Talk:Alexander Smith (poet)

Untitled

I have my copy of the 1907 Routledge and Sons reprint of Dreamthorp in front of me as I write. The first essay, also called Dreamthorp, was one of my favourite pieces of writing. I had only read it before as an isolated essay, and it was a pleasant surprise to find the whole book one day in a second-hand bookshop, worth far more to me than the £2 I paid the bookseller.

Today was another surprise when I saw that the whole book Dreamthorp is now available online from Project Gutenberg. I have added a link to it from the article. Perhaps this is the fruits of a request I made years ago. It evokes the beautiful quiet solitude of living in the deep countryside, which nowadays you have to be lucky or wealthy to experience at first-hand yourself. On re-reading it, it does seem to reflect the inevitable Victorian obsession with Death, and Smith himself died young by modern standards.

Alexander Smith: parents' forenames

According to the Registry Office records of Alexander Smith's marriage (Sleat, 1857) and death (Edinburgh, 1867), Alexander's parents were John and Christina (Murray), not Peter and Helen as stated in Brisbane's biography (and previously in the Wikipedia article and many similar around the web). There can be little doubt that these records are of the correct Alexander Smith -- Secretary to the University of Edinburgh, son of pattern designer, married to Flora McDonald, died Gesto Villa, etc. I have changed these names on the main page.

Brisbane also says that Smith's mother was "a native of the Highlands." I believe that he is wrong here, too, and that she was born in Paisley in 1804, although I am not sure enough to change the text of the main article. Brisbane was certainly aware that Alexander's parents were alive when he wrote the biography; one wonders whether he troubled to consult them.

Wyresider (talk) 15:31, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Further to the above, combining the evidence from Christina's death record, the census records and the OPR birth records, I am now quite satisfied that Christina WAS born in Paisley and have amended the article to reflect this. I have also added a caveat to the Brisbane reference.

Wyresider (talk) 23:25, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

in the east end of Glasgow where Smith spent his boyhood

"in the east end of Glasgow where Smith spent his boyhood"

No, NO, NO!!

The hanging was in or close to Bishopbriggs, OUTside and almost due NORTH of Glasgow.

This is in fact a curious and remarkable error, as the trial and execution (the latter the first at the scene of the crime and away from the precincts of a prison for many decades) was given enormous space in the press and in subsequent books.

I would correct the "site of execution" in the text but for the "where Smith spent his boyhood" phrase which complicates the correction, as I know not where his post-Paisley (Glasgow) boyhood was spent -- although, something I read about a girl-friend of Smith drowning in the Paisley canal (I read it in Brisbane* or Alexander, I can't remember which), suggests that he may not have lived in the East End at all.

• Brisbane is useful, but read him with very great care. His book would better be titled "A cashing-in on the memory of the late celebrated A.Smith by a nobody who had his acquaintance for a while." His book is riddled with Brisbane-agrandisment and error. He even gets Smith's parents' names wrong (saying Peter and Helen) although both were alive when he wrote his book!

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Wyresider (talk • contribs) 21:01, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Edits 20 Aug 2017 (Wyresider)

I've made quite a few edits, so have given details and rationale here.

Most of the changes to the existing text are small, but the notes/refs/etc sections had to be rebuilt for footnotes and extra references (see below), and that was the biggest change, so it was easier to do the all the changes at once despite the greater risk of edit muddle.

Incidentally, I note that much of the existing text has been lifted verbatim from ODNB -- has Wikipedia got a copyright problem here? I see that adding that text (it nearly trebled the size of the article) is the only entry in the Wikipedia contribution list of the editor who added it.

Notes / References / Further Reading

I have added some footnotes, so I needed the "Notes" heading for notes, so I have renamed the references block from "Notes" to "References" ... but "References" was already in use for works that were not in fact referenced but were further reading, so I moved these into the "Further Reading" section.

Also, I cite some of the works listed under "Further reading", so they had to be moved to "References".

