A Biographical Study and the Letters of Paisley Weaver-Poet Robert Tannahill (1774-1810)

Ferguson, Jim (2011) A weaver in wartime: a biographical study and the letters of Paisley weaver-poet Robert Tannahill (1774-1810). PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/2395/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] A WEAVER IN WARTIME: A BIOGRAPHICAL STUDY AND THE LETTERS OF PAISLEY WEAVER-POET ROBERT TANNAHILL (1774-1810) Jim Ferguson Doctor of Philosophy UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE DEPARTMENT OF SCOTTISH LITERATURE November 2010 words Part 1 – c. 80,000 Part 2 – c. 49,000 ABSTRACT This thesis is a critical biography of Robert Tannahill (1774-1810). As a work of recovery its aim is to lay out the details of the life and in so doing to make the case for Tannahill as a distinctive figure in Scottish literary history. Part One covers the main events in Tannahill’s life, and analyses his poetry, songs and play, The Soldier’s Return, drawing heavily on his extant correspondence throughout. Part Two of the thesis gives all of Tannahill’s extant correspondence. The received critical opinion of Tannahill in the nineteenth century was that his true talent lay in the writing of Scottish pastoral songs. In accordance with this perception the other aspects of his work have, generally, been treated as marginal by previous critics. This thesis aims to broaden the critical understanding of Tannahill as a writer working in the first decade of the 1800s by taking into consideration his social and political milieu, the writers he was influenced by and his response to particular events in his life and in the world. I argue that Tannahill was not party political, but had sympathy for Whig causes such as abolition of the death penalty and of slavery. He also opposed cock-fighting and animal cruelty. Key to understanding much of Tannahill’s output was his attitude to the wars with Revolutionary and Napoleonic France (1793-1815). Fear of French invasion of the British Isles was something that exercised Tannahill a good deal. His attitude to war was that it was pointless human folly, but his dislike of all imperialism, including British and French, makes his position complex and the complexity of his response to war is a recurring theme throughout. Tannahill’s upbringing in Paisley and his position as an artisan weaver had a profound effect on his writing, as did the influence of Robert Burns. Tannahill was fiercely independent, despised literary patronage and inherited wealth and power. There is an attempt to explain and understand how and why Tannahill came to hold these points of view and to point out where they find expression in his work. Chapter 1 looks at Tannahill’s upbringing and life in Paisley. Chapter 2 deals with the ‘Critical Reception’ of his work from 1815 to the present. Chapter 3 looks in depth at his attitudes to war and the threat of French invasion. Chapter 4 concentrates on Tannahill’s play The Soldier’s Return and considers how it fits into the pastoral tradition. Chapter 5 looks at the content and some formal aspects of his poetry and Chapter 6 deals with the range of his lyrics and songs. Part Two is a project of retrieval, sub-titled The Letters of Robert Tannahill, it presents in chronological order eighty-two letters, the vast majority of which were written by Tannahill to friends and acquaintances between the years 1802 and 1810. It has been compiled from holograph manuscript sources found in the University of Glasgow Library, the National Library of Scotland, University of Edinburgh Library and Paisley Central Library. In addition, letters previously published in the David Semple edition of Tannhill’s Poems, Songs and Correspondence (1876) have been inserted to give the most comprehensive collection of Tannahill correspondence to date. These letters give a fascinating insight into Tannahill’s life and work. The guiding editorial principle for transcription from holograph has been: to provide as accurately as possible a text free from editorial interference. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis could not have been written without the supervision of Professor Willy Maley, together with the able assistance and supervision of Dr Gerard Carruthers. I am extremely thankful for their guidance and owe them both an enormous debt of gratitude. It would never have got off the ground had I not met Tom Leonard in the mid 1980s and his support helped secure AHRC funding for the project. I thank Dr Alex Benchimol for reading my work and for his encouragement. It has been a pleasure to work on this thesis and meet other students working at Glasgow over this last six years or so. I have used the National Library of Scotland, Paisley Central Library, The Mitchell Library Glasgow, Edinburgh University Library, Strathclyde University