Alexander Wilson – The Paisley poet who became the 'Father of American Ornithology'

Last week, we charted the life and sad death of Robert Tannahill (1774-1810) and this week we look at the extraordinary life of his partner-in-rhyme, Alexander Wilson. Like Tannahill, Wilson was a weaver whose poetry became renowned across Scotland, but unlike Tannahill, Alexander Wilson migrated from Paisley to the United States of America in his 20s and earned even greater fame there in a completely different field of activity.

Wilson was born in Paisley on July 6, 1766, just seven years after the birth of Robert Burns at Alloway in Ayrshire. Like Rabbie, Wilson was of humble stock, his father a weaver who had a nifty sideline in producing whisky from an illegal still and may also have been a smuggler. Also like Rabbie, Wilson was given a good education, though his ceased at the age of 10 when his mother died and he needed to earn money for the family.

Also like Rabbie, Wilson took early to poetry and songs. It should be noted that Burns, Wilson and Tannahill all relished reading poetry and thought the composition of poems and songs was a noble thing, because, by the 1770s, many young Scottish men and a few women could say they were following what had become something of a national passion.

Practically throughout the 18th century, Scotland had produced poets working in English, Scots and Gaelic, and sometimes all three. Allan Ramsay (1686-1758) had led the way with his pastoral works and his successful attempts to popularise the Habbie Stanza or Standard Habbie, a form of verse which most literary historians now call the Burns Stanza after its most famous exponent.

Others whose works became well known and survived include Alexander Ross (1699-1784), the Jacobite poet William Hamilton of Bangour (1704-54), and his namesake William Hamilton of Gilbertfield (1665-1751). Before Burns came along, the tragic Robert Fergusson (1750-74) was probably the most influential Scottish poet of the age, while the Ossian cycle of James MacPherson (1736-1796), though entirely made up by him, made the name of Scottish literature abroad.

Tobias Smollett (1721-71) had become our first major novelist and was followed by the likes of Henry MacKenzie (1745-1831), author of The Man Of Feeling. Drama was also resurgent after the Kirk partially relented on its hatred of theatre – the first licensed theatre opened in 1767.

So Burns, Wilson and Tannahill were not unusual, indeed they were very much a product of an age when working-class men were eager for self-education and self-expression. Add in the Enlightenment and the political fervour induced by the American and French revolutions and it was a potent mix in Paisley as the 18th century came to an end.

At 13, Wilson gave up herding animals for a living and like so many of his townsmen – there would be 7000 weavers in Paisley by 1810 – became an apprentice weaver. He was apprenticed to his brother-in-law, William Duncan, and he apparently lived at Duncan’s house.

Wilson’s father stayed at Seedhill and his address was given on the apprenticeship indenture which is still extant and shows that it began on July 31, 1779.

The apprenticeship lasted for three years and we know that his instructor in the craft of weaving was John Finlayson. While learning the trade Wilson began his learning and composition of poetry - remember this was before Burns’s Kilmarnock Edition was published.

After he had served his time, Wilson penned what may be his first published poetry. At the end of his apprenticeship certificate, the following lines are added:

Be’t kent to a’ the warld in rhyme,

That wi’ right meikle wark n’ toil,

For three lang years I’ve ser’t my time,

Whiles feasted wi’ the hazel oil.?

He was not entirely happy as a weaver, and although he was working for his brother-in-law, business was often poor. Wilson had stints as a chapman, a pedlar, selling trinkets and “chap” books door to door. It is thought he sold some of his early compositions that way, while some were published in newspapers and periodicals.

We know that Wilson was heavily influenced by Burns after the Kilmarnock Edition came out in 1786 – the name of Alexander Wilson of Paisley can be seen on the list of subscribers to the subsequent Edinburgh Edition of Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect.

Just like Burns, Wilson could write as happily in high-blown English as in Scots. For instance, he wrote To The Famishing Bard, from which these verses are taken:

Aloft to high Parnassus’ hill,

I heard thy prayer ascending swift;

And are the Nine propitious still

To grant thy wish, and send the gift?

Has kind Apollo made a shift,

To roll down from his kitchen high

A sirloin huge—a smoking lift,

To feed thy keen devouring eye.

Just as Burns had done, Wilson sought out subscribers for his first publication, entitled simply Poems by Alexander Wilson, published in 1790. It did not sell well, as many of the 600 subscribers reneged on promises to buy. Rabbie Burns, however, loved it.