See also a question about what is the best reference style for this article under "Matters Outstanding" below.

Date of Birth

This does not appear in any of the established, non-comformist or catholic records indexed by the Registry Office (statutory registration had not yet been introduced), and I have not seen any solid source cited (ODNB says that 31/12/29 is "confirmed" by the 1851 census, but (1) that only gives it to a 365-day span, and (2) census ages are quite often incorrect. Web searches yield 1829 and 1830 about equally, often giving 31 December (in either year). Brisbane and Alexander both give 31/12/29. Brisbane is exceptionally unreliable (as mentioned in a previous post). Alexander might be reliable?

Smith's age in years is given on the three surviving census records (1841/51/61) and on his marriage and death records. None of these can be assumed to be exactly correct, but collectively they give an indication. (There is reason to think that Flora was born on 2/2/29, and that the bride and groom swapped ages on the wedding record. It was not unknown for wrong ages to be given when a wife was older than her husband, although in this case by only a few months.) Even if only one of the five is correct, the earliest date is 22 Apr 1828 and the latest is 7 Apr 1830, ruling out 31 Dec 1830. If any three are correct, the earliest date is 6 Jan 1829 and the latest is 5 Jan 1830.

As to 31 Dec, two of Smith's friends (Brisbane and Alexander) give this date, both in 1829, so it can be taken as likely but not confirmed that Smith was born on that date.

I have amended the header para and the first para of "Early Life" to reflect the uncertainty, and removed the date from the start of "Early Life".

(Although the article text said 1830, The "category" section already showed "Category:1829 births".)

Number of Siblings

I have changed "six children" of John and Christina to "eight, possibly nine". I think we can accept Brisbane's description of the effect on young Alexander of the death of a slightly younger sister from a fever of which Alexander himself nearly died, and parish and successive census records give us John, David, Marion, Hugh, Christina and William. That's eight, but the parish records say that Marion was the sixth; Hugh, Christina and William were younger than Marion. The missing one, if there was a missing one, was probably born in 1834 (unless it was a twin).

Parents Dates

Father was baptised 5 September 1803. I have not found a record of his death (yet), but he survived his wife and I read (a long time ago) a date of late 1880s. I've amended his dates to 1803-c.1890 for now.

Mother was 1804 to 1881.

McCulloch and Flora

Smith and Horatio McCulloch were firm friends (see Alexander's Memoir, and also McCulloch's will, in which Smith was an executor and Smith's children were legatees), and McCulloch's wife was Flora's cousin, so it is probable (almost certain?) that Smith met Flora though McCulloch. I have not made that last point in the text, but I have swapped the order in introduction of Flora and McCulloch because that is the chronology (the resulting re-wording also moves it away from the ODNB wording, which needs to be done to the whole article), and moved the vague statement of Flora's relationship to the famous Flora to a more precise statement in a footnote.

Death

In the header para, I have cited Smith's official death record.

He might have been in Brewer in 1898, but he is not in recent editions, so I have removed the reference to the error in Brewer.

In the main text, I have changed "at the very beginning of his thirty-seventh year", which is certainly wrong, to "aged 37", which is almost certainly correct, with a reference to his death record at the Registry as justification. The old text was another verbatim copy from ODNB, but of a statement in which they contradict the result of their own extended discussion of Smith's d.o.b!

The Hanging

"which took place in the east end of Glasgow" is definitely wrong. I have edited this sentence, correcting the place, with a footnote expanding the event slightly and indicating sources too numerous to cite individually (very wide press coverage).

His Novel

I have added its title, Alfred Taggart's Household, and a reference to the magazine omnibus edition that contains it.

External links

The bald "Smith's Biography" with merely "[1]" as link text was hardly satisfactory -- I've expanded it.

Trivial Edits

Geography and Biblical History had wikilinks, so why not English Grammar? It has now.

Also minor spelling corrections, missing spaces etc.