Library and Glasgow University Library and thank the staff of these institutions for their assistance. In particular the staff at Glasgow University Special Collections Department are worthy of special mention. My family and friends have supported me over the many years I have been a struggling poet and I wish to thank Joan & Andy, Ian, Sheila, Pauline, Graham Brodie, Bobby Christie, Ann Doogan, Ronnie Ritchie, Vincent Hunter and Helen Montgomery! ‘Thank you, thank you, one and all,/ Who feel on this unfeeling ball’. I dedicate this work to the memory of my mother Joan McLean (December 1933-October 2010). I am happy to acknowledge financial support from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Scottish International Educational Trust (SIET) towards the completion of this thesis. A WEAVER IN WARTIME CONTENTS Abstract Acknowledgements Part 1 – A Biographical Study of Robert Tannahill Introduction ..................................................................................1 Chapter 1 Paisley: Life and Place................................................................11 Chapter 2 William Motherwell and the Reception of Tannahill’s Work.......71 Chapter 3 War and the Threat of Invasion................................................. 104 Chapter 4 The Soldier’s Return: A Pastoral Drama.................................... 133 Chapter 5 Epistles and Rhymes................................................................. 157 Chapter 6 Lyricism, Music and Song ........................................................ 209 Part 2 The Letters of Robert Tannahill ............................................ 263 (For detailed contents see Part 2) Bibliography............................................................................. 420 Part 1. - Introduction One Tannahill song became so popular that, indeed, when a Paisley teacher of what is now known as ‘religious instruction’ inquired of her class who Jesse was, the answer came ‘Please Sir, “Jessie, the Flower o’ Dunblane”’.1 A WEAVER IN WARTIME: CONTEXTS AND SCOPE Robert Tannahill spent most of his life in Paisley. Born there on 3rd June 1774, Tannahill died there on 17th May 1810, just 17 days before his thirty-sixth birthday. Tannahill is not nearly as popular now as he was in the second half of the nineteenth century, when arguably only Burns was more revered as a songwriter in Scotland. The statue of Tannahill that stands beside the statue of poet and ornithologist Alexander Wilson (1766-1813) outside Paisley Abbey is perhaps the most impressive memorial to Tannahill outwith his writing.2 Sculpted by D. W. Stevenson R.S.A.,3 it was erected in 1883 at a cost of around £1200, paid for from funds raised through annual open-air concerts at ‘The Glen’ park, on the edge of the Gleniffer Braes near Paisley.4 These memorials indicate the popularity of Tannahill over a hundred years after his birth. Even in 1925 Tannahill was still remembered fondly in Paisley. The annual concert held at the Glen Park that year was led by a ‘Dr. Williams’, who ‘conducted a choir of six hundred voices in songs by Tannahill, Burns, Lady Nairne, and other Scots lyricists’.5 However, by the 1950s and 1960s Tannahill was often seen as a Burns impersonator and a writer of ‘insipid but well liked song’.6 His perceived concern with the natural world as against economic and social issues was unfashionable with the left; his anti-war, anti-imperialist sentiments and religious liberalism often ignored by those on the right of the political spectrum in Scotland. George Douglas, writing in 1899, observed that Tannahill was as much a part of the eighteenth century as the nineteenth. Douglas is critical of Tannahill’s ‘stiff Eighteenth 1 century manner’, though in comparison with the earlier James Thomson, whom Tannahill admired, his approach to both register and diction is more focussed on actually spoken language.7 Lauchlan MacLean Watt described Paisley as a ‘Parnassus’, drawing our attention to the fact that Tannahill was one poet among many, living in a highly literate, politically and socially aware community. According to McLean Watt: Paisley has been the Scottish Parnassus... Tannahill was, of course, the greatest of that town’s singers... We forget the agony of his nerve-stricken life and his wretched suicide, in the beauty and freshness of his verse... Still he sent his cry into the nineteenth century and we cannot ignore his... lyrics which sometimes, through their artless freedom, are attributed by the common mind to Burns himself.8 For Tannahill and his circle of poets and musician friends, Burns was a pivotal figure. In a time of turbulence in all spheres of life Burns provided both an anchor in traditional Scottish values and a guide to action for these men as musical and literary artists.

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