Robert Tannahill Biography
Robert Tannahill was born in Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland on June 3, 1774 to James Tannahill and Janet Pollock Tannahill. The fifth of eight children, Robert attended school until twelve. While at school he wrote some verse but it was of mediocre quality. Tannahill soon entered the family trade of weaving and was apprenticed at age twelve. Paisley was becoming a center for textiles at the time, and the pay was relatively high. Weavers could also pick their own hours because the trade was not yet industrialized. This worked perfectly with writing. Tannahill kept a desk nearby his loom, and when inspiration struck he could move between weaving and writing easily.
Tannahill lived most of his life in Paisley, but left for Bolton, England from 1800 to 1802 with his brother to find work. He returned home upon receiving word that his father’s health was failing, and James Tannahill died shortly after. Robert never left home again, staying home to support his mother.
In 1804 Tannahill published his first poem in The Poetical Magazine, and the next year he formed the Paisley Burns Club as a tribute to Scotland’s leading poet. In 1807 he published the first and only volume of poetry released during his lifetime: The soldier’s return: a Scottish interlude in two acts, with other poems and songs, chiefly in the Scottish dialect. Through the subscription method of publishing popular at the time, he sold the entire print run of the book – 900 copies. However, he was unsatisfied with some of the poems, and immediately began revising for an anticipated larger second printing.
Tannahill became rather well known because of The soldier’s return … and was often visited by tourists travelling through Scotland. He did not handle this change of circumstances well, writing to Andrew Borland that “scribbling of rhymes hath positively half ruined me.” The time he spent with visitors in pubs upset his fragile health and cut into his work time. In 1810, however, Tannahill finished the bulk of his proposed second edition of poems. His friend Robert Archibald Smith, whose letters sit in the same University of Glasgow collection as Tannahill’s, secured a reading with a London publisher for the manuscript. However, Tannahill was impatient and first mailed the manuscript to Constable in Edinburgh. Constable returned the manuscript unopened because of the amount of other pieces he had to review. This sent Tannahill into a state of melancholy despondency. Tannahill burned the second manuscript he had labored for several years upon; the vast majority of it has since been recovered through manuscripts in circulation among his friends. He committed suicide shortly after by drowning. Tannahill was found dead on May 17, 1810 at the age of 35. He is buried in the graveyard of the recently empty Canal Street United Presbyterian Church, then known as the West Relief Church.
For more information about Tannahill and historical Paisley, please visit this website's interactive timeline of Tannahill's life and interactive historical map of 1820 Paisley. For the most thorough biographies of Tannahill, please see David Semple's and Philip Ramsay's print editions of his work.
Tannahill lived most of his life in Paisley, but left for Bolton, England from 1800 to 1802 with his brother to find work. He returned home upon receiving word that his father’s health was failing, and James Tannahill died shortly after. Robert never left home again, staying home to support his mother.
In 1804 Tannahill published his first poem in The Poetical Magazine, and the next year he formed the Paisley Burns Club as a tribute to Scotland’s leading poet. In 1807 he published the first and only volume of poetry released during his lifetime: The soldier’s return: a Scottish interlude in two acts, with other poems and songs, chiefly in the Scottish dialect. Through the subscription method of publishing popular at the time, he sold the entire print run of the book – 900 copies. However, he was unsatisfied with some of the poems, and immediately began revising for an anticipated larger second printing.
Tannahill became rather well known because of The soldier’s return … and was often visited by tourists travelling through Scotland. He did not handle this change of circumstances well, writing to Andrew Borland that “scribbling of rhymes hath positively half ruined me.” The time he spent with visitors in pubs upset his fragile health and cut into his work time. In 1810, however, Tannahill finished the bulk of his proposed second edition of poems. His friend Robert Archibald Smith, whose letters sit in the same University of Glasgow collection as Tannahill’s, secured a reading with a London publisher for the manuscript. However, Tannahill was impatient and first mailed the manuscript to Constable in Edinburgh. Constable returned the manuscript unopened because of the amount of other pieces he had to review. This sent Tannahill into a state of melancholy despondency. Tannahill burned the second manuscript he had labored for several years upon; the vast majority of it has since been recovered through manuscripts in circulation among his friends. He committed suicide shortly after by drowning. Tannahill was found dead on May 17, 1810 at the age of 35. He is buried in the graveyard of the recently empty Canal Street United Presbyterian Church, then known as the West Relief Church.
For more information about Tannahill and historical Paisley, please visit this website's interactive timeline of Tannahill's life and interactive historical map of 1820 Paisley. For the most thorough biographies of Tannahill, please see David Semple's and Philip Ramsay's print editions of his work.