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| Chatterton
- Bristol's boy poet |
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THIS
STORY LAST UPDATED:
09 September 2002 1437 BST
If
you live in Bristol for any length of time you will get to hear
about the city's big C's, the great historical figures of Caynge,
Colston, Cabot and Chatterton.
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young Chatterton is pictured in a painting by Ernest Board called
Some Who Made Bristol Famous which is displayed in the city's
museum |
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But who were
these men, and what was their contribution to the city in which
they are remembered?
Well controversy surrounds several of them, and none more so
than Chatterton, the boy poet.
Many regard him as a forger and a drunken womaniser, and a statue
of him which once adorned St Mary Redcliffe's church was apparently
removed by God-fearing folk unhappy with his reputation.
Born near St Mary Redcliffe in 1752, Thomas Chatterton spent
his early years in relative poverty.
His father, a choirmaster at the church, had died three months
before Thomas was born, and Thomas was brought up by his devoted
mother.
Colston School
At the age of eight Thomas was sent to the school founded by
one of his fellow "big C's" Edward Colston.
Colston's School was a charitable institution that took in poor
boys, and it was here that young Thomas met like-minded youths
who wrote poetry for local magazines.
His love of poetry continued after he left school at the age
of 14, and started work at a local company copying legal documents.
Any free time was spent writing his own works, but it was for
work passed off as someone elses that he eventually made his
name.
Through his family connections with St Mary Redcliffe, Thomas
had access to the church's coffers where legal documents were
stored.
Forgery
It was here that he claimed to have discovered poems written
by a 15th century monk named Thomas Rowley.
The poems were hailed as a magnificent find and experts were
unstinting in their praise of the work.
That is until the Rowley poems were found to have been the work
of young Chatterton himself.
Moving to London and hoping to make a living as a poet, Chatterton
managed for a time to eke out a livelihood writing political
works.
Literary greats Keats and Coleridge, later wrote poems about
this romantic and rebellious youth, and Wordsworth dubbed him
"the marvelous boy."
There is even a painting of Chatterton by Henry Wallis hanging
in the Tate's London gallery.
Death of a poet
But like great artists Chatterton died alone and in poverty.
His body thrown into a mass grave.
It is generally argued that on the point of starvation, but
too proud to borrow or beg, he committed suicide by deliberately
taking poison.
But other commentators believe his death resulted from an accidental
cocktail of arsenic and opium.
He was only 17 when he died.
Chatterton never lived to see an edition of his poems published
or see the monument his well-wishers had placed outside St Mary
Redcliffe.
That same statue was removed during church renovations and never
replaced because officials felt it was blasphemous to keep a
monument to a suicidal boy on holy ground.
When last seen the statue lay forgotten in a council storage
shed.
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