Alexander Wilson (1766-1813)

Wilson’s early life was spent in Renfrewshire where his father plied a trade – possibly legally and illicitly – in whisky-distilling. After being indentured as apprentice to a weaver in Seedhills, Wilson would thereafter break from his trade and take to the road for around two years as a pedlar, travelling on foot with his pack in the sale of everyday goods.

With good knowledge of the Scots poets he would set off on a far-ranging commission to seek subscribers for his own poetry, though this brought him only limited success. Wilson’s long wanders through the Scottish countryside, his powers of observation and fondness for nature made him well prepared for his future venture in America.

Among his compositions for the Pantheon Debating Society in Edinburgh are ‘Rab and Ringan’ and ‘The Laurels Disputit’.

‘Rab and Ringan – in a debate on the Question, “Whether is diffidence, or the Allurements of Pleasure, the greatest bar to Progress in Knowledge”’ – gives a glimpse into Scots vocabulary and pronunciations in the late 18th century, while comparing Scots and English words such as ‘kirk’ fir church and ‘yirth’ fir globe (or earth).

The antihero of the tale, Rab, when taking on the affectations of English speech, descends into heedless and reckless habits. Meanwhile his thoughtful and industrious brother Ringan finds security in his vocation as minister. This might be regarded as a reverse of the sociolinguistics of the time when Scots in comparison with English was being regarded as a provincial and less worthy language. In ‘Rab and Ringan’ Wilson appears to view Rab’s English affectations as superficial and false.

In ‘The Laurels Disputit’ the poetic merits of Allan Ramsay and Robert Fergusson are contested. The weaver poet takes the side of Fergusson, and while taken with Ramsay’s ‘sleeness’ (skill, deftness, construction), he contends that the ‘leem o fire’ in Fergusson’s poetry – presumably his ‘loom’ or artifice – makes his verse more powerful and thus the better poet.

In an 1816 Glasgow publication of ‘The Laurels Disputit, Imprentit for an Sauld by James Duncan, Sautmercat’, the printer willingly takes up the cause of the Scots language on Wilson’s behalf:

‘The Scots o Wilson, as weil as the Scots o the lave o our poets, for a qhuyle bygane, has been sair shachlit, wi a mis-settan gate o spellin, borrowit frae our southland neibours. Sae the publisher thinks he dis a leil turn, baith tae the poet an the Scots leid, quhan he ettlis tae restoir the trew spellin.’

Wilson would return to weaving in Paisley where he wrote his satires against mill owners who transacted cloth from local weavers, in Wilson’s view through usurious practices. Two of Wilson’s poems, ‘The Hollander’ and ‘The Shark’ landed him in court charged with defamation. ‘The Hollander’ also brought about a charge of blackmail against Wilson after an anonymous letter sent to the intended target of the satire offered to retract the poem before it was published on payment of a sum of money. Wilson was fined on both charges and spent a few nights incarcerated in the Paisley jail before being ordered to publicly burn a copy of his verse on the town’s Tolbooth steps.

Wilson went on to write for ‘The Bee or Literary Weekly Intelligencer’, for which he wrote an unfavourable review of ‘Tam o’ Shanter’ which editor James Anderson refused to print. Despite Burns receiving a copy of the review and subsequently reproaching Wilson in a letter, the weaver poet reportedly later spent a jovial and convivial night with Burns at Ellisland Farm.

Scratching a meagre living as a weaver and receiving little recognition as a poet, with only a small sum of money and equipped with a fowling piece Wilson set out across the Atlantic in May 1794, living in Pennsylvania where his learning was sufficient to secure him work as teacher at Milestown School and at the Union School at Gray’s Ferry.

Following encouragement from naturalist William Bartram and with a quantity of subscribers to fund the beginnings of the project, Wilson set out in 1802 to publish a series of volumes describing the birds of North America. Travelling thousands of miles on foot, with a Carolina parakeet on his shoulder and armed with his fowling piece, Wilson would shoot ornithological specimens for study and illustration. The result was the acclaimed ‘Illustrations of the American ornithology of Alexander Wilson’, hoisting him to recognition as the founding father of American ornithology.

Copies of ‘Illustrations of the American ornithology’ were treasured by eminent figures such as Thomas Jefferson. Published in nine volumes, it was completed one year after Wilson’s death in 1814 by Charles Lucian Boneparte, Prince of Canino and Musignano, a keen ornithologist and nephew of Napoleon. A wealth of Wilson’s works survive in the National Library’s collections, with 102 copies of Wilson’s books, pamphlets and fragments from chapbooks. There are several re-prints of the same titles. It holds all nine volumes of ‘Illustrations of the American Ornithology’ (1808-1814).

The Library also holds some Wilson memorabilia called ‘Wilsoniana’, including letters, a silhouette and copies of the charges against him relating to his satirical poem ‘The Hollander’.

Wilson met with John James Audubon in 1810, and while Audubon’s illustrations are regarded as being above Wilson’s in technical skill, it is thought that Wilson had great influence on Audubon as the world’s foremost ornithological artist, and to a generation of ornithologists besides.

Wilson’s illustrations also appear in the Natural History Museum Library publication ‘Owls: A selection of beautiful illustrations’, including plates by John Gould, J J Audubon and Edward Lear. An edition of this is held within the Library’s collections.

Alexander Wilson also features in Tom Leonard’s ‘Radical Renfrew; Poetry from the West of Scotland from the French Revolution to the First World War’, published in 1990.