John Byrom

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John Byrom (February 29, 1692 - September 26, 1763) was an English poet.

John Byrom was descended from an old Lancashire family. A Ralph Byrom came to Manchester from Leigh in 1485, and became a prosperous wool merchant. His son Adam acquired property in Salford, Darcy Lever, Bolton, and Ardwick (though his wealth did not prevent his mentally ill daughter from being accused of witchcraft). Edward Byron helped to foil a Royalist plot to seize Manchester in 1642.

John was born at what is now the Wellington Inn (part of the Old Shambles), Manchester, in 1692, (The property was then used as an office for market tolls, with accommodation on the upper floors.)The Wellington Inn is now a major tourist attraction, and his birth is commemorated by a plaque in the bar area. However, some sources claim that he was born at Broughton in Cheshire.

His privileged background enabled him to obtain an excellent education, starting with a few years at the Merchant Taylors' School. After graduating from the Cambridge, he became a fellow of Trinity, then studied medicine at Montpellier in France.

Having perfected his own method of shorthand, he returned to England in 1716 to teach it. Shortly after coming into his family inheritance in 1740, Byrom patented his "New Universal Shorthand".

Most of his poems, the best-known of which is My spirit longeth for Thee, were religious in tone, but he is better remembered for the hymn, "Christians awake! Salute the happy morn." It was first performed on Christmas Day, 1750, as a present for his daughter Dorothy. He is also remembered for his epigrams, and, above all, his coinage of the phrase Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

He lived, at times, at Byrom Hall in Lowton, and in a town house in Manchester, but this was not a provincial life. He was a member of the Royal Society, and moved in some very influential social and intellectual circles.

Modern research has revealed him to be something of a man of mystery. In the first place there is the question of his political views. It was once thought that he was a closet Jacobite, but modern research has suggested that he may have acted as a double agent, the 'Queen's Chameleon'. When the Young Pretender briefly occupied Manchester in 1745, he certainly did his best to lie low. His views might be summed up in the verse that he composed, in the form of a toast.

God bless the King!(I mean our faith's defender!)
God bless! (No harm in blessing) the Pretender.
But who Pretender is, and who is King,
God bless us all! That's quite another thing!

His papers, though preserved for some time after his death, were mysteriously destroyed in the nineteenth century. A few surviving items have suggested that he may have belonged to an early proto-masonic society, similar to the Gentleman's Club of Spalding, and pursued occult interests.

External links

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/byrom.htm

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