Matters Outstanding

• Much of the content is taken from ODNB, but ODNB is neither referenced nor mentioned under "Further Reading"; it appears only as an "External link" -- and a highly obfuscated one until now. I have left it there for the time being, but it's lack of attribution and the question of possible breach of copyright needs to be addressed.

• References are given to the on-line text of A Summer in Skye at archive.org, and the "External link" to the "Complete text" is to electricscotland.com. Confusing?

• The links to bookrags.com are dead.  COMMENTED OUT 28/08/17

• There are two different Applauding Thunders under Further Reading. Is this an mistake, or are there essential differences?  TURNED OUT OBS. DUP. ENTRY -- DELETED 28/08/17

• The attribution to an ancient edition of Brewer seems a bit strange when there can be very little from Brewer, and most of the article is copied from the current edition of another source. How much and what text derives from Brewer? Can this attribution be deleted as trivial?  DELETED 28/80/17

• Smith's appointment as Secretary of Edinburgh University should be up front under "life" rather than in "Literary Works", especially as it was the reason he moved to Edinburgh (which is otherwise unexplained, even unstated). It will involve much more re-writing of existing text that the current edits, most of which are additions, deletions or very local changes, so I haven't tacked it yet. Would another editor care to have a go? You'll probably make a better job.

• Further to the last point, the last para of "Literary Works" is pretty unreadable. In fact, the Life and Works sections could do with re-writing, not just patching, and that needs a better editor than me to do it.

• Would the article benefit from the split-form reference/source structure
  Refs
    [x] Jones, p.123
    [y] Jones, p.456
  Sources
    [Z] Jones,ABC, A Big Book, Foobar Press (1899)
  

with non-page-specific references going directly to the source list?

Wyresider (talk) 22:31, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Copyright Problem

When I compared the 14 Nov 2012 version with the ODNB text and realised that Samuel987 had done a wholesale copy-paste, I reluctantly flagged it -- reluctantly because it is most of the article, and has been much edited since. But it was too blatant to ignore.

However, I ask the admin person who deals with this NOT to delete the whole page. There are a lot of valuable references, and I know enough about the subject to write a new "Life" (biog) section. I do NOT know enough to write a new "Works" section, but I'm sure there are others who do, and who will fill an empty section before long.

Or, if it is possible to contact Simon Berry, the original author, maybe he will release his text to Wiki? Wyresider (talk) 18:53, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Wyresider, I've done the best I can to preserve the parts of this not affected by the copyright violation; that includes restoring the previous text written by Charles Matthews, which Samuel987 had erased. As is our normal practice, I've reverted to the last version before the offending edit, and thus removed all the text added in it, including the Works section, which was not taken from the ODNB (but may have been copied from elsewhere). In case anyone is wondering, I have checked that the ODNB text is not (as sometimes happens) a rewrite of the DNB. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 10:06, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, Justlettersandnumbers. It's a pity the normal process is a full reversion to an old version rather than just deleting the stolen bits, which would leave newer and clean sections undamaged, but I think I can see why it's usually the best way. This case is probably unusual for the age of the violation as well as its extent. I'm a little surprised (but very relieved!) that the recent full text is still accessible under "history", so the legit stuff can be salvaged. I'll restore the legit material that was at the beginning and end, then have a go at splitting "Life" from "Works" and incorporating some of the deleted legit material into "Life". I'm afraid this article is going to look like a building site for quite a long time, but it had to be done. Once again, thank you. Wyresider (talk) 12:11, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Wyresider. I've already added a {{copyvio-revdel}} request to the page, so your recent edits will soon be hidden in the history. May I suggest that you make your own copy of anything you want to re-use (as long as it doesn't contain any of the copyright text)? – though even after it's been hidden you'll still be able to ask an admin to send it to you or temporarily unhide it. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 12:23, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for the warning! -- copy made. Wyresider (talk) 12:35, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed

Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/25771?docPos=4. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.)

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