"If a man was a pair of steam-looms, how carefully would he be oiled, and tended, and mended, and made to do all that a pair of looms could do.  What a loom, full of miraculous faculties, is he compared to these—the master-piece of nature for creative power and for wonderful variety of excellent capabilities!  Yet, with what a profuse neglect he is cast away, like the cheapest rubbish on the earth!"

EDWIN WAUGH.

"His poems have great lyrical beauty and intimate tenderness and charm, nor is there lacking that homely humour and heart-stirring pathos which finds their best medium in dialect."

MAY YATES, "A LANCASHIRE ANTHOLOGY" (1923).

"Any valid estimate of his merits must proceed upon the assumption that he is provincial.  He never regarded himself as anything else.  He is intentionally and deliberately local.  His subjects all spring, so to speak, from his native soil; and he is always at his best when he uses the dialect of the county in which he was born.  In short, he asked for no higher honour than to be entered on the roll of Lancashire writers; and among these he holds a place of undisputed eminence."

GEORGE MILNER, Introduction to "Lancashire Sketches"

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The following is extracted from. . . .

A Garland of Lancashire Prose
by
G. Halstead Whittaker.

Waugh is the prince of Lancashire dialect poets.  He sings of the moorlands, the breezes of which blow healthy spirits through the characters that people his pages.
 

    He was born at Rochdale, January 29th, 1817.  His father's ancestors were Northumbrian, his grandfather settled in Rochdale, where he married a Lancashire lass.  When nine he lost his father, and some years of poverty ensued.  At twelve he became an errand boy for a printer, and two years later was apprenticed to another printer.  His apprenticeship completed he worked in the trade in various towns for six years—London, Durham and Wakefield—then returned to Rochdale.

    In 1847 he left the trade to take up secretarial work.  His literary work began in 1852, and his most famous poem "Come whoam to thi childer an' me" was written in 1856 on the leaf of a diary in the Clarence Hotel, Manchester, Friday, June l0th.

COME WHOAM TO THI CHILDER AN' ME. *

Aw've just mended th' foire wi' a cob;
    Owd Swaddle has brought thi new shoon;
There's some nice bacon-collops o' th' hob,
    An' a quart o' ale-posset i' th' oon;
Aw've brought thi top-cwot, doesta know,
    For th' rain's comin' deawn very dree;
An' the' har-stone's as white as new snow;
    Come whoam to thi childer an' me.

When aw put little Sally to bed,
    Hoo cried, 'cose her feyther weren't theer,
So aw kiss's the' little thing, an' aw said
    Thae'd bring her a ribbin fro' th' fair;
An' aw gave' her her doll, an' some rags,
    An' a nice little white cotton-bo';
An' aw kiss'd her again; but hoo said
    'At hoo wanted to kiss thee an' o.

An' Dick, too, aw'd sick wark wi' him,
    Afore aw could get him upstairs;
Thae towd him thae'd bring him a drum,
    He said, when he're saying' his prayers;
Then he looked i' my faze, an' he said,
    "Has the' boggarts taen houd o' my dad?"
An' he cried whole his e'en were quite red;—
    He likes thee some weel, does yon lad!

At the' lung-length, aw geet 'em laid still;
    An' aw hearken't folks' feet 'at went by;
So aw iron't o' my clooas reet weel,
    An' aw hang'd 'em o' th' maiden to dry;
When aw'd mended thi stockin's an' shirts,
    Aw sit deawn to knit i' my cheer,
An' aw rayley did feel rayther hurt,—
    Mon, aw'm one-ly when theaw artn't theer.

Aw've a drum an' a trumpet for Dick;
    Aw've a yard o' blue ribbin for Sal;
Aw've a book full o' babs; an' a stick,
    An' some 'bacco an' pipes for mysel;
Aw've brought thee some coffee an' tay,—
    Iv thae'll feel i' my pocket, there'll see;
An' aw've bought tho a new cap to-day,—
    For aw olez bring summat for thee!

"God bless thee, my lass; aw'll go whoam,
    An' aw'll kiss thee an' th' childer o reawnd;
Thae knows, 'at wheerever aw roam,
    Aw'm fain to get back to th' owd greawnd;
Aw can do wi' a crack o'er a glass;
    Aw can do wi' a bit ov a spree;
But aw've no gradely comfort, my lass,
    Except wi' yon childer an' thee."

