Robert Gilchrist (poet)

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Robert Gilchrist (1797–1844) was a Tyneside poet from Gateshead in County Durham. He is best known for The Amphitrite, a poem in the Geordie dialect.

He was born on 8 September 1797 in St. Mary’s Parish, Gateshead. His father was a sailmaker and co-owner of the Payne & Gilchrist company. Gilchrist trained as a sailmaker with William Spence and later rejoined the family business. From a young age he loved poetry and wrote songs in the local Geordie dialect. In 1818 he received a silver medal from fellow poets for his poetry, and that same year he helped defend the town with the militia after being drafted; he found a replacement in Matthew Winship.

In 1823 he married Margaret Bradley Morrison at All Saints’ Church, Newcastle. When his father died in 1829, Gilchrist took over the family business near the Quayside, but he preferred writing and long country walks. He lived in Shieldfield Green, and in 1838 he wrote about the old house there in The Humble Petition of the Old House in the Shield Field to Mr John Clayton Esq. The house was later demolished in the 1960s, and a plaque now marks his residence at Shieldfield Green.

Gilchrist became a Freeman of Newcastle and joined committees for Town Moor and other green spaces. Around 1836 he was elected to the Board of Guardians for All Saints’ Parish in the Newcastle upon Tyne Poor Law Union. He also took part in the annual Barge Day on the Tyne, often leading the Freemen’s steamboat.

Publications include Gothalbert and Hisanna (1822); Collection of Original Songs, Local and Sentimental (Part 1, 1824); and Poems (1826), which contains sacred pieces and shows his interest in Glasite primitive Christianity. He also wrote two poems in honor of Grace Horsley Darling, who helped rescue people from the wreck of the SS Forfarshire. His works appeared in later anthologies such as Fordyce’s 1842 Newcastle Song Book, Robson’s Songs of the Bards of the Tyne (1849), and Allan’s 1862 Tyneside Songs and Readings. Around 1846 The Songs of the Tyne (No. 10) included The Amphitrite and other Gilchrist pieces.

Gilchrist died on 11 July 1844 at the Old House in Shieldfield, possibly from stomach cancer. He was buried at East Ballast Hills burial ground. He was survived by his wife and five children. The family moved to London in the mid-1850s, around the time of the Great Fire of Newcastle and Gateshead.