William Newton (poet)
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William Newton (1750–1830), a labouring class poet often referred to as "the Peak Minstrel", was born near Abney, in the parish of
Eyam Eyam () is an English village and civil parish in the Derbyshire Dales that lies within the Peak District National Park. There is evidence of early occupation by Ancient Britons on the surrounding moors and lead was mined in the area by the R ...
,
Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...
, England, on 28 November 1750. He was well regarded by other, more notable writers and made his fortune as owner of Cressbrook Mill, near
Tideswell Tideswell is a village and civil parish in the Peak District of Derbyshire, England. It lies east of Buxton on the B6049, in a wide valley on a limestone plateau, at an altitude of above sea level, and is within the District of Derbyshire Da ...
. He died on 3 November 1830.


Biography

Newton was born at Cockey Farm near Abney. He attended a
dame school Dame schools were small, privately run schools for young children that emerged in the British Isles and its colonies during the early modern period. These schools were taught by a “school dame,” a local woman who would educate children f ...
and then followed his carpenter father constructing spinning-wheels, and he started a seven year apprenticeship to become a machinery carpenter at a mill in
Monsal Dale Monsal Dale is a valley in Derbyshire, England, in the White Peak limestone area of the Peak District National Park. It is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) (1) and part of a Europe-wide network ...
. He spent his money on books. The poetic Reverend Peter Cunningham, who was curate at Eyam and encouraged Newton to write. In the summer of 1783, Newton was introduced to
Anna Seward Anna Seward (12 December 1742 ld style: 1 December 1742./ref>Often wrongly given as 1747.25 March 1809) was an English Romantic poet, often called the Swan of Lichfield. She benefited from her father's progressive views on female education. Li ...
, who also encouraged him in his writing and corresponded with him until her death. In her account of their meeting, Miss Seward expressed a high opinion of "the elegance and harmony" in Newton's writing. Her account appeared the following year under the title "The Minstrel of Woodlow" in ''
The Gentleman's Magazine ''The Gentleman's Magazine'' was a monthly magazine founded in London, England, by Edward Cave in January 1731. It ran uninterrupted for almost 200 years, until 1922. It was the first to use the term ''magazine'' (from the French ''magazine'' ...
'' and at the start of 1785 in both ''
The Scots Magazine ''The Scots Magazine'' is a magazine containing articles on subjects of Scottish interest. It claims to be the oldest magazine in the world still in publication, although there have been several gaps in its publication history. It has reported on ...
'', and under the editorship of
James Boswell James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck (; 29 October 1740 (New Style, N.S.) – 19 May 1795), was a Scottish biographer, diarist, and lawyer, born in Edinburgh. He is best known for his biography of his friend and older contemporary the Englis ...
in the newly founded ''Edinburgh Magazine''. Accompanying it was Newton's complimentary address to Cunningham in one of his own poems, and Seward's address to Newton, "Written in the blank leaves of her own poems, presented by her to William Newton":
Thou gentle bard, on whose internal sight Genius has pour'd her many-coloured light… And tho' proud Fame her sunny glance has shed On the low roof that screen thy modest head, The same exalted spirit scorns to wail Her echoes silent in thy lonely vale.
Seward's poem is also an evocation of the wild moorland scarred by quarries and smoking lime kilns, among which he works unregarded like a second Chatterton. Newton was soon to contribute to the industrialisation of the area himself, for he went on to become the agent of
Richard Arkwright Sir Richard Arkwright (23 December 1732 – 3 August 1792) was an English inventor and a leading entrepreneur during the early Industrial Revolution. He is credited as the driving force behind the development of the spinning frame, known as t ...
, often called "father of the industrial revolution", for his invention of the
spinning frame The spinning frame is an Industrial Revolution invention for spinning thread or yarn from fibres such as wool or cotton in a mechanized way. It was developed in 18th-century Britain by Richard Arkwright and John Kay. Historical context In 17 ...
at nearby Cressbrook Mill. He was dismissed by Arkwright in 1790 and Anna Seward came to his rescue with a loan that enabled him to invest in a new mill. Later Newton personally rebuilt Cressbrook Mill, after its destruction by fire. Archives at Manchester Central Library contain evidence that he sought to provide better living conditions for his apprentices than were prevalent at many other mills, and he oversaw the construction of model cottages and a village school. Nonetheless, an apprenticeship even at Cressbrook Mill was far from ideal. There are accounts of Newton's violent treatment of the 300–400 indentured boys from orphanages and charity hospitals that he employed there. Any offence resulted in a beating from him with "hazel sticks across our bare buttocks and loins till he cut the flesh and made the blood flow". Industrialisation of this remote area is mentioned in the writer John Holland's account of a visit he paid to Newton in 1823. The poet turned mill-owner "appeared venerable in years, with locks white and floating in the breeze; his poetical feeling was not extinct and some latent sparks of that enthusiasm remained." His reason for putting financial betterment before literature was explained in accounts by others by his early marriage and his several children by his wife Helen. Newton died at his home in
Tideswell Tideswell is a village and civil parish in the Peak District of Derbyshire, England. It lies east of Buxton on the B6049, in a wide valley on a limestone plateau, at an altitude of above sea level, and is within the District of Derbyshire Da ...
on 3 November 1830, just short of his 80th birthday. He was buried in St John the Baptist's churchyard there. His wife died only eight days after her husband. His eldest son William (1785–1851) took over the mill and is said to have supplied the village with good water at his own expense.


