William Murdoch (24 February 1823 – 4 May 1887) was a

Scottish-Canadian Scottish Canadians are people of Scottish people, Scottish descent or cultural heritage, heritage living in Canada. As the third-largest ethnic group in Canada and amongst the first Europeans to settle in the country, Scottish people have made a ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

. Born in

Paisley, Renfrewshire Paisley ( ; sco, Paisley, gd, Pàislig ) is a large town situated in the west central Lowlands of Scotland. Located north of the Gleniffer Braes, the town borders the city of Glasgow to the east, and straddles the banks of the White Cart Wate ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

, Murdoch migrated to

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

in 1854, aged 31. The following year, he was appointed manager of the

gasworks A gasworks or gas house is an industrial plant for the production of flammable gas. Many of these have been made redundant in the developed world by the use of natural gas, though they are still used for storage space. Early gasworks Coal ...

on Partridge Island in

Saint John, New Brunswick Saint John is a seaport city of the Atlantic Ocean located on the Bay of Fundy in the province of New Brunswick, Canada. Saint John is the oldest incorporated city in Canada, established by royal charter on May 18, 1785, during the reign of Ki ...

. He contributed to the ''Saint John Morning News'' from 1865, and published ''Poems and Songs'' (1860) and ''Discursory Ruminations: A Fireside Drama'' (1876). Murdoch died in Saint John,

New Brunswick New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. It is the only province with both English and ...

, Canada.

Style

He wrote in the Lowland Scots dialogue made popular by Robert Burns. The ''Literary History of Canada'' describes Murdoch's poems as having "style and polish" and it cites the following stanza as representative:Carl F. Klinck, ''Literary History of Canada'' Second Edition Volume One, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1976, p. 131. ''God pity then the poor blue noses
Their cheeks like flour, their nebs like roses;
They puff, they grue, and swallow doses
:''To heat their wame'' ''Till aft when night their business closes
:''They hiccup hame.'' :: – from ''Poems and Songs''

References

External links

Poems and songs – William Murdoch
1823 births 1887 deaths 19th-century Canadian poets Canadian male poets English-language poets Writers from Saint John, New Brunswick Scottish emigrants to pre-Confederation New Brunswick Scottish poets Poets from Paisley, Renfrewshire Journalists from Paisley, Renfrewshire Journalists from New Brunswick 19th-century British journalists British male journalists 19th-century British male writers Canadian male non-fiction writers {{Canada-poet-stub