Author: CROMPTON (Samuel). MARSHALL (William Calder).
Title: Compton's Statue.
Description: No place no publisher 1862. An unrecorded broadside, 224 x 180 mms., printed on recto only, on laid paper, dated 11 October 1862; a watermark design is partly visible, with geometrical and curvilinear lines, but no watermark year. Inner edge uneven, two small holes in top margin. The poem is about the statue of the inventor Samuel Crompton (1753 - 1827), inventor of the spinning mule, in Bolton, Lancashire, which was created by the Scottish sculptor William Calder Marshall (1813-1894). The statue was unveiled in September 1862. From the date printed in the lower left corner, it would seem this poem was either written or published or both just days after the unveiling of the statue, on October 11, 1862. The poem reads much as if it were written by the creator of the statue of Samuel Crompton in Nelson Square in Bolton. In other words, as if written by William Calder Marshall. It is a poem of pride -- and humility -- plus bitterness, bitterness apparently against a "grandchild" of Samuel Crompton. Apparently this grandchild stabbed the artist with "his pen". This is of course likely a metaphor for said grandchild of Crompton having written something about Calder Marshall or even to Calder Marshall that was wounding. From the wording, it seems Calder Marshall may have been feeling that his great efforts in creating this statue were met with some measure of ungratefulness or a certain lack of regard. It seems to me that by far the most prominent grandchild of the inventor Samuel Crompton is his grandson Dr Samuel Crompton (1817-1891). This Dr Crompton is also the only author of that surname singled out as a relative of the inventor Samuel Crompton in Charles William Sutton's standard reference work, A List of Lancashire Authors with Brief Biographical and Bibliographical Notes (1876), page 27. No other copy located: not in COPAC, WorldCat, KVK, NUC.

Keywords: poetry broadside literature


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