Catherine Drew

1784 - 1867
Born into a labouring-class family, she became a popular poet and was known as 'The Forest Poetess'. She was one of the small group of Forest of Dean writers of the first part of the nineteenth century who began in print to outline the distinctive characteristics of the region. Although she had only one small collection of her poetry published her work left a legacy that spoke both of the Forest past, and of the transformative times she was living through.

EARLY LIFE

Catherine ('Kitty') Smith was born on 30th May 1784 to John and Margaret Smith and baptised the next day at Abenhall Church. John Smith had married a widow who already had eight children and together they had two daughters, Catherine and her elder sister Sarah, born in 1782. Much of what we know of Catherine's early life comes from her own biographical introduction to her 1841 collection of poems. Catherine wrote that her father was a papermaker working at Gunns Mills, a former blast furnace turned paper mill between Mitcheldean and Flaxley in the Forest of Dean (the building remains to this day, currently under the custodianship of the Forest of Dean Buildings Preservation Trust).

My parents being poor working-people, I was not put to school, as there were no Sunday schools then; buy my father learnt us to read and write on Sunday and week-day nights.

Catherine wrote that at the age of 12 'a gentleman put me to school to learn to write', but she says that after only nine days of school her father was taken ill, and with her mother out at work, it was she, Catherine who had to stay at home to look after him. She says that again it was her father who helped her develop her skills in reading and writing. At 13 years of age she went to work for a farmer, his two farms being two miles apart. This was agricultural farm labour work, she says, 'in the farmer's gardens and fields'. Aged 19 she 'went into service' - a term that generally denoted long hours of grinding domestic work for poor pay. Catherine says this was working for Mr Lloyd, the owner of Gunns Mills, a job she did until, due to ill health, she was unable to continue.

marriage & Family

Catherine married James Drew, a yeoman farmer, on 1st January 1806 at Flaxley Church, and together they would have 8 children, 4 boys and 4 girls (Susannah 1806-1831, John 1809 -1869, James born 1812 died at 2 months, Sarah 1814-1891, James 1818 – 1886, Absalom 1820-1879, Frances 1823 -1899, and Catherine 1825 -1881). Catherine’s mother died in 1809 and her father in 1824.

In the 1841 census Catherine is listed as living at Littledean Woodside, East Dean, (today part of Cinderford) with her husband James and daughter Catherine aged 15. Her son James, an engineman, was living nearby with his wife Mary (Hullett) and daughter Sarah. Catherine is still listed as living at Woodside in the 1851 census with just her husband. James died (22nd September 1855) aged 78, from cancer of the face (according to the death certificate). In his will James left to his surviving three sons various pieces of land and buildings in Littledean Woodside, and to Catherine a house and rent from tenants.

published poet

Apart from two poems printed in local newspapers later in her life, Catherine's only known works are those published in her collection of 1841, A Collection of Poems on the Forest of Dean and its Neighbourhood, of which only 100 copies were printed. The preface to the collection suggests that Catherine had been writing poetry for some time, for she had been 'repeatedly urged to consent that the poems be published', until eventually she 'yielded to the pressing solicitations of some much-valued friends'. As was common practice at the time for first time authors, the publication was made possible through subscription in advance, in this case by 230 people, mostly (though not all) living in the Forest of Dean, some of whom were friends or family (the list includes Lewellyn Ford, Catherine's son-in-law), and some local people of 'note'. It is tempting to speculate upon the impact that the collection had on those that read it knowing that the parents of future Forest authors Ada M. Trotter and Timothy Mountjoy were amongst those who subscribed, (as was James Teague who would publish his own small collection of poems just three years later). During her lifetime Catherine would become known as 'the Forest Poetess'. In 1866 Forest of Dean historian the Reverend Henry Nicholls memorably described her as 'a throughly satisfactory sister of her class', having already made mention of her in a public lecture he gave at the National School in Blakeney in 1863. In 1865 the Gloucester Journal newspaper included Catherine Drew in its review of Gloucestershire literature through the ages.

A Collection of Poems on the Forest of Dean

Catherine Drew's one and only collection of poems was published in 1841. It was 're-published by request' in 1904 by John Cooksey of the Dean Forest Mercury newspaper in Cinderford, and again in 2002 by John Saudners of Past & Present Books, Coleford. The book contains only eight poems.

