Joseph ritson biography

Born: Joseph Ritson was born in Stockton on 2 October He was the son of Joseph Ritson, a farm worker, and Jane Gibson. He was one of nine children, but only five of them survived infancy.

Educated: He was taught by Rev. John Thompson of Stockton, who seems to have introduced Joseph to Latin. He became an articled clerk to John Stapylton Raisbeck, a Stockton solicitor. At this time, Ritson became fond of poetry and ancient history.

Married: In Joseph Ritson married Catherine Masterman, daughter of Thomas and Ann Masterman of Northallerton.

Family: Joseph and Catherine had no children. Two years after their marriage, Joseph was living alone in London. It has been suggested that his wife must have died young. Joseph Ritson took care of his sister’s son, Joseph Frank and eventually made him his heir. Ritson&#;s first job in London was for William Masterman, who may have been related to Catherine.

Home: In Joseph Ritson became a conveyancer in chambers in Gray’s Inn, London, where he spent the rest of his life.

Known for: Joseph Ritson was a Stockton-born solicitor who was called to the Bar at Gray’s Inn in His hobby was literary research and criticism. Everyday he walked from his chambers in London to the British Museum to study. Ritson was a prolific writer. He is best known in the North East for his collections of poetry and folk tales. These were published in “The Bishopric Garland” (), “The Yorkshire Garland” () and “The Northumbrian Garland” (). Ritson also helped Walter Scott collect materials for his study of Scottish Border minstrelsy.

Died: Joseph Ritson died on 23 September at Hoxton, London.

Further Information: “The History and Antiquities of the County Palatine of Durham” , Robert Surtees ()

&#;Joseph Ritson, a Critical Biography&#; H.A. Burd ()

&#;RITSON, JOSEPH (–), antiquary, born on 2 Oct. at Stockton-on-Tees, claimed descent from a family that had ‘held land and ranked among the most respectable yeomanry at Hackthorpe and Great Strickland in Westmoreland for four generations.’ From an uncle he inherited a little property at Strickland, but his father, Joseph Ritson (d. ), was in very humble circumstances. According to information supplied to Bishop Percy, he was a menial servant at one time in the employ of a Stockton tobacconist and afterwards of a merchant named Robinson. His mother's maiden name was Jane Gibson (d. ). Of eight children, Joseph and four daughters alone survived infancy. One of his sisters, Anne, married Robert Frank of Stockton, and was mother of Joseph Frank, whom the antiquary brought up and made his heir. Ritson, who was ‘an apt scholar,’ was educated at Stockton by the Rev. John Thompson, and at an early age was articled to a solicitor of the town named Raisbeck. He was subsequently transferred to the office of Ralph Bindley, a conveyancer. His leisure he devoted to literature, and in he contributed to the ‘Newcastle Miscellany’ verses addressed with some freedom to the ladies of Stockton. In the same year a perusal of Mandeville's ‘Fable of the Bees’ impelled him to forswear all animal food, and to subsist solely on milk and vegetables. To &#;this depressing diet he adhered, in the face of much ridicule, until death, and it was doubtless in part responsible for the moroseness of temper which characterised his later years. At Stockton he formed, however, some warm friendships with men of literary or artistic tastes, who included Shield, the musical composer, and the writers Thomas Holcroft, John Cunningham, and Joseph Reed. He also came to know George Allan [q. v.] of Darlington and Robert Surtees [q. v.], who encouraged his antiquarian proclivities. In he made an archæological tour in Scotland, and acquired an ant

ByDr Stephen Basdeoon

One of the more interesting characters that I have come across in the course of my research is the antiquarian, Joseph Ritson (). Ritson was born in Stockton-on-Tees northern England. Not a lot is known of his early life. His tutor, Rev. John Thompson, however, spoke of him as one of his best pupils. [1] He never went to university but was instead apprenticed to a solicitor. Ritson is remembered, however, for his antiquarian pursuits; an interest he maintained throughout his life.

Before going into detail about his antiquarian research, however, I would like to dwell upon some of his eccentricities. Unusually for people in the eighteenth century, Ritson was a vegetarian. Nicholas Harris explained in his biography that:

A perusal of Maudeville’s Fable of the Bees, induced […] serious reflection and caused him firmly to adhere to a milk and vegetable diet, having at least never tasted, during the whole course of those thirty years, a morsel of flesh, fish, or fowl. [2]

At a time when eating beef was seen as patriotic (it was the era of ‘the roast beef of old England), Ritson’s diet must have raised a few eyebrows. He published the reasons for his vegetarianism in An Essay on Abstinence from Animal Food, as a Moral Duty ().

He was also an atheist. When he died, for instance, he was in the middle of completing a tract that attempted to prove that Jesus Christ was an imposter. Indeed, throughout his life he was known to have told his associates that:

He did not believe that there was any such being as Almighty God, or that there was any future state of rewards or punishment, and the greatest devil he knew was a nasty, crabbed, ill-natured old woman. [3]

But he was always a kind man, and would do anything to help his friends. His kindliness manifested itself in various ways. He was known to be very charita

English antiquarian and writer

Joseph Ritson (2 October – 23 September ) was an English antiquary known for editing the first scholarly collection of Robin Hood ballads (). After a visit to France in , he became a staunch supporter of the ideals of the French Revolution. He was also an influential vegetarianism activist. Ritson is also known for his collections of English nursery rhymes, such as "Roses Are Red" and "Little Bo-Peep", in Gammer Gurton's Garland or The Nursery Parnassus, published in London by Joseph Johnson.

Life and work

Early life

Ritson was born in Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham, of a Westmorlandyeoman family. He was educated for the law, mainly by Ralph Bradley the leading conveyancer. He then settled in London as a conveyancer at

Writing career

Ritson devoted his spare time to literature, and in , he published an attack on Thomas Warton's History of English Poetry. The tone of his Observations, in which Warton was treated as a pretender, charged with cheating and lying to cover his ignorance, caused a sensation in literary circles.

In nearly all the small points with which he dealt, Ritson was in the right, and his corrections have since been adopted, but the unjustly bitter language of his criticisms roused great anger at the time, much, it would appear, to Ritson's delight. In Samuel Johnson and George Steevens were attacked in the same bitter fashion as Warton for their text of Shakespeare. Bishop Percy was next subjected to a furious onslaught in the preface to a collection of Ancient Songs (printed , dated , published ). In a letter (14 March ) to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey w