5. Robert Story - Politics

'The Poet of Conservatism'

When I originally planned these web site notes and these presentations I roughly mapped out areas where I could see coherent material bunching together. So, Robert Story and... Three such areas were Politics, Song & Poetry, and Gargrave...

In fact those three areas are very closely connected, in very interesting and unusual ways. I should, at a later date, write this up properly.

Entry into the study of Robert Story's politics could begin by putting him alongside the other 'Labouring Class Writers' in John Goodridge's collections...

http://human.ntu.ac.uk/research/labouringclasswriters/index.htm

(Note that this web site is now a bit of out of date - the new web site will look at a collection of some 2000 writers.)

We can see that Robert Story's life and works share patterns with these other 'Labouring Class Writers' - the importance of song lyrics, the importance of the local, for example. There are overlaps in subject matter, even with the radical or Chartist writers. For example Robert Story has an anguished - and even fearful - poem about 'The Union Workhouse'. His note says: 'Written in a desponding mood...' His chief fear is that his wife, Ellen, and their children, will end their days in the Workhouse...

'But, ELLEN, no! Their prison wall,

I swear it, was not built for US...'

'...But we will die a Beggar's death,

Rather than pass their hated wall!

On some free hill breathe out our breath —

One nameless grave receiving all.'

I suppose we are entitled to ask who are 'They' who have built this 'hated wall'? But I do not think it is necessary to be cynical about Robert Story's Conservative politics. The energy with which he threw himself into political struggles and debates are vividly described by John James - who also remarks, a number of times, how little Story himself gained from these struggles.

For example, on Robert Story's work on behalf of the Conservative candidate, Sir James Graham, in the 1837 East Cumberland election, John James says...

Sir James lost the election, and his promises were at once forgotten. Story received, for his services at the election, twenty pounds, and reluctantly returned to his duties of schoolmaster...

John James, Life of Robert Story', p l.

The great example of the connection between politics and song is the extraordinary success of Story's lyric, 'The Isles are Awake'. This can be followed, with great fun, through the online newspaper archives. Here is John James' account...

During the conflict which resulted in the passing of the Reform Bill, he had written many political pieces, which attracted much notice at the time, and gained him no small share of ill-will ; but when the King, in November, 1834, made his celebrated speech to the Bishops, Story concluded the day of his own party had arrived, and under the influence of a strong enthusiasm, wrote ' The Isles are awake,' and sent it to the Standard. Instantly, the whole Conservative press caught the cry, and re-printing the piece with hearty praise, spread its popularity throughout the kingdom. Pending the election struggle for the representation of South Lancashire, by Lord Francis Egerton, it became an effective electioneering song on his side, and was circulated by thousands. Hitherto the song had been published anonymously, and his Lordship being known as an excellent poet, the composition was attributed to him. With his name, it appeared in the Manchester and other papers, and, thus honoured, it circulated again through the newspaper press. At a dinner given to celebrate the election of his Lordship, the piece was not only sung, but became the text or rallying word of many of the speakers. His Lordship, on rising, after quoting some of the lines, added—" The song has been attributed to me, but, though I should have been proud to be so, I am not the author ; and it would be a species of literary theft, not to say so at once." This disclaimer, and the encomiums passed upon the composition, gave it through the press a more extensive celebrity than before. Story now thought that he might, with propriety, avow the authorship ; the intelligence was spread by the press, and he found himself, at once, famous. Speedily, ' The Church of our Fathers ;' ' The Rock of the Ocean,' and many other lyrics of the same cast, were published by him in the newspaper press. Everywhere hailed as the ' Poet of Conservatism,' he was proud of the title, and threw himself, to use his own words, ' heart and soul into the cause,' thereby increasing the exasperation of his neighbours of the opposite party, and heaping up against himself vengeance for another day.

John James, 'Life of Robert Story', p xlvi-xlvii

And see the quite lengthy 1836 review from Fraser's Magazine, which I have attached below...

Also below, three 1834 examples of the appearance of the lyric in regional newspapers, plus the 1835 mis-attribution to Egerton, and the correction.

And I have placed, below, two pages from the 1857 Poetical Works, in all their coloured glory, giving the text of the song. At the time of writing, April 2013, I have not been able to find the music for the song - but it must be out there somewhere.

And, of course, as John James says, Robert Story's Conservative activism, his rugged defence of his views, this song and other songs in support of the cause, angered his neighbours 'of the opposite party' in Gargrave - especially the local 'Whig magnate'...

The plainest statement I can find of Robert Story's political views is in the Preface he wrote to the Third Edition, 1849, of his Songs and Poems. Speaking of himself in the third person, he says he

'believed the Reform Bill to be fraught with peril to the constitution of this kingdom, and he wrote with all his heart against it...

I have placed the full page, below.

And he begins to prune the politics from his works...

'The spirit of faction is all but extinct; and he has no wish - if he had the power - to rekindle its dying embers. He has accordingly excluded from the present edition all Songs of a mere party character...'

Story, Preface, 1849, Songs and Poems, p vi, p viii

I do not want to overcrowd these pages with detail, but I could not resist this sighting of Robert Story amongst his singing peers. The Wilsons were a Manchester family of poets and songsters. They are listed in John Goodridge's Labouring Class Writers project at Nottingham Trent University. They were the lynchpins of Manchester's Poets Corner, at the famous Sun Inn - a web search will find more detail. And you will find yet more in John Harland's 1865 book, freely avaialble on Google Books...

The songs of the Wilsons: with a memoir of the family, ed. by John Harland

http://books.google.com/books?id=BV4CAAAAQAAJ

From page 68 onwards Harland gives us a song, 'The Poets' Corner', which Alexander Wilson sang at a gathering of some 40 poets on the evening of March 24 1842. The song names every one of the poets there - including Robert Rose, 'the Bard of Colour' - and tells us something about them. It is a long song, with a thumping chorus. It goes to the tune 'Paddy Whack' - I have tried it, and, yes, it does. The text needs a lot of footnotes. I guess you would have had to be there, in 1842 - and drinking beer - to appreciate its merits.

And - see page 73, below - there is our man...

'We've songs by a Story, who sings like a Tory...'

Nature loves a rhyme...

Patrick O'Sullivan

April 2013