Timeline
Title
Country/Nationality
John Stagg
John Stagg was an English poet from Cumberland, where he was known as the "blind bard". He is now remembered for "The Vampyre" (1810).
Stagg was born at Burgh-by-Sands, near Carlisle, where his father, a tailor, possessed a small property. His parents decided to educate him for the church, but while he was still young an accident deprived him of his sight and put an end to his studies. For some time he made a livelihood by keeping a library in Wigton and playing his fiddle.
In his twentieth year he married. After leaving Wigton for Carlisle, he moved to Manchester, where he remained more or less till his death. He visited Cumberland, and also went further afield selling his works, and about 1809 visited Oxford.
Stagg died at Workington in 1823. He was father of seven children. In Charles Howard, 11th Duke of Norfolk, and the Cumberland gentry, as well as among members of both English universities, he had found patrons.
Books by John Stagg
Two Cumberland Ballads
Two narrative ballads, based on local lore, by the Cumberland poet John Stagg. In 'The Hermit of Rockcliffe', a young fugitive takes refuge with a hermit, hears a bizarre and cautionary tale of what might befall a lusty young man at a masked ball, an...