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1. ‘Literary Blackburn and a Letter from Edwin Waugh’, Blackburn Standard 28 April, 1888.
2. William Abram, Blackburn Characters of a Past Generation (Blackburn: Toulmin, 1904), 40-41.
3. John Baron and James Walkden, Flowers of Many Hues (Blackburn 1847).
4. Prefatory dedication by Abram's son, Edmund, in William Alexander Abram, Blackburn Characters of a Past Generation (Blackburn: Toulmin, 1894).
5. George Hull, ‘William Billington: A Centenary Memoir’, Northern Daily Telegraph, 4 April 1925; Abram, Blackburn Characters of a Past Generation., 224.
6. Blackburn Standard 25 September 1886, 1; Hull 231.
7. Brian E Maidment, ‘Class and Cultural Production in the Industrial City: Poetry in Victorian Manchester’, in City, Class and Culture: Studies of Cultural Production and Social Policy in Victorian Manchester, ed. Alan J. Kidd and Kenneth Roberts (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1985), 153.
8. Maidment, 159.
9. ‘Anecdotes concerning the Blackburn poet Richard Dugdale, related by William Billington’, cited in John Critchley Prince’, http://gerald-massey.org.uk/prince/; Abram, ???
10. Smith, ‘John Thomas Baron’.
11. Blackburn Standard 12 January 1884, p2.
12. ‘Aker Whitt’ [William Whitaker], ‘‘Personal Reminiscences of the Poet Billington: V’, Blackburn Times, 1 October 1887.
13. ‘Literary Blackburn and a Letter from Edwin Waugh’, BS 28 April, 1888.
14. Jesse McQuail], ‘Blackburn as a Literary Centre’, Blackburn Standard & Express, 4 April 1891.
15. Whitaker, ‘Personal Reminiscences: VIII’, Blackburn Times 22 Oct 1887.
16. Abram, Blackburn Characters of a Past Generation, 229-31.
17. Watson, Michael. ‘William Billington: Cotton Operative, Teacher and Poet’. Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society 134 (1985), 82.
18. Blackburn Express, 27 Sept 1887.
19. Abram, Blackburn Characters of a Past Generation, 334-35.
20. Hull, The Poets and Poetry of Blackburn.
21. Blackburn Standard, 12 January 1884, 2
John Critchley Prince: His Blackburn Associates Recalled
By James Dunn
There has recently come into my possession (writes Mr. James Dunn, of Montague Street, Blackburn) a most interesting literary manuscript associated with the career of a well-known Lancashire poet of the past, and incidentally connected with the life and labours of a former prominent Blackburn politician and temperance reformer, and which is also identified with the literary history of the town itself. The document in question was purchased by me through the catalogue of a London bookseller, and is the original manuscript of John Critchley Prince’s poem, “The Angel of Temperance,” dedicated by the poet to the late William Gregson, who, at the time the poem was written, occupied the position of temperance missionary in Blackburn.
It will be remembered by those who are acquainted by the life of this ill-starred poet, that although John Critchley Prince was not a native of Blackburn, he paid many visits to this town, and on several occasions during his wandering life both resided and followed his occupation as a journeyman reed-maker here. He appears to have first visited Blackburn in the month of July 1843, being then about thirty-six years of age, but his stay on this occasion was for a few weeks only. At this time, he had already established a reputation as a writer of more than exceptional ability, his first volume of poems, “Hours with the Muses,” having been published in Manchester two years previously, and the work had met with remarkable success. Ten years later, in the early part of 1853, he came to Blackburn again, this time as a resident, for he remained nearly two years following his occupation as a reed-maker, his employer being Mr. David Curruthers, head of a family of well-known reed manufacturers in the town.
He first resided with a Mrs. Blakeley at 34 Bent Street. The adjoining house, no. 36 still exists, but no. 34 was demolished some years ago to make room for the present Ragged Schools. He afterwards removed to the neighbourhood of Fleming Square, and here, faithful to the tradition associated with the lives of other “wooers of the muse poetic,” he lodged in a miserable garret. Lter on he changed his habitation again, this time residing with Mr. Henry Liversege in Anvil Street. During his two years residence in Blackburn Prince was constantly occupied with his pen, writing a number of poems and lyrics, several of which appeared in local and other papers and magazines. Unable, because of his unsettled habits and roving disposition, to remain for long in any particular place, Prince quitted Blackburn towards the close of 1854, to return again the following July, after an absence of only a few months. He found work this time in the manufactory of a Mr. Partington, and a second time took up his residence with Mr. Liversege in Anvil Street. His stay on this occasion, however, was of short duration for once more the wander lust, and the pressure of circumstances, impelled him to leave Blackburn for “fresh woods and pastures new”. It may be cited here as an example of the restlessness which characterized poor Prince throughout his career, that at one period of his life - as the more illustrious but hardly less fortunate poet, Oliver Goldsmith, had done a century before – he tramped on foot through France and parts of Germany in search of employment, his only possession being ten sous in his pocket and an ill-furnished knapsack on his back, subsisting for weeks upon the charity of the few English residents he was fortunate to meet on his way, for he was unable to speak either French or German.
