John Brand (18th century)

This article is about the 18th-century English poet and clergyman. For the 20th-century English poet and academic, see John Brand (20th century).

John Brand (1744-1806), Observations on Popular Antiquities: Chiefly illustrating the origin of our vulgar customs, ceremonies, and superstitions (1813). Cambridge University Press, 2011. Courtesy Amazon.com.

Rev. John Brand (19 August 1744 - 11 September 1806) was an English poet, cleric, and antiquary.

Life

Brand was born at Washington, county Durham, where his father, Alexander Brand, was parish clerk. His mother dying immediately after his birth, and his father having married again, he was taken, when a child, under the protection of his maternal uncle, Anthony Wheatley, cordwainer, of Back Row, Newcastle-upon-Tyne,to whom he was bound apprentice on 4 Sept. 1758.

He was educated at the Royal Grammar School in that town under the direction of Rev. Hugh Moises, where he acquired a taste for classical studies; and after leaving the school he was so indefatigable in the acquisition of learning as to secure the esteem and friendship of his former master, Mr. Moises, who interested some opulent friends in his behalf and assisted in sending him to Oxford. He was entered at Lincoln College, Oxford, earning a B.A. in 1775.

Previously to this he had been ordained to the curacy of Bolam in Northumberland; in June 1773 he was appointed curate of St. Andrew's, Newcastle; on 6 October 1774 he was presented to the perpetual curacy of Cramlington, a chapel of ease to St. Nicholas at Newcastle, from which town it is distant about 8 miles. In 1778 he was appointed under-usher of the grammar school at Newcastle, but he does not appear to have held that situation very long.

In 1784 he was presented by his early friend and patron, the Duke of Northumberland, to the rectory of the united parishes of St. Mary-at-Hill and St. Mary Hubbard, in the city of London; and 2 years later he was appointed one of the duke's domestic chaplains.

We are told that "his manners, somewhat repulsive to a stranger, became easy on closer acquaintance; and he loved to communicate to men of literary and antiquarian taste the result of his researches on any subject in which they might require information. Many of his books were supplied with portraits drawn by himself in a style not inferior to the originals, of which they were at the same time perfect imitations.". He never married. There is a small silhouette likeness of him in the frontispiece to his History of Newcastle.

He was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries 29 May 1777. In 1784 he was elected resident secretary to the Society, and was annually re-elected to that office until his death, which took place very suddenly in his rectory house in 1806. He was buried in the chancel of his church.

An account of some of the rarer tracts in his library, which was sold by auction in 1807-8, is given in Dibdin's 'Bibliomania,' 605-611.

Writing

His works are:

1. A poem On Illicit Love. Written among the ruins of Godstow Nunnery, near Oxford, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1775, 4to, pp. 20. Godstow was the burial-place of Fair Rosamond, the paramour of Henry II.
2. Observations on Popular Antiquities: including the whole of Mr. Bourne's "Antiquitates Vulgares," with Addenda to every chapter of that work; as also an Appendix, containing such articles on the subject as have been omitted by that author, London, 1777, 8vo. Brand left an immense mass of manuscript collections for the augmentation of this work. These were purchased by some booksellers and placed in the hands of Mr. (afterwards Sir Henry) Ellis, who incorporated them in a new edition published at London in 2 vols. 1813, 4to, under the title of Observations on Popular Antiquities: chiefly illustrating the origin of our Vulgar Customs, Ceremonies, and Superstitions. Among the printed books in the British Museum is a copy of this edition with numerous interleaved additions; and in the manuscript department there is another copy annotated by the Rev. Joseph Hunter, F.S.A. (Addit. MSS. 24544, 24545). Other editions appeared in Knight's 'Miscellanies,' 3 vols. London, 1841-2, 4to, and in Bohn's 'Antiquarian Library,' 3 vols. London, 1849. This work contains much interesting information, but the author takes no general view of his subject; his desultory collections are made with little care, and the notes and text are frequently at variance with each other. Mr. William Carew Hazlitt made an attempt to remedy some of these defects in his new edition, entitled 'Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, comprising notices of the movable and immovable feasts, customs, superstitions, and amusements, past and present,' 3 vols. London, 1870, 8vo.
3. The History and Antiquities of the Town and County of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 2 vols. London, 1789, 4to; a very elaborate work, embellished with views of the public buildings, engraved by Fittler at a cost of 500l. An index, compiled by William Dodd, treasurer to the Newcastle Society of Antiquaries, was printed by that society in 1881.
4. Papers in the Archæologia, vols. viii. x. xiii. xiv. xv.
5. Letters to Mr. Ralph Beilby of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Newcastle, 1825, 8vo.

Publications

Poetry

• A Collection of Poetical Essays. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: I. Thompson, 1765.
• On Illicit Love: Written among the ruins of Godstow nunnery, near Oxford. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: T. Saint, for W. Charnley / J. Wilkie, London / J. Fletcher, Oxford, 1775.

Non-fiction

• Conscience: An ethical essay. London: T. Beckett, 1773.
• Observations on Popular Antiquities: Including the whole of Mr. Bourne's Antiquitates vulgares. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: T. Saint, for J. Johnson, London, 1777
  • revised & expanded by Henry Ellis as Observations on Popular Antiquities: Chiefly illustrating the origin of our vulgar customs, ceremonies, and superstitions. (2 volumes), London: F.C. & J. Rivington, 1813; (3 volumes), London: T. Knight, 1842; London: Chatto & Windus, 1900; Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Volume I, Volume II, Volume III
  • revised & expanded by William Carew Hazlitt as Brand's Popular Antiquities of Great Britain: Faiths and folklore; a dictionary of national beliefs, superstitions and popular customs, past and current, with their classical and foreign analogues, described and illustrated. (3 volumes), London: J.R. Smith, 1870; London: Reeves & Turner, 1905. Volume I, Volume II
• The History and Antiquities of the Town and County of the Town of Newcastle upon Tyne. London: B. White / T. & L. Egerton, 1789.
• On the Latin Terms Used in Natural History. London: Benjamin White, 1797.

Letters

• Letters of the Rev. John Brand to Mr. Ralph Beilby. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: T. & J. Hodgson, for E. Charnley, 1825.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of British poets

References

•  Cooper, Thompson (1886) "Brand, Joseph (1744-1806)" in Stephen, Leslie Dictionary of National Biography 6 London: Smith, Elder, pp. 213-214 . Wikisource, Web, May 17, 2016.

External links

Poems

• "An Elegy on a Pile of Sacred Ruins"
• "Elegaic Reflections, wrote in the Vault of St. Nicholas Church, Newcastle."

Books

• John Brand at Amazon.com

About

• Rev. John Brand (1744-1806) at English Poetry, 1579-1830

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the Dictionary of National Biography (edited by Leslie Stephen & Sidney Lee). London: Smith, Elder, 1885-1900. Original article is at: Brand, John (1744-1806)