BEN BRIERLEY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2985, 31 May 1911, Page 83

BEN BRIERLEY.

THE MIRROR OF THE LANCASHIRE MILL-WORKER. Tlie only Lancashire writer who has ■bean honoured with a statue is Ben Brixley. The visitor to Queen’s Park, Manchoteeir, sees there in sculptured stone the strong -and rugged figure of a man of tho people, with .a broad brow and a mouth suggestive of the power of humorous expression. And this was essentially Brierley’s character. A typical Lancashire man, and yet entirely different from Edwin Waugh, with whom be is so often compared, and who was also typical of the land of the great textile industries, they both painted Lancashire life as they knew it, but Waugh was meet at home in the moorland farms, and Brier ley in the villages whose handdoom weavers fed the warehouses of Manchester with the fruits of their industry. —Three Marbles.— Benjamin Brief ley was born on June 26. lc>2s, in the cottage at Fails worth, near Manchester, of his father, a hand loom weaver, who had been a soldier, and served as a gunner at the battle of Waterloo—.all before he was 21. One of Ben’s early recollections was that of taking part in one of these rush-cart processions from 70 to 90 years ago were famous in many parts of the country. His first prize consisted of three “marbkis,” and was the reward for y-uperior spelling at the the village school. H© was not successful on the Coronation day of William IV, when he was refused any share of the food distributed, because although his father had been a soldier naf the King, his grandfather was regarded a$ a Jacobin. Such Avere the cheerful politics of those days. Ben Ava.s a ready learner, and, like many other successful Lancashire men, gained most of his education” in the "Sunday school. After helping his father as a bobbin-winder, he went at the age of six to a factory as a “piecer.” The mill was ill-ventilated, only lighted by candles, and the engines, which often started at half-past 5, did not stop until 7 in the evening. At this factory the manager lent him the numbers of the “Pickwick Papers,” one by one, as they came out, and, like the rest of the English people, he Avas delighted Avdth the nerv power that had oomo into the literary world. He returned to hand-loom weaving, and he joined in the “plug-drawing” riots of 1842, but escaped arrest for any share in those dangerous days. More Avisely he consorted with young fellows who shared his loa-c of literature : he read Byron and Burns, and helped to found a mechanics’ institute on a small scale. These young folk were ambitions, too, of histrionic honours, and tried “Othello.” Ben heard Desdemona say, ootto \ r oce, to Othello, “Thou munno buss me gradely; thou’U sooty my nose.” A chance meet ing with a local poet of the artisan class, poor Elijah Ridings, led to an introduction to another local poet, John Bolton Bogerson, avlio gave Brlerley the > ideasura of seeing himself in print, in the Oddfellows’ Magazine. This was in 1845, when he was engaged in a Manchester Avarehouse. —“A Day Out.” — His first real success came in 1855, when he wrote “A Day Out,” in Avhich he sketched with sure touch the company assembled at “Red Bill’s” village hostelry, to celebrate' the fall of Sebastopol. It Avas generously h,ailed by the critics, the only discordant note coming from the Athenaeum, then under the editorial control of Mr HepAvorth Dixon, a Manchester man, who afterwards gave warm praise. Brlerley hoav took to Avriting for a liA'elihood. He became subeditor of the Oldham Times, and afterAvards removed to London, where he was a popular figure te the Savage Club, in the days when Brough, Halliday, Robertson, Strauss, and Browse Avere in the heyday of their Bohemian fame. He had a part in the floating of' Coleman’s Magazine, but a promising launch Avas followed by shipwreck at tho third number. Returning to Manchester, be contributed stories and sketches, short and long, to various periodicals, and finally started “Ban Brierley’s Journal,” Avhich for a number of years Avas very popular. ' A uniform edition of his writinors was issued in nine volumes by Messrs Abel HevAvoed and Son, but in addition there were roanv pamphlets of ephemeral interest, in Avhich Ah o’ th’ Yate delivered his quaintlyexpressed A'iews on topics that happened at tho moment to bo before the ’public. Ab o’ th’ Yate Avas the most popular, though not the finest, of the characters to be found in Ms stories. —True Pictures.— To the historian of th© future, Ms pictures of Lancashire life will be valuable as a mirror ot the ordinary diailv life of the the working villages of which Manchester is the centre. They are true pictures of the period, say, from 1840 to 1860 —the generation that grew up amid hard Avo.rk, long hours of toil, scanty opportunities

f-A- education, and aJmcet aa scanty faculties for healthy recreation or rational amusement. But if tjiiare was little booklearning there was plenty of mother-wit and cheerful philosophy. They had no effusive sentimentality, hut they were ready to lend a hand when a distressed brother or sister needed help. They were tender-hearted stoics with a talent as great as Mark Tapley’s for making the best of bad jobs. Their dialect was not ■slang or a corruption of bookish English, but held words that were centuries old', strong, expressive, and sometimes of high poetic quality. These Saxon words and phrases were a fitting vehicle for the dry humour and odd turns of thought of Ab o’ th’ Yate, Owd Shadow, Linderiubant, Foot, and other characters that flit across Brierley’s pages. Most readers prefer the “Daisy Nook Sketches.” The spot was soon identified as Wocdhonse, a hamlet ot weavers between Ash to n -u nder-Lyme and Oldham. His own preference was for “Cast on the World,” which is partly autobiographical,, and has for hero a crippled lad on whom his neighbours have bestowed the nickname of Humpty Dick. It is these “short and simnle annals of the poor” that make the value of Brierley’s work. He rarely ventures beyond the scenes and people among whom his early life was spent. As in life, pathos and tragedy intermingle in his pages, and sometime® the rough joke is only a safeguard against tears. —Literature and Livelihood. — Brier ley did not find literature a very lucrative profession, though, no doubt, the old hand-loom weavers would have thought hi-j earnings princely. Some of _ his savings were lost in a building society, but a public testimonial, with help from the Royal Bounty Fund, smoothed over the difficulties of his last year's when he h<ad ceased to produce. Not without human faults and frailties, be was a rough diamond who attracted the admiration of men of all classes and of different temperaments. He liked the jokes and free conversation of the bar parlour, but it is quite possible that his potations were no heavier than those of the .members of more aristocratic gatherings. He never understood the temperance movement. “When I was a young fellow,” he said to a social worker, “we _ thought a tee totallor was one who did not want to pay for bis drink.” “That’s quite a mistake,” replied his friend. “A teetotaller is one who deesn’t drink, but has to pay for the results of others drinking.” Brier ley has described “grit” as that which is more or less mixed up in the composition of a genuine Lancashire man. He had the indispensable grit that dares and endures, otherwise the poor lad whose school 'days ended at the age of cox could never have reached the position to which hs attained. And behind the power of endurance and the love of fun that brightened hardship, there was in his bis art a tender pity and sympathy for all those on whom life lays heavy burdens of toil and sorrow.—T. P.’s Weekly.