Wednesday 5 June 2013

Collected Poetry of George Markham Tweddell - 1823 - 1903

George Markham Tweddell (1823 - 1903) born in Stokesley North Yorkshire, was a Polymath - a
George Markham Tweddell 1823-1903
Chartist / People's Historian / Printer / Publisher / Author / Poet and much more. You will find out much more about his fascinating life and work if you click the Tweddell Hub and the Tweddell History links above.

Tweddell's Poetry Hub
Much of Tweddell's  work remained hidden away in antiquarian shops and reference or university libraries until fairly recently. I worked alongside one of George Markham Tweddell's descendants - Paul Markham Tweddell to help him bring much of the knowledge and texts from the Tweddell family collection to a wider audience and for reappraisal of his poetry and life's works, much of which is still relevant to the world today.

Where as the Tweddell Hub contains material relating to his books, histories, magazines and much else, the Tweddell Poetry Hub provides links to the various blogs I've set up for the different aspects of Tweddell's poetry.

Paul showed me several manuscript books of  Tweddell's poetry, much of which was published at the time in numerous magazines and news papers world wide but which had never been brought together in one place before. Tweddell did publish his Masonic poems as a book but the rest remained to be collected and published. So in 2009 we set about bringing together his collected works, which can be downloaded as several PDF files, free by clicking on Full Collected Poems in the menu above or here http://georgemarkhamtweddell.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/collected-poems-of-george-markham.html

Paul Markham Tweddell who did so much work toward this.
The introduction to Tweddell's poetry that i wrote for the collection and which can be read by clicking the Intro to Tweddell's poetry above, gives starting points for a reappraisal of Tweddell's poetry now that we have, more or less, the full works - and Tweddell was obviously much more Ebenezer Elliot (the Poor Law Rhymer) and a host of his contemporaries wrote both radical and nature poem. We explored aspects of his work that were emblematic or used masonic symbolism and much more. Subject matter ranges from the political and historical issues of his day, to the personal and family, to Masonic and philosophical, to local history and places of his homeland - Cleveland / North Yorkshire to poems about life itself, much of it in sonnet form.
prolific than anyone previously thought. We have explored his links with radical poets like

To reflect this diversity and despite all of the poems being available in the Collected works PDF's, I've created some special on line collections around various themes, which are linked above in the menu. These are - 

  • Sonnets of Flowers and Trees. These sonnets from his days of walking the Cleveland hills are not only knowledgeable about plants but, following Wither, one of the best known emblem writers, contain emblems and masonic symbolism, and so work on more than one level. On the blog, the poems are illustrated.
  • One Hundred Masonic Poems (1887) This collection of didactic sonnets was published in his life time, written later in life as his health was deteriorating but they reflect his sincere faith in the principles of Masonry, in the days when many of the radical movers and shakers were Freemasons. Tweddell was always open about his membership of the craft and advocated high standards of integrity, reflected in so many of these poems.
  • Cleveland (UK) Poems Tweddell was born and raised in Cleveland (North Yorkshire). His love of its moors and hills, towns, villages and industries, movers and shakers, poets and authors are reflected  in these poems which I've brought together in one place, in the hope that it will make an interesting collection and be of use to local historians and researchers. They are often illustrated along with additional material.
  • Florence Cleveland This was Tweddell's wife - Elizabeth Tweddell, who forged a lasting reputation as a poet and writers in her own right. Both the Tweddell's were concerned about the dying out of the Cleveland and other local dialects and Elizabeth - writing as Florence Cleveland - wrote and published a collection of poems and stories called Rhymes and Sketches to Illustrate the Cleveland dialect. This book can be viewed and downloaded from the Florence Cleveland link above. Her reputation is still good today and recently the popular young folk duo from Stockton on Tees - Megson - set her her humourous dialect poem Take Thy Self a Wife to music and even named their first album after the poem. There is also a link to more of her work on the Tweddell hub.
  • Poets, Politics, History and Life - A further volume of Tweddell's poetry was found by a member of the Tweddell family, which now forms part of the Tweddell poetry Collection. In this volume Tweddell's poetry contains more far reaching subject matter, from poems on the poets of the time, Wordsworth, Southey etc, to commentaries on European politics, history, religions and philosophy and indeed on life itself. It also includes some of his early poems, full of angst and in support of the likes of John Frost, the Chartist leader, sentenced to decapitation for advocating the People's Charter. These interesting collections will be posted below on this blog.
From Yorkshire Poets Past and Present Vol. II, No. 5, ed. Dr Forshaw (Bradford
1889
), pp. 70-71]
"Mr Tweddell can justly lay claim to being one of he most prolific writers that
our dear old Yorkshire has produced. As Editor, Public speaker, Lecturer,
Prose-writer and Poet he has won golden honors. To merely give and list his
publications would fill a goodly sized pamphlet. [Here follows a summary!]
Mr Tweddell was born at Garden House, near to Stokesley, on 20th of March,
1823. He is a Fellow of a large number of learned, scientific and antiquarian
societies
."

Here is Megson with one of Florence Cleveland's poems - Take Thyself a Wife.


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