Early in the spring of 1858 Prince was again in Blackburn, and on this occasion, he resided with Mr. John Harwood, a well-known and highly respected master painter and decorator, who became a devoted admirer of the poet, and to whom Prince was deeply attached. In the interval two more little volumes of Prince’s poems had been published, entitled respectfully “Dreams and Realities” and “The Poetic Rosary,” the latter being dedicated to Charles Dickens. It was whilst Prince was staying in Blackburn at this time that the foundation stone of the present infirmary was laid, and in response to an application from the committee who had the matter in hand the poet composed two hymns for the occasion. The ceremony took place on Whit-Monday, May 24th, 1858, amidst general rejoicing, and the hymn selected, which commenced with the line.
Lord, on this bright, auspicious day
was sung by thousands of Sunday-School scholars to the tune called “Warrington.” This hymn afterwards became very popular, and it is said that Prince often shed tears on hearing it sung.
Prince’s circumstances about this time were at a very low ebb. For years his life had alternated between squalid poverty and more or less squalid improvidence. Poet’s, from time immemorial seem to have had meted out to them by fate a more than usual share of the misery and ill-luck of this world, but it is doubted whether the abject literary hack who scribbled for the Griffiths and the Newberrys of the eighteenth century, or the most impecunious denizen of Grub Street or Shoe Lane, in the worst days of their degeneracy ever touched such depths of wretchedness and want as many times as did poor old John Critchley Prince during his chequered life.
As far as can be ascertained, the last visit made by Prince to Blackburn was in the early part of 1860 and judging from the heading from a letter sent by him to one of his friends – a letter passionately appealing for assistance – he seems to have lived at 117 Fielden Street. In the interval between his previous visit in 1858 the poet’s wife had suddenly died, a loss which left him almost inconsolable, for with all his faults he loved her dearly, and this affliction, with the spectre of heart crushing, sole demoralizing poverty, which had haunted him more or less from the cradle, and which now menaced him more fiercely than ever, had brought him to the lowest states of wretchedness and despair.
Through the instrumentality of Mr. John Baron and other friends in Blackburn some little assistance was obtained for the poet from the Royal Literary Fund, but this was only of a temporary nature, and did nothing to place him above a permanent want. Prince finally quitted Blackburn in the months of August or September of the same year, and whilst there does not seem to be any record of further visits made by him to the town, he appears to have frequently corresponded with his friends and acquaintances there, many of his letters, it is to be feared, being urgent appeals for support. That he cherished in his heart a more than ordinary regards for Blackburn is evidenced from a letter he wrote to Mr. Carruthers, his former employer, a few years before his death, urgently soliciting work of any description and expressing a fervent wish to spend the remainder of his days in the town.
It was during his sojourn in Blackburn, in the winter of 1858, that John Critchley Prince wrote his famous poem, “The Angel of Temperence,” probably one of the finest and most intense temperance poems ever penned. Endowed with poetic genius of the highest order, generous to a fault, and beloved by all who came into contact, John Critchley Prince’s one besetting sin was that of intemperance. How much of this may have been due to heredity and early environment – his father was the victim of intemperance – or to the monotony of his occupation, and to his constant and increasing struggle with poverty, the student of his life will be the best judge. But unfortunately, the fact remains that so addicted was the poet to this vice, and to such a state of misery and degradation was he at times reduced because of overindulgence, that Richard Dugdale, a contemporary and brother poet, was constrained to say of him “Prince writes like an angel and lives like a devil.”
For a brief period, and when he was living at 34, Bent Street, Blackburn in 1853, Prince succeeded in throwing off the shackles which bound him, and through the influence of William Gregson, who, as previously stated who occupied the position of temperance missionary in Blackburn at this time, he was induced to sign the pledge, and it was under these circumstances, and whilst enjoying his emancipation from the drink fiend, that Prince wrote the poem, the original manuscript of which I have just secured possession of. The manuscript is clearly and well written, and though over sixty years of age, is in good condition. It bears upon it the inscription: “The Angel of Temperence” by John Critchley Prince. Respectfully inscribed to William Gregson, Temperence missionary.
The text, which commences with the line:
How fair is England in her lofty state
occupies four quarto pages. It is singularly free from erasures, only a few words and one whole line being crossed out with ink. In pursuing this poem there can hardly be any doubt left in the mind of the reader that the author, in depicting so vividly the horrors of intemperance, was reflecting some of his own sad and miserable experiences.
On the 5th May, 1866 – fifty years ago a fortnight hence – at the town of Hyde, in the fifty-eighth year of his life, bowed down with long sustained poverty and enfeebled in body and mind, John Critchley Prince, one of Lancashire’s sweetest singers, entered into that rest which had never been his portion whilst on earth. A simple stone, erected by a few admirers, marks his final resting place in St. Georges Churchyard, Hyde.
Select the following link on 'Find A Grave' in order to look at the Grave of John Critchley Prince
This article appeared in The Blackburn Weekly Telegraph in 1915.
Transcribed by Community History Volunteer, Philip Crompton, from a newscutting belonging to James Dunn retained with the manuscript for 'The Angel of Temperance' which is held in the James Dunn Collection at Blackburn Central Library.