Victorian

Born in about 1830 in Edinburgh of Irish parents, William McGonagall earned his living as a hand-loom weaver. He married Jean King on July 11, 1846. He heard, and obeyed, a call to write poetry in June 1877 and brought out a collection the next year, including a poem on the great Tay bridge in Dundee.

• Miller, William. Willie Winkie. Paisley: Gleniffer Press, 1983.
• --. Scottish Nursery Songs, And other Poems. Glasgow: Kerr and Richardson, 1863.

Charles William Shirley Brooks was born on 29 April, 1816 at 52 Doughty Street, London. The son of Elizabeth and William Brooks (an architect), he was articled to his uncle Charles Sabine of Oswestry after receiving his early education. In 1938, he passed the Incorporated Law Society's examination, but there is no record of Brooks becoming a solicitor.

James Joseph was born on Sept. 3, 1814, to Abraham Joseph Sylvester and was a Jew. Educated at the Royal Institution School, Liverpool, he proceeded to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he earned the coveted Second Wrangler in mathematics in 1837. Unable to swear to the Thirty-nine Articles of the Anglican Church, however, Sylvester was barred from obtaining a degree.

Born March 17, 1832, in Percy, Northumberland, Joseph Skipsey was a colliery worker at seven years of age. He made himself educated, publishing verse in local newspapers until he was gradually able to leave harsh labour behind him. He earned a living as caretaker to schools and colleges. He and his wife Sara Ann Hendley, married in 1854, had eight children.

Elizabeth Siddal(l) was born on July 25, 1829, in Holborn, London, the child of Charles Crooke Siddall and Elizabeth Elenor Evans Siddall. She had a very ordinary upbringing, distinguished only by her personal beauty, but it was enough. She caught the eye of a pre-Raphaelite painter, Walter Howell Deverell, as she worked in a bonnet store in Cranbourne Alley, London.

James Clerk Maxwell was born on Nov. 13, 1831, at 14 India St., Edinburgh, to John Clerk Maxwell and Frances Cay. The family home to which he would at last retire was at Glenlair, but after his mother's death young James was sent to Edinburgh for schooling at the Edinburgh Academy, from 1840 to 1847. He excelled at both English and mathematics.

Robert Fuller Murray was born Dec. 26, 1863, in Roxbury, Massachusetts, of John and Emmeline Murray. In 1869 John took his son to Kelso, England, and then to York. He was educated at grammar schools in Ilminster and in Crewkerne. Murray then attended his beloved University of St. Andrews from 1881, succeeding more in English than in classical Greek.

Mary Ann Evans was born on Nov. 22, 1819, near Nuneaton, Warwickshire, to Robert Evans and Christiana Pearson. She was educated at Nuneaton and Coventry (1841-). Her first publication was a poem in the Christian Observer (Jan. 1840). After leaving the Church, she moved to London in 1849 and edited The Westminster from 1851 to 1853.

George Essex Evans, born on June 18, 1863, in London, emigrated to Australia in 1881 and became District Registrar, Toowoomba. He published three volumes of verse, The Repentance of Magdalene Despar (1891), Loraine and Other Verses (1898), and The Secret Key and Other Verses (1906). He and Mrs. Blanche Hopkins married and had one son, Bowen.