The book shows that Wilson was at his best in Scots and he would increasingly write in his native tongue as he continued to be both weaver and published poet whose fame grew steadily.

These lines are from one of his most famous poems, Watty and Meg or The Wife Reformed’:

Mungo fill’d him up a toothfu’,

Drank his health and Meg’s in ane;

Watty, puffing out a mouthfu’,

Pledged him wi’ a dreary grane.

“What’s the matter, Watty, wi’ you?

“Trouth your chafts are fa’ing in!

“Something’s wrang—I’m vex’d to see you—

“Gudesake! but ye’re desp’rate thin!”

“Ay,” quo’ Watty, “things are alter’d,

“But it’s past redemption now;

“Lord! I wish I had been halter’d

“When I marry’d Maggy Howe!”

“I’ve been poor, and vex’d, and raggy,

“Try’d wi’ troubles no that sma’;

“Them I bore—but marrying Maggy

“Laid the cap-stane o’ them a’.”

The poem carries on for many verses in similar vein as Watty manages to “reform” Meg by threatening to leave her. It was published anonymously by Wilson, and many people thought it was by Burns. The two poets subsequently met, and seemed to have enjoyed penning criticisms of each other’s works.

It was a poem Wilson penned that made his departure from Scotland inevitable. He was fired up with the reforming spirit of the age and he could not help himself when he learned of mill owners short-changing weavers.

One of these, a William Sharp, was the target for Wilson’s invective in a poem called The Shark:

Ye weaver blades! ye noble chiels!

Wha fill our land wi’ plenty,

And mak our vera barest fiels

To waive wi’ ilka dainty;

Defend yoursels, tak sicker heed,

I warn you as a brither;

Or Shark’s resolved, wi’ hellish greed,

To gorge us a’ thegither,

At ance this day.

In Gude’s-name will we ne’er get free

O’ thieves and persecution!

Will Satan never let abee

To plot our dissolution!

Ae scoun’rel sinks us to the pit,

Wi’ his eternal curses,

Anither granes, — and prays,— and yet

Contrives to toom our purses,

Maist every day.

Incensed at the insult, Sharp went to court, not least because Wilson tried to extort five guineas out of him to stop publication. There then began a nightmare period of repeated imprisonment as Wilson defied Sharp and the authorities with yet more poetic invective.

By May, 1794, Wilson knew he had no choice but to leave Scotland and move to the USA to escape the charge of sedition that was coming his way – punishable by death or transportation to Botany Bay.

Robert Tannahill was 20 when Wilson emigrated, and there’s no doubt the former was greatly influenced by the latter, so much so that later in life he wrote a poem in Wilson’s honour from which these lines are taken:

For Wilson, worthiest of us a,

For ay is gane...

He weeped his thankless native clime,

And sail’d away.

Since now he’s gane, an Burns is deid,

Ah ! wha will tune the Scottish reed?

Fareweel, thou much neglected Bard !

Astonishingly, the incident that changed Wilson’s life happened on only the second day after his arrival in the USA in the company of a 16-year-old nephew. As the pair were walking to Philadelphia, Wilson saw a bird with fantastically colourful plumage, the like of which did not exist in Scotland.

He found work as a weaver but it was the sight of huge flocks of geese and swans that really inspired him to think and write on a different subject.

Wilson retrained as a teacher and an engraver, and proved to be prodigiously talented in that trade. He became an American citizen in 1804, and two years later began working at a publishing house.

His poetry in Scots was put aside – he did write several more poems but all in English – as Wilson began the monumental work that would make his name, American Ornithology.

From the first 1808 volume onwards, it was clear that this self-taught naturalist was producing work of staggering beauty and detailed science, and he travelled through 15 states to record bird species after bird species.

It was the foundation work of the study of American birdlife, and directly influenced John James Audubon whose magnificent The Birds of America is the classic work of its kind. Yet it is Wilson who is known as the Father of American Ornithology.

It was exhausting work. Wilson died in 1813 at the age of 47 while working on the ninth volume of his ornithology. He is buried in Philadelphia’s Gloria Dei Chrush Cemetery. There is a statue of him in the grounds of Paisley Abbey

Five bird species have his name: Wilson’s Storm-petrel, Wilson’s Plover, Wilson’s Snipe, Wilson’s Phalarope and Wilson’s Warbler. In that regard, he is immortal.