The biography of the businessman-poet comes from Charles Rogers’s six-volume The Modern Scottish Minstrel, or The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century, V, 1-6. The Portrait by William Ridgway after Alexander Johnston is used courtesy of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. — George P. Landow
[The present Memoir has been prepared at our request by the veteran William Jerdan, late of the Literary Gazette.]
rancis Bennoch, the son of a farmer on the property of the Duke of Buccleuch, and of a mother whose family have been tenants on the same estate for nearly two hundred years, was born at Drumcrool, in the parish of Durrisdeer, and county of Dumfries, on the 25th June 1812. At the age of sixteen, in February 1828, he arrived in London, and entered a house of business in the city. During the nine ensuing years, he assiduously pursued his avocation, and strove to make himself master of the elements and practice of trade. In 1837 he commenced on his own responsibility, and every succeeding year has advanced him in mercantile prosperity and position. Now, at the head of the firm of Bennoch, Twentyman, & Bigg, wholesale traders and manufacturers, there is no name in the city more universally respected.
Francis Bennoch, 1812-1890 by William Ridgway after Alexander Johnston.
Courtesy of the National Scottish Portrait Gallery.
In the corporate body of the city of London Mr Bennoch for some years took a prominent part as a citizen, a common councilman, and lastly as the deputy of a ward. An independent man and a reformer of abuses, he has so managed his opposition to measures, and even to men, as to win the warm approval of his own friends, and the respect of the leaders of all parties. His plans for bridging the Thames may be referred to in proof of his patriotic devotedness to improvement.
Influenced in his youth by the genius of the locality in which he was born, to which the Ayrshire Ploughman had left a legacy of immortal song, succeeded by Allan Cunningham, and a number of distinguished followers, it was not, however, till he had been two years a deni zen of the metropolis that Mr Bennoch's Scottish feel ing sought to vent itself in verse. The love of country is as inherent and vehement in the children of the North as in the Swiss mountaineers; wheresoever they wander from it, their hearts yearn towards the fatherland —
Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,
Land of the mountain and the flood,
Land of their sires —
with the same cherished and enduring affection which excites in the Rans des Vaches so overpowering a sympathy. And the pastoral is perhaps even more replete with the poetical elements than the " tem and wild." It is amid such scenes as the Doon, the Tweed, the Teviot, the Ettrick, the Gala, and the Nith adorn, that the jaded senses are prone to seek recreation, and the spirit, tired with work or worn with cares, flees rejoicingly from the world to the repose of its first breathing and time-sweetened, boyish delights. Thus we find young Bennoch, amid the clatter of the great city, turning to the quiet of his native valley to sing the charms of the Nith, where he
Had paidlet i' the burn, And pu'd the go wan o fine.
It was in the Dumfries Courier that his first poetic essay found its way to print. That journal was then edited by the veteran M'Diarmid, himself an honour to the literature of Scotland, and no mean judge of its poetry. A cheer from such a quarter was worth the winning, and our aspirant fairly won it, by the five stanzas of which the following is the last : —
The flowers may fade upon your banks,
The breckan on the brae,
But, oh! the love I ha'e for thee
Shall never pass away.
Though age may wrinkle this smooth brow,
And youth be like a dream,
Still, still my voice to heaven shall rise
For blessings on your stream!"
But banks and braes, and straths and streams, and woods and waves, though very dear to memory, merely come up to the painted beauties of descriptive verse. They must be warmed through
The dearest theme
That ever waked the poet's dream,"
and love must fill the vision, before the soul can soar above the delicious but inanimate charms of earth, into the glowing region of human feeling and passion.
In peace, Love tunes the shepherd's reed;
In war, he mounts the warrior's steed;
In halls, in gay attire is seen;
In hamlets, dances on the green.
Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,
And man below, and saints above:
For love is heaven, and heaven is love!
Nor was this essential inspiration wanting in the breast of the young bard. The climate of Caledonia is cold, but that the hearts of her sons are susceptible of tropic warmth is shewn by a large proportion of her lyric treasures. Heroism, pathos, satire, and a peculiar quaint humour, present little more than an equal division, and the attributes of the wholly embodied Scottish muse attest the truth of the remark on the characteris tic heat and fire which pervade her population, and ex cite them to daring in war and ardour in gentler pur suits. Thus Bennoch sung his Mary, Jessie, Bessie, Isabel, and other belles, but above all his Margaret: —
"The moon is shining, Margaret,
Serenely bright above,
And, like my dearest Margaret,
Her every look is love!
