Samuel Laycock Biography

Samuel Laycock (1826–1893) was a dialect poet who recorded in verse the vernacular of the Lancashire cotton workers. He was born on 17 January 1826 at Intake Head, Pule Hill, Marsden, West Yorkshire, the son of John Laycock, a hand-loom weaver. He had no formal education apart from Sunday school and a few months at a local school. In 1837, when the family moved to Stalybridge, Cheshire, he worked as a cotton weaver. The American Civil War (1861-1864) badly affected the Lancashire cotton towns as supplies of raw cotton dried up. Laycock was one of the thousands unemployed and tried to earn a meagre living by writing verses which the unemployed could set to music and sing in the streets for pennies. In 1864, he published Lancashire Rhymes and in 1866, Lancashire Songs, poems which documented the everyday life of cotton workers.

In 1865, Laycock became the librarian at Stalybridge Mechanics' Institute, and in 1867, took up a similar post at The Whitworth Institute, Fleetwood. He continued writing while working as a photographer, while his wife ran a lodging-house. Just before his death in 1893, he published a collection of poems, Warblin's fro' an Owd Songster.

In 1850, Laycock married Martha Broadbent, a cotton weaver, but she died two years later, and he remarried in 1858 to Hannah Woolley, who died in 1863. His third marriage in 1864, was to Eliza Pontefract who survived him. He had several children by Hannah and at least two by Eliza, including Arthur, who became a novelist.

Laycock died of influenza which developed into acute bronchitis on 15 December 1893, at his home, 48 Foxhall Road, Blackpool. He was buried in Layton Cemetery, Blackpool.

12 Lancashire Lyrics 1864

Lancashire Rhymes 1864

Lancashire Songs 1866

Lancashire Poems, Tales and Recitations 1875

Warblin's From An Owd Songster 1893