Waugh, Edwin

(1817-1890)

   The "Lancashire Burns" was born in Rochdale, the son of a shoemaker, and from the age of nine he helped at his widowed mother's stall at the Rochdale market. After serving his printing apprenticeship, he earned his living as a journeyman printer, and in 1847 he was appointed assistant secretary to the Lancashire Public School Association, Manchester, whose aim was provide education free from religious ties. His first books were Sketches of Lancashire Life and Localities (1855) and Poems and Songs (1859). He wrote prose and verse, songs, tales, and character sketches in the Lancashire dialect. In 1881 he was granted a civil-list pension. He died at New Brighton, a watering-place on the Lancashire coast, and was buried in Kersal Church, near Salford, Lancashire. Many of Waugh's songs have been set to music, and a list of them occupies several pages of the music catalogue of the British Museum Library. Some of his poems: "Cultivate Your Men," "Dule's i' This Bonnet o' Mine," "Fishwoman's Song," "I've Worn My Bits o' Shoon Away," "It's Time to be Joggin' Away," "Now's the Time to Remember the Poor," "The Man of the Time."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). 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 Poorhouse Fugitives: Self-Taught Poets and Poetry in Victorian Britain. Brian Maidment, ed. Carcanet, 1987.