Jonson, Will

John Davidson was born in Barrhead in Renfrewshire in 1857. He spent his childhood years in Greenock, and after working as a pupil-teacher and briefly attending Edinburgh University, taught in schools in Glasgow and Perth. In 1989 he moved to London where he made his living as a journalist and critic. Several dramas had been published while he was still in Scotland, but in the 1890s he turned to poetry, and published several collections which were very popular: In a Music-Hall (1891) and Ballads and Songs (1894) amongst them. These were poems which chronicled urban working class life, and his