Tannahill, Robert

(1774-1810)

   The "Paisley Poet" was a Scottish silk-weaver, born into a weaving family from Paisley, and while at the loom he would be writing poetry in his head. Although he went elsewhere to work, he returned to Paisley to work with his mother in 1802 when his father died. His poems, set to music, soon gained in popularity and he was visited by James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd (see entry). He was active in setting up a library for working men in the town. Never a robust man, and falling into difficulties with some publishers, he drowned himself in the Paisley Canal and was interred in the West Relief burying-ground. In 1866 an obelisk monument was placed at his grave. The centenary of his birth was celebrated with elaborate ceremony on 3 June 1874. His reputation rests mainly on his sentimental Scottish songs, many of which were published in the Scottish periodicals such as The Scots Magazine. Some of his poems: "Bonny Winsome Mary," "Filial Duty," "Jessie, the Flower o' Dunblane," "Row Thee in My Highland Plaid," "The Ambitious Mite," "The Braes of Balquidder," "Will Ye Go Lassie, Go."

   Sources: British Minstrelsie. T.C. and E.C. Jack, Grange Publishing Works, Edinburgh (?1900). Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. English Poetry: Author Search. ChadwyckHealey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). Poems and Songs, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, by Robert Tannahill. John Cain, 1819. Significant and Famous Scots (http://www.electricscotland.com/history/men/tannahill_robert.htm). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Home Book of Verse. Burton Egbert Stevenson, ed. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1953. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia).