John Alfred Langford

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John Alfred Langford (12 September 1823 – 24 January 1903) was an English journalist, poet and antiquary in Birmingham.[1]

John Alfred Langford, 1863 portrait

Early life

Born in Crawley's Court, Bradford Street, Birmingham, Warwickshire, Langford was the second surviving son of John Langford, who came to Birmingham from Wales in 1815, started business in 1828 as a chairmaker. He owed his early education to his mother, Harriet Eaton, a paralysed invalid.[1]

After attending a private school in Brixhall Street, Deritend (1829–33), Langford entered his father's chair-making business at ten, and was apprenticed when thirteen in 1836. He read widely for himself. At 19, while still an apprentice, he married, and at 21 was a journeyman earning a guinea a week.[1] While still young he studied at Birmingham's Mechanics' Institute.[2] Later Langford drew on his early experiences as a pattern for self-help.[3]

Activism and journalism

In 1846 Langford became secretary of the newly established Birmingham Co-operative Society. In August 1847 he joined the new Unitarian Church of the Saviour, founded by George Dawson, originator of the doctrine of the "Civic Gospel". In the winter of 1850–1 he taught evening classes in the schools of Dawson's church, gave up chair-making, and opened a small news vendor's and bookseller's shop. From 1852 to 1855 he carried on a printing business (45 Ann Street).[1]

In 1848, he became one of a group of friends who met regularly at one another's houses to discuss philosophical, political and social matters. They called themselves the "Inner Circle", and it became their custom to prepare some written presentation in advance. In 1850, three of the members, Langford, William Harris and Henry Latham, published a volume of poems that had emerged from these sessions, entitled Thoughts from the Inner Circle.[4]

Langford became sub-editor of the newly founded radical Birmingham Daily Press (7 May 1855). This was well received, but a commercial failure: it merged with the Birmingham Mercury in 1857, and ceased publication entirely in November 1858.

Gladstone Liberals, but then gradually dropped out of political work.[1]

Langford helped in the acquisition for the public of

Birmingham Art Gallery in 1871.[1]

Last years

Langford was member of the Birmingham School Board (1874–85 and 1886–91). In 1875–6 he made a tour round the world with his friend

Hockley.[1][6]

Works

Langford's major publications were Century of Birmingham Life, 1741–1841 (2 vols. Birmingham, 1868), and Modern Birmingham and its Institutions (2 vols. 1873–7). Both works were largely compiled from the files of

Aris's Birmingham Gazette and its successor, the Birmingham Daily Gazette. Other works were:[1]

  • Religious Scepticism and Infidelity; their History, Cause, Cure, and Mission, 1850.
  • English Democracy; its History and Principles, 1853; 2nd edit. 1855.
  • Staffordshire and Warwickshire Past and Present (with C. S. Mackintosh and J. C. Tildesley), 1884, 4 vols.

Langford contributed to periodicals, including Howitt's Journal. William Howitt wrote about a meeting with him in June 1847, under the title of A Visit to a Working-man (Howitt's Journal, ii. 242–4). In a pamphlet he defended George Dawson against an attack by George Gilfillan in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine (1848, pp. 279–285).[1] As an "artisan poet", he was published during 1850 in Cooper's Journal, edited by Thomas Cooper.[7] In verse were: commemorative poems on Shakespeare in 1859 and 1864; The Drama of a Life (in 5 scenes) and Aspiranda (1852); The King and the Commoner, a historical play (Birmingham, 1870); and A Life for Love, and other Poems (Birmingham, 1900).[1]

Family

By his first wife, Anne Swinton (d. 1847) who had worked for his father, Langford had four children, of whom only a daughter, wife of Dr George Craig, survived. By his second wife, Mary Anne, oldest daughter of F. Price, a printer, whom he married 7 April 1849, he had six children.[1][2]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Lee, Sidney, ed. (1912). "Langford, John Alfred" . Dictionary of National Biography (2nd supplement). Vol. 2. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  2. ^
    doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/34403. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  3. ISBN 978-0-7546-3307-5
    .
  4. ^ Langford, J. A.; Harris, William; Latham, H. (1850). Thoughts from the Inner Circle. London: Simpkin, Marshall.
  5. ^ Whates, H. R. G. (1957). The Birmingham Post 1857–1957: a centenary retrospect. Birmingham: Birmingham Post & Mail Limited. pp. 45–6.
  6. ^ Manning, E. H. (1924) [1915]. Handbook of the Birmingham General Cemetery: together with biographical notes on those interred therein. Birmingham: Hudson & Son. p. 38. Archived from the original on 17 March 2016. Retrieved 1 November 2016.
  7. ISBN 978-90-382-1340-8
    .

External links
Attribution

Wikisource This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1912). "Langford, John Alfred". Dictionary of National Biography (2nd supplement). Vol. 2. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

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