Samuel Laycock

Samuel Laycock was born in 1826 in the Yorkshire village of Marsden not far from Saddleworth, home of the great Yorkshire writer Ammon Wriggley. He had little formal education and started work, like most of his contemporaries, as a millhand in a local woollen mill at the age of 9.
A couple of years later in 1837 the Laycock family moved to the town of Stalybridge near Manchester and he is usually assosciated with this town and hence is normally referred to as a Lancastrian.
He also changed form wool to cotton and became a powerloom weaver in Leech's Mill where he met his first wife Martha. Following Martha's death in 1858 he courted and subsequently married Hannah Wooley.
Many of Laycock's best known poems were written between 1855 and 1867 and record the life in the cotton area at that time particularly the effects of the Cotton Famine of 1861-1865 (caused by the American Civil War). Not only is this a rich source of information about the conditions prevailing at that time it is also a marvellous example of the everyday language since most of his work is in the dialect of the area.
Himself a victom of the Cotton Famine Laycock's growing literary reputation enabled him to gain employment as librarian (and caretaker) of the Stalybridge Mechanic's Institute in 1865. At the same time he became a member of the influential Manchester Literary Club.
Poverty soon put an end to his job in Stalybridge and he moved to the new coastal town of Fleetwood where he became curator of the Whitworth Institute and an elected member of the Blackpool Library Committee.
He died on 15th December 1893.

His books included

12 Lancashire Lyrics 1864
Lancashire Rhymes 1864
Lancashire Songs 1866
Lancashire Poems, Tales and Recitations 1875
Warblin's From An Owd Songster 1893

Jim Saville