William Barnes Collection - Dorset History Centre

William Barnes (1801-1886) was born at Bagber in the Blackmore Vale into a farming family. Although his formal schooling ended at the age of 13 when he became a Solicitor's clerk he read very widely during the following years, studying many subjects including sciences, history, archaeology and philology and languages. In the arts he learned to play several musical instruments and mastered painting and engraving, and began writing poetry in standard English and the Dorset dialect.

In 1823 Barnes opened a school at Mere in Wiltshire, and after his marriage to Julia Miles and the birth of their older children, the couple moved to Dorchester and ran a school in the county town. Julia managed the business part of the enterprise, which allowed Barnes to study for an external degree of Bachelor of Divinity at St. John's College, Cambridge and to become ordained in 1850. After Julia's death in 1852 the school declined, but not before producing an unusual number of pupils for its size who later achieved eminence in their professions, no doubt partly owing to Barnes' inspired teaching.

From 1862 until his death in 1886 Barnes was rector of Winterborne Came with Whitcombe, a small parish near Dorchester. Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect had first been published in 1844 and later editions were published in 1848, 1862 and 1866. Meanwhile second and third collections of dialect poems followed, and volumes of poems in National English. For many years Barnes contributed articles to the "Gentleman's Magazine" on Dorset history and customs and on the origins of the English language. He campaigned for most of his life to rid English of classical and foreign influences and for a return to its Saxon roots. Pamphlets and articles on the social conditions of the poor and on the philosophy of education were also published, and Barnes was one of the founder members of the Dorset Field Club, which established the Dorset County Museum.

Towards the end of his life Barnes was recognised and admired as a great poet by some of the foremost literary men of his time. Thomas Hardy regarded him as an equal, and Lord Tennyson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Edmund Gosse and Coventry Patmore wrote of his abilities. After the publication of his complete poems edited by Bernard Jones and published in 1962, a later generation praised his work, including W.H. Auden, E.M. Forster and Siegfried Sassoon.

Although Barnes was a polymath of great range and diversity, it is for his poetry, and especially his dialect poetry that he is best remembered. Some critics have said that if his best work had been written in standard English he would have been as well-known as the greatest of English poets, but his legacy is a picture of the life and language of rural Dorset which had almost disappeared at the time he was writing. The apparent directness and simplicity of the images and sentiments hide technique, learning and an ear for the music of dialect speech which is unsurpassed.

The Barnes Collection at the Dorset History Centre contains most of the published works, including biographies and critical works and many of Barnes' journal articles. Some of Barnes' poems have been set to music, most famously 'Linden Lea' by Ralph Vaughan Williams, and the collection includes sheet music of these.

Access to the Collection

The Collection may be consulted at any time that the Dorset History Centre is open, without prior appointment. All material is for reference only, although copies of many of the books are available for loan in libraries throughout the county. The staff are pleased to help with enquiries.

Photograph of William Barnes by kind permission of  Dorset County Museum.