Sylvester's Lamentation Poem by Dr Ian Inkster

Charles Sylvester [1776-1828] worked in the Sheffield metal trades during the 1780s and 1790s, prior to taking up a scientific and engineering career in Derby, Liverpool and London. He did not have the social status at first to even be in position for an apprenticeship, and his contemporaries in the town named him an 'Unwashed Artificer'. From an unpromising start Sylvester moved to the status of gentleman engineer with a goodly income and finally a house on Great Russell Street, pulled down to make way for the British Museum building during the 1820s.

The only professional historian who has worked on his life is myself - his mathematical work on the nascent steam locomotive system was the subject of an article of mine in 1971 (Annals of Science) . More recently I got together with a Sylvester descendent Mary Bryson to give him a full biography, published as Ian Inkster and M. Bryson, Industrial Man. The Life and Works of Charles Sylvester, Engineer 1776-1828, Jackpot Books, Salt Lake City,1999, ix&294 pages ISBN 0 9664088-4-5.

Seemingly far-removed from Poemhunters! ! However, his first known publication was his Poems on Various Subjects, published in Sheffield in 1797. In this he really lets himself go as a supporter of the dangerous French Revolution as well as a deist and enemy of all upper class cultural forms. In the book above of 1999 we republished these poems in full, and they are well worth the investigation I assure you. Obviously most of the material was either local or very much of its time and hardly of easy accessibility to today's understandings or sensibilities. However, amongst this work are absolute gems, and here I offer you one lovely political diatribe against William Pitt and his government, the white slavery of the new mills, in defence and admiration of the revolutionary French, and in hatred of priests and charlatans. I have put 4 of his poems into lyrical form, and please see the attached MP3 file of my musical rendering of Lamentation here.

I have kept the song simple and rough with the voice to go with it, contrasting with the relentless twanging vitality of the acoustic guitar.! It works I think, though this recording is very rough and needs headphones plus sympathy to listen to!

I hope you like the song and love Charles Sylvester! !

Dr Ian Inkster 23 October 2016.