northumberland born miner, songwriter and poet.
Ralph Dowey was born in October 1844 at 42 South Row,
West Holywell
Backworth is a village in the metropolitan borough of North Tyneside in the county of Tyne and Wear, England, about west of Whitley Bay on the north east coast. It lies northeast of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, Newcastle. Other nearby towns include Nor ...
, a small Colliery village approx. 4 miles west of
Whitley Bay, which at the time was in the county of
Northumberland.
He was a miner by trade, like so many Geordie songwriters
Songwriting was a hobby, and according to
Thomas Allan in his
Illustrated Edition of Tyneside Songs and Readings won at least 8 prizes for his songs in the various
North Eastern
The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...
songwriting competitions. His works appeared in Frazer’s and Tweed’s Almanacs and the Blyth Weekly News.
In 1865 he married Hannah Elizabeth Dowson (b1844) and they had at least 2 children John R (b1869), Mary A (b1877). He died in Gateshead in 1909.
His many works include "The Picnic Day" which was first published in the
Blyth Weekly News in 1891 and tells of a family dressing up for a picnic in
Morpeth
See also
Geordie dialect words
Geordie () is a nickname for a person from the Tyneside area of North East England, and the dialect used by its inhabitants, also known in linguistics as Tyneside English or Newcastle English. There are different definitions of what constitute ...
Thomas Allan
Allan's Illustrated Edition of Tyneside Songs and Readings
''Allan's Illustrated Edition of Tyneside Songs and Readings'' is a book of Tyneside popular and traditional songs consisting of approximately 400 song lyrics on over 600 pages, published in 1891. It was reprinted in 1972 by Frank Graham, Newca ...
References
External links
West Holywell CollieryAllan’s Illustrated Edition of Tyneside songs and readings
English male poets
English male songwriters
People from Backworth
Writers from Tyne and Wear
Musicians from Tyne and Wear
1909 deaths
1844 births
Geordie songwriters
19th-century English musicians
{{Songwriter-stub