William Motherwell

William Motherwell (13 October 1797, Glasgow – 1 November 1835, Glasgow), Scottish poet, antiquary and journalist.

Motherwell was born at Glasgow, the son of Willan and Jane Motherwell. His father was an ironmonger. He was sent to school and at the age of fifteen he was apprenticed in the office of the sheriff-clerk at Paisley. He studied classics for a winter term at Glasgow University between 1818 and 1819. He and appointed sheriff-clerk depute there in 1819. He spent his leisure in collecting materials for a volume of local ballads which he published in 1819 under the title of The Harp of Renfrewshire. In 1827 he published a further instalment in Minstrelsy Ancient and Modern, prefaced by an excellent historical introduction. This work was to provide evidence of the work of notable women like Agnes Lyle. He contributed verses to newspapers and magazines, "Jeanie Morrison", "My Heid is like to rend, Willie", and "Wearies Cauld Well" being his best-known poems. He became editor of the Paisley Advertiser in 1828, and of the Glasgow Courier in 1830.

A small volume of his poems was published in 1832, and a larger volume with a memoir in 1846, reissued, with additions, in 1848.

William Motherwell did not know Robert Tannahill, but became very well acquainted with Tannahill's friend and musical collaborator Robert Archibald Smith. It has been suggested that Smith may have encouraged Tannahill's shift from weaving to music, but this has no basis in fact as no such shift ever took place. Tannahill was a weaver from the time he was apprenticed to his father on 7 December 1786 until his death in 1810. It was Smith who sought out the company of Tannahill after hearing one of latter's songs performed at a musical evening in Paisley.

In his role as Sheriff-Clerk Depute, William Motherwell was not averse to "handling a truncheon in defence of the public peace on the streets of Paisley". Motherwell has been described in classic twentieth century parlance as the "working class Tory made good". He managed through his own efforts to establish himself in moderately powerful circles and become something of an arbiter of both literary and political opinion during the 1820s. In politics he was an Orangeman as well as a Tory. Orangeism espousing the view that hereditary rank is sacred while Roman Catholicism and revolutionary innovations which threaten the constitution (unwritten) of Britain are an abhorrence.

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