Joseph Skipsey | |
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Born | 17 March 1832 Percy Main, Tynemouth, England |
Died | 3 September 1903 Gateshead, England | (aged 71)
Occupation | miner, poet |
Genre | Realism |
Subject | Industrial conditions |
Notable works | 'The Hartley Calamity' '"Get Up!"' 'Mother Wept' |
Spouse | Sarah Skipsey |
Joseph Skipsey (17 March 1832 – 3 September 1903) was a Northumbrian poet during the Victorian period and one of a number of literary coal miners to be known as 'The Pitman Poet'. Among his best known works is the ballad "The Hartley Calamity", which imagined the last hours of several of those trapped underground during the Hartley Colliery Disaster of January 1862. This devastating mining accident killed a total of 204 men and boys and remains England's most catastrophic pit disaster.[1]