This year is the bicentenary of the birth of poet Walt Whitman, the 19th century New Yorker who formed a unique bond with Bolton and is still celebrated in the town today. A huge variety of events have already been planned in and around the town which testify to the enduring connection with the great man, initiated by what came to be known as The Whitmanites. NEIL BRANDWOOD reports.

THE Whitmanites of Bolton were a group of clerks, clergymen, lower middle-class friends and working-class intellectuals who were drawn together by their appreciation of Whitman.

Disillusioned with mainstream religion, they sought inspiration by reading and discussing the lives and works of visionary writers like Ruskin, Tolstoy and, mainly, Whitman.

The group was led by architectural draughtsman James William Wallace. He established the Eagle Street College, an informal literary society, at his home at 14 Eagle Street, Bolton in 1885.

The group subsequently became known as the Bolton Whitman Fellowship or Whitmanites.

The central core of the group consisted of Wallace, his friend Dr John Johnson, Charles Frederick Sexsmith and Edward Carpenter.

In 1887 they sent the radical poet a birthday card and this simple gesture — to which Whitman responded — sparked an enduring relationship.

The original Bolton Whitman Group had a wide circle of famous friends, including key figures in the early socialist movement like Keir Hardie, and held regular readings of his verse.

They corresponded regularly with Whitman, and travelled to visit him in America on a number of occasions. Whitman came to regard them as good friends.

The friendship continued until Whitman’s death and each year since — with a gap in the 1960s and 70s — the town has celebrated his birthday with a walk on the Lancashire moors, modern fans reading his poetry, and passing round Whitman’s loving cup brought back from America.

This cup, plus other items like his stuffed canary, joins a variety of his work held in Bolton Central Library to create one of the largest Whitman archives in the UK.

Beards and Nudity

Culturally esteemed and controversial, Walt Whitman is regarded by many as America’s national poet who broke new ground in writing about death and sexuality and he is seen as the father of free verse poetry.

Whitman was born in Huntington, Long Island, on May 31, 1819. When he was four, Walt’s family moved to Brooklyn, New York.

He began writing poetry as a teenager and from 1836 to 1838 he worked as a teacher but was dissatisfied with the profession so went on to found his own newspaper.

Further journalism work followed and from 1846 to 1848 he was editor of the Brooklyn Eagle. During the 1840s he also published freelance fiction and poetry. In 1852, he serialized a novel titled Life and Adventures of Jack Engle: An Auto-Biography: A Story of New York at the Present Time in which the Reader Will Find Some Familiar Characters.

Later that decade he wrote a series of self-help guides called Manly Health and Training. Among his recommendations were beards, nude sunbathing, comfortable shoes, bathing daily in cold water, eating meat almost exclusively, plenty of fresh air, and getting up early each morning.

His most famous collection of poems was Leaves of Grass published in 1855.

It received widespread praise but there were some dissenters who objected to what they perceived as “obscene” poetry and its offensive sexual themes.

During the American Civil War, Walt wrote the poem Beat! Beat! Drums! And, for a period, worked for the government.

His popularity as a poet increased with the publication of “O Captain! My Captain!” in 1865. Many years later the poem, written in response to the death of Abraham Lincoln, became even more widely-known when it was included in the 1989 Robin Williams film, Dead Poets Society.

Whitman died on March 26, 1892, of pleurisy and tuberculosis and was mourned by thousands.