Poetry

Newton's friendship with Anna Seward gave him entry into a group who imitated the Della Cruscan school in writing each other complimentary verses under assumed names. They were also among those reviving the
sonnet A sonnet is a poetic form that originated in the poetry composed at the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in the Sicilian city of Palermo. The 13th-century poet and notary Giacomo da Lentini is credited with the sonnet's invention, ...
in the final decades of the 18th century, an example appearing in the ''Gentleman’s Magazine'' for January 1789. Clustered on the page are one of Seward's adaptations of
Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ' ...
's odes, followed by Newton's sonnet in her praise and another of her sonnets in reply. In the following year, Newton published two more sonnets there of a despairing tone, occasioned by the death of a son, and it has been conjectured, the threat to his livelihood after falling out with Arkwright. Another poetic exchange with Miss Seward concerns a poem describing the countryside about Eyam, which no longer exists. It is known only from her "Epistle to Mr. Newton, the Derbyshire Minstrel, on receiving his description in verse of an autumnal scene near Eyam, September 1791". Hers is a tearful acknowledgement of childhood memories brought back by the familiar landscape that he evokes. In fact little of Newton's poetry remains outside the files of old magazines and newspapers. He submitted his poems to the ''
Sheffield Register The ''Sheffield Iris'' was an early weekly newspaper published on Tuesdays James Montgomery, John Holland and James Everett, ''Memoirs of the Life and Writings of James Montgomery'' in Sheffield, England. The first newspaper to be published in S ...
'' (1787–94) and its successor the '' Sheffield Iris'' (1794–1816), where there appeared such verses as "Sonnet to a Mountain Cowslip", "Verses addressed to Mr. Home, written upon reading his tragedy of Douglas", and "Verses occasion'd by the tolling of a passing bell". Others may have appeared under the signature Edwin, the name he went by in the Seward circle. However, Newton never collected his verse for publication in a single edition. Another poem was published in ''The Northern Star'' in 1818 and later privately printed by James Montgomery, editor of the ''Sheffield Iris''. This "supposed soliloquy of a Father under the Gibbet of his son, upon one of the Peak Mountains" made a stir at the time. It has been credited with contributing to the end of the practice of
gibbeting A gibbet is any instrument of public execution (including guillotine, executioner's block, impalement stake, hanging gallows, or related scaffold). Gibbeting is the use of a gallows-type structure from which the dead or dying bodies of crimi ...
, although that did not occur until 1834. A final sonnet, hitherto unpublished, accompanied a late reminiscence of Newton. Dated October 1822, when he was nearing his 72nd birthday, the poem is a mellow piece that draws together an evening scene and anticipation of retirement.
Beneath my Alder's peaceful bough,
While whispers soft the Western wind,
My limbs I indolently throw,
And leave the world and care behind.
Here blest with peace, with ease and health,
Life’s toilsome scenes, O let me shun!
Forego ambition, fame and wealth,
To bask me in the evening sun.
And as this gentle bosom'd stream
With silent lapse serenely flows,
Smiles and reflects the golden beam,
Ere modest evening's glories close;
So let me, in life's tranquil evening, find
Calm, soft, unruffl'd joys – the sunshine of the mind!


Heritage

Francis Chantrey Sir Francis Leggatt Chantrey (7 April 1781 – 25 November 1841) was an English sculptor. He became the leading portrait sculptor in Regency era Britain, producing busts and statues of many notable figures of the time. Chantrey's most notable w ...
initially mistook Newton for a peasant when he met him by chance. As a result the sculptor made a pencil sketch of the poet, which he left with him, as the only life portrait of Newton known to exist. An engraving based on it was reproduced in the ''Reliquary Quarterly'' for 1860. In 1996 a memorial window to Newton was installed in St John the Baptist, Tideswell. Representing Jesus welcoming little children, it remembers the Chantrey's apprenticeship scheme and his descendants in the Williams family, whose daughter Gwendoline died in 1993.The work of Alfred Fisher o
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References


See also

*
List of 18th-century British working-class writers This list focuses on published authors whose working-class status or background was part of their literary reputation. These were, in the main, writers without access to formal education, so they were either autodidacts or had mentors or patron ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Newton, William People from Derbyshire Dales (district) 1750 births 1830 deaths English male poets