The trees are waving, Margaret,
And balmy is the air,
Where flowers are breathing, Margaret,
Come, let us wander there. . . . .
Yes ! there 's a hand, dear Margaret,
A heart it gives to thee;
When heaven is false, my Margaret,
Then I may faithless be.
In the volume whence the preceding quotations are taken (second edition, 1843), the principal poem is "The Storm," in which occur many passages of singular vigour, and slighter touches of genuine poetry. Thus —
The sea, by day so smooth and bright,
Is far more lovely seen by night,
When o'er old Ocean's wrinkled brow,
The night has hung her silver bow,
And stars in myriads ope their eyes
To guide the footsteps of the wise,
And in the deep reflected lie,
Till Ocean seems a second sky;
And ships, like wing'd aerial cars,
Are voyaging among the stars.<
This is—
Ere winter comes with icy chain,
And clanks his fetters o'er the ground.
The impersonation of Winter himself is very striking —
Loud, loud were the shouts of his boisterous mirth,
As he scatter'd dismay o'er the smiling earth;
The clouds were rent as the storm was driven;
He howl'd and laugh'd in the face of heaven.
The temperament and inclination cherished by the love of song, naturally seek the companionship of similar tastes and congenial enjoyments. Thus, in the midst of the turmoil and distractions of orders and sales, invoices and shipments, Mr Bennoch has always found leisure to pay his court to literature, and cultivate the society of those whose talents adorn it. Con joined with this, a skilful appreciation of works of art has led him to intimate relations with many of the lead ing artists of our time. The interesting Biography of Haydon affords a glimpse at the character of some of these relations. Wherever disappointed and however distressed, poor Haydon " claimed kindred here, and had his claim allowed." To his mercantile friend in Wood Street he never applied in vain. To a very considerable extent his troubles were solaced, his difficulties surmounted, his dark despair changed to golden hope, and the threat of the gaol brightened into another free effort of genius to redeem itself from the thralls of law and grinding oppression. Had his generous friend not been absent from England at the fatal time, it is very probable that the dreadful catastrophe would have been averted ; but he only landed from the continent to receive the shock ing intelligence that all was over. Friendship could but shed the unavailing tear, but it did not forget or neglect the dear family interests for which (in some measure) the despairing sacrifice was made. It is to be hoped that such an unhappy event has been somewhat compensated by the social intercourse with talent ever hospitably cherished, not only in his pleasant home in Blackheath Park, but amid the precious hours that could be snatched from most active engagements in Wood Street. At either, authors and artists are constantly met ; and the brief snatches alluded to are often so heartily occupied as to rival, if not surpass, the slower motions of the more prolonged entertainments. Both may boast of u the feast of reason and the flow of soul," and a crowning increase to these enjoyments is derived from the circumstance, that Mr Bennoch's connexions with the Continent, and more especially with the United States, contribute very frequently to engraft upon these " re-unions " a variety of eminent foreigners and intellectual citizens of America. It is a trite saying, that few men can be good or useful abroad who are not happy at home. Mr Bennoch has been fortunate in wedded life. She who is the theme of many of his sweetest and most touching verses, is a woman whom a poet may love and a wise man consult ; in whom the sociable gentleman finds an ever cheerful companion, and the husband a loving and devoted friend.
Among the latest of Mr Bennoch's movements in literary affairs, may be mentioned his services on behalf of the late estimable Mary Russell Mitford. Through his intervention the public was gratified by the issue of u Atherton," and other tales, and also by a collected edition of her dramatic works, which she dedicated to him as an earnest of her affectionate regard.
Mr Bennoch is a member of the Society of Arts, the Royal Society of Antiquaries, the Royal Society of Literature, and the Scottish Literary Institute.
Bibliography
Jerdan, William. “Francis Bennoch” in Charles Rogers’s The Modern Scottish Minstrel, or The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century 6 vols. Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black, 1857. Hathi Trist Digital Library online version of a copy in the Harvard University Library. Web. 14 July 2020.
Last modified 14 July 2020