News
Walk
'In the footsteps of Tyneside poet, Robert Gilchrist'. A walk from Shielfield Green to Ballast Hills burial ground, taking in the sites linked to the life and works of Robert Gilchrist. 9 July 2024.
Talk
'Barge Day on the Tyne', Old Low Light heritage centre, 13 May 2023. Details here.
British Labouring-Class Poets
Robert Gilchrist is included amongst the 2,209 poets listed in A Catalogue of British & Irish Labouring-Class & Self-Taught Poets & Poetry, c.1700-1900, edited by John Goodridge (November 2019).
Ballast Hills - Robert Gilchrist's resting place
I visited Ballast Hills burial ground in Newcastle in July 2018. The visit was part of the research for a book chapter I've written on 'Lamenting the dead: the affective afterlife of poets' graves'.
Barge Day
I've now completed the research on Tyenside's barge day ritual. Robert Gilchrist was a participant and observer of these festivities and wrote a long eye-witness account. The piece I'm writing focuses on the longer history of the ritual; its origins, heyday, decline and revivals. Robert Gilchrist will feature prominently in the account!
Grace Darling
To coincide with the 200th anniversary of the birth of Grace Darling (24 November 1815), I've provided a short piece about a recent visit to her grave in Bamburgh and Robert Gilchrist's two sonnets to the notable Victorian heroine.
New discoveries
The Oxford English Dictionary credits Gilchrist with the earliest etymological example for TYNESIDE (‘Hail, Tyneside lads in collier fleets’), from ‘Voyage To Lunnin’ (1824), BOGIE, a small four-wheeled truck from which train bogies derive, from ‘Song of Improvements’ (1835), and PEEDEE, a boy belonging to the crew of a Tyne keelboat. He is also listed in the entries for MARROW, meaning companion; RANK, meaning strong; and SLUMP, meaning to fall or sink into.
Glossary
A new section has been added to the site, highlighting the range of North-East dialect to be found in Robert Gilchrist's songs. The page includes a full glossary.
Presentation
On Saturday 21 February I gave a presentation at the 'Broadside Day' workshop, Cecil Sharp House, London. The presentation was titled: 'Songs from the sailorhood: Robert Gilchrist, 'Bard of Tyneside'.
Publications
'Hail, Tyneside lads in collier fleets': song culture, sailing and sailors in North-East England', has been sent to an edited volume on Port Towns and Urban Cultures, and will be appearing in print soon.
It's great to see Robert Gilchrist being taken seriously within local history studies. A short overview of his life, taken from this website, now features for the 8 September entry in The Gateshead Book of Days (ed. Jo Bath and Richard Stevenson), a compendium of facts about the town's history.
2014 news...a document bonanza
In April 2014 I completed a trip to the archives. This was made possible by a small grant I received from the School of Environment and Technology at the University of Brighton to conduct a project on 'Songs from the sailorhood'. I consulted the 'Robert Gilchrist' papers housed in the Tyne and Wear Archives and the and Bell-White Collection at Newcastle University. I found Gilchrist's earliest dated poem, 'Verses on Tanfield Arch, in the County of Durham', which was written in May 1815, and numerous other artefacts - from a pocket book of stories and compositions, personal letters, the route of his walk to Scotland, business cards, newspaper cuttings, numerous broadsides, marketing and subscription materials. I also acquired a rare lithographic print of the Herbage Committee, featuring Robert Gilchrist, where the image on the front page of this site comes from. This is a wealth of new detail about Robert's life, which will help massively in writing the biography.
'In the footsteps of Tyneside poet, Robert Gilchrist'. A walk from Shielfield Green to Ballast Hills burial ground, taking in the sites linked to the life and works of Robert Gilchrist. 9 July 2024.
Talk
'Barge Day on the Tyne', Old Low Light heritage centre, 13 May 2023. Details here.
British Labouring-Class Poets
Robert Gilchrist is included amongst the 2,209 poets listed in A Catalogue of British & Irish Labouring-Class & Self-Taught Poets & Poetry, c.1700-1900, edited by John Goodridge (November 2019).
Ballast Hills - Robert Gilchrist's resting place
I visited Ballast Hills burial ground in Newcastle in July 2018. The visit was part of the research for a book chapter I've written on 'Lamenting the dead: the affective afterlife of poets' graves'.
Barge Day
I've now completed the research on Tyenside's barge day ritual. Robert Gilchrist was a participant and observer of these festivities and wrote a long eye-witness account. The piece I'm writing focuses on the longer history of the ritual; its origins, heyday, decline and revivals. Robert Gilchrist will feature prominently in the account!
Grace Darling
To coincide with the 200th anniversary of the birth of Grace Darling (24 November 1815), I've provided a short piece about a recent visit to her grave in Bamburgh and Robert Gilchrist's two sonnets to the notable Victorian heroine.
New discoveries
The Oxford English Dictionary credits Gilchrist with the earliest etymological example for TYNESIDE (‘Hail, Tyneside lads in collier fleets’), from ‘Voyage To Lunnin’ (1824), BOGIE, a small four-wheeled truck from which train bogies derive, from ‘Song of Improvements’ (1835), and PEEDEE, a boy belonging to the crew of a Tyne keelboat. He is also listed in the entries for MARROW, meaning companion; RANK, meaning strong; and SLUMP, meaning to fall or sink into.
Glossary
A new section has been added to the site, highlighting the range of North-East dialect to be found in Robert Gilchrist's songs. The page includes a full glossary.
Presentation
On Saturday 21 February I gave a presentation at the 'Broadside Day' workshop, Cecil Sharp House, London. The presentation was titled: 'Songs from the sailorhood: Robert Gilchrist, 'Bard of Tyneside'.
Publications
'Hail, Tyneside lads in collier fleets': song culture, sailing and sailors in North-East England', has been sent to an edited volume on Port Towns and Urban Cultures, and will be appearing in print soon.
It's great to see Robert Gilchrist being taken seriously within local history studies. A short overview of his life, taken from this website, now features for the 8 September entry in The Gateshead Book of Days (ed. Jo Bath and Richard Stevenson), a compendium of facts about the town's history.
2014 news...a document bonanza
In April 2014 I completed a trip to the archives. This was made possible by a small grant I received from the School of Environment and Technology at the University of Brighton to conduct a project on 'Songs from the sailorhood'. I consulted the 'Robert Gilchrist' papers housed in the Tyne and Wear Archives and the and Bell-White Collection at Newcastle University. I found Gilchrist's earliest dated poem, 'Verses on Tanfield Arch, in the County of Durham', which was written in May 1815, and numerous other artefacts - from a pocket book of stories and compositions, personal letters, the route of his walk to Scotland, business cards, newspaper cuttings, numerous broadsides, marketing and subscription materials. I also acquired a rare lithographic print of the Herbage Committee, featuring Robert Gilchrist, where the image on the front page of this site comes from. This is a wealth of new detail about Robert's life, which will help massively in writing the biography.