"Come Whoam" was published next day by the Manchester Examiner and Times and was noticed by David Kelly, a bookseller, who arranged to have it printed on cards, one of which was given to each customer. [Also sold by Kelly and Slater at 1d.]  Baroness Burdett-Coutts saw a copy, and ordered twenty thousand, which she distributed.  The original MS. became the property of the Manchester Literary Club.  The first draft has "Owd Roddle" on the second line.  It is set to music in "Dialect Songs of the North," by P. Delavanti.

    Waugh's mother venerated John Wesley and remembered how the preacher had smoothed her hair when on a visit to her father.  Edwin's favourite books were the dictionary and Wesley's Hymns — which awoke the poet in him.  He learned many of them, and a Welsh neighbour gave him a penny for each hymn he could recite.  From this sound basis sprang Waugh's unmatchable Lancashire songs.  His poems are not merely words, they are an expression of the music that was in his heart.  It is fitting that so many of them are now set to music, and sung so well by Mr. Hamilton Harris, Mr. Hugh Beech and others.  The music is often by Robert Jackson, but this is not the music they first knew.  Every song by Edwin Waugh sings itself, for in the conception of them he collaborated with his fiddle — playing a simple air while composing the words.  He makes the fiddle much more than a musical instrument in "Eawr Folk", a gallery of his own relatives and friends:

    His "To my owd fiddle" betrays the fiddle-lover:

    In "The Old Fiddler," the opening sketch of Waugh's book "Tufts of Heather," the old fiddler's playing of the tune "Remember the Poor" is described in words in which Waugh the fiddler undoubtedly predominates.
 

    His love songs such as "Th' Sweetheart Gate" and "The Dule's i' this bonnet o' mine" are perfect.  His prose is vigorous, flecked with words of uncommon power.  Often he tells stories within a story, such as the famous "Owd Cronies; or Wassail in a country inn," — the inn being the Old Boar's Head, Middleton.  Here Jone o' Gavelock tells his famous tale of the Lancashire Volunteers.
 

    "A Lift on the Way" has been said to contain a sermon in every verse:

    His poetry reveals the nature lover.  His is not a cribbed or confined outlook.  All charm of the wide sweeping moors, fresh breezes, clear shies, and the inspiration that comes from the hills are distilled to an exquisite degree in his poetry.  Take these stanzas from his "I've worn my bits o' shoon away."

    The later years of Waugh's life were connected with Manchester.  He was a founder of the Literary Club in 1862.  In 1876 his copyrights were taken over by a committee, thus relieving him of the commercial burdens of authorship.  In 1882 he was granted a Civil List pension of £90, he was then suffering from cancer on the tongue.  Living at Kersal Moor he was on the fringe of the moorland scenes he loved so well, but for health reasons he removed to New Brighton [Ed. ― tip of the Wirral peninsula, then in Cheshire], where he died April 30th, 1890.  He was interred at Kersal Church, where his personal friends' last act was to drop sprigs of rosemary on his coffin, saying "That's in remembrance."
 

    The Works of Edwin Waugh, edited by Geo. Milner, were published in eight volumes, "Sketches," "Besom Ben" and "Chimney Corner Stories," "Tufts of Heather" and "Poems and Songs."

Dialect Writer's Memorial, Broadfield Park, Rochdale.

    He is commemorated on the Rochdale Dialect Writers' Memorial, erected, as is stated below (footnote 2), with Waugh's medallion portrait thereon ―

"In grateful memory of four Rochdale writers of the Lancashire dialect who have preserved for our children in verse and prose that will not die, the strength and tenderness, the gravity and humours of the folk of our day, in the tongue and talk of the people."

Erected in the year 1900.

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FOOTOTES.

1.    A more comprehensive account (to that above) of Waugh's life and writing is given by George Milner in the 'Preface and Introduction' to his edition of Waugh's "Lancashire Sketches".

2.    The Dialect Writer's Memorial (shown above) is dedicated to four Rochdale dialect writers: Oliver Ormerod (1811-79), Edwin Waugh (1817-90), Margaret Rebecca Lahee (1831-95), John Trafford Clegg (1857-95).

 
3.    "Come whoam to thi childer an' me" conveys an impression of Waugh, the man, that was not borne out in reality.  In his diaries, Samuel Bamford, after sending his wife to warn a prospective landlady of Waugh's charcater, speaks thus (29 August 1861): ". . . . My wife had, I learned put her on her guard with respect to his character; told her about his wife and three children being on the parish at Rochdale [i.e. in the workhouse]; about his having been living with a woman in Stangeways, who was supposed to have kept him, or nearly so, and about his general habits of profligacy and faithlessness in his arrangements. . . . "