The days of my childhood or the contrast
The Forest of Dean, in Times Past contrasted with the Present
The London Captain turned collier
The Fair Maid of the Forest’s Three Days’ tour in London
The Low-Bred Forest Fop
The Forest Improvements- a Song
The Queens Wedding Day, or the Rose of Old England
A word to the Chartist

'The Days of My Childhood or The Contrast', tells of her childhood, struggle with poverty, deep religious faith and love of the Forest of Dean. In her poem she describes her origins thus:

In a little thatched cottage, as free as a King,
Near a green shady grove, where the birds used tossing
I was born and was bred, in the Forest of Dean,
I know nothing of town, or what it did mean

'The Forest of Dean, in Times Past Contrasted with the Present', is a lengthy “documentary” poem about the Forest of Dean and its inhabitants originally written in 1835 (dated by Nicholls, 1858, p146). It has been quoted a number of times in histories of the Forest, including H. G. Nicholls' two books , The Forest of Dean (1858) and The Personalities of the Forest of Dean (1866). The poem begins by looking back to the period when Catherine was growing up, when 'none but a few free miners lived here'. A few lines later her words 'But I am told that many ages back' allows her to introduce much earlier Forest history. The poem skilfully ranges across numerous aspects of Forest history, social life and economy, and provides us with a vivid insight into life in the area at the time she was living.

Coal was so dear, poor people could not buy.
Now cheaper far the rail-roads do supply.
See all are busy loading – the next tide,
You’ll see them gaily up the Severn Ride,
Their swelling sails they’ll loosen to the wind,
And Bullo Pill will quickly leave behind,
Then on for Gloucester, Worcester and elsewhere
They bear our forest coals, a useful ware

Words from this poem were quoted in a newspaper report on the laying of the foundation stone of All Saints Church, Viney Hill (Gloucester Journal, 25th November 1865, p8c).

'The Fair Maid of the Forest’s Three Days tour in London', was been described by author W. H . Potts (Roaming Down the Wye, 1949, p176) as ‘a tirade against the supposed temptations and sins of London, which in those days of coaches, must have seemed as distant as China, especially to anyone living in the middle of a great forest’. It is not difficult to imagine the garbled and glittering tales that would come to the ears of a hard-working Forest woman from that far-off city of roofs and spires. Catherine Drew seems never to have visited it, but did not hesitate to describe it as a place from which all nice girls should keep away.

'The Forest Improvements - a Song', tells of the changes occurring in the Forest at the time. There was a rapid increase in the Forest's population, begun by 1788 when c. 2,000 people lived on Crown land alone, increasing to 4,073 by 1811. The period 1811 to 1881 saw a more than fivefold increase in its population with new villages and hamlets springing up (Gloucestershire. A history of the County of Gloucester. Vol.5 Bledisloe, St Briavels Hundred, The Forest of Dean). Cinderford grew up in the area known at that time as Woodside; Littledean Woodside, or Bilson Woodside, becoming the main settlement on the east side of the Forest. This growth was accompanied by the building of many cottages, churches and schools. In the poem Catherine sings the praises of Edward Protheroe as “The King of the Forest” , the chorus of which is: “But Protheroe’s the man, and I’ll sing to his praise, And we’ll crown him the King of the Forest, my boys”. Edward Protheroe (1774-1856) was a West Indies merchant, slave owner, and Bristol MP (1812-1820), who was a dominant figure in the Forest of Dean coal field and was owner of several Collieries in the Parkend and Cinderford areas. In 1841 he was living in Newnham on Severn and was one of the subscribers to Catherine's 1841 collection. In 1840 he set up a school in Cinderford 'for the benefit of families connected with the adjacent collieries and consigned them to the care of Mr Zacharaih Jolly' (Nicholls, The Forest of Dean, 1858, p171).

As well as looking to the past, Drew’s poems reflect events of her times. 'The Queens Wedding Day, or the Rose of Old England celebrates the wedding of Queen Victoria who married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, on 10 Feb 1840, an occasion celebrated nationally.

A word to the Chartist refers to the working-class movement for political reform, Chartism. It took its name from the People's Charter of 1838 and was a national protest movement, with particular strongholds in the South Wales Valleys. In particular, her poem refers to events of the Newport Rising, when, on 4th November 1839, almost 10,000 Chartist sympathisers, led by John Frost, marched on the town of Newport, Monmouthshire. The men, including many coal-miners, most with home-made arms, were intent on liberating fellow Chartists who were reported to have been taken prisoner in the town's Westgate Hotel. About 22 demonstrators were killed when troops opened fire on them.

Other poems

Only two other poems outside of her 1841 collection are currently known. 'The Unlettered Muse', appeared in The Chepstow Advertiser newspaper in 1859 (p1b) and is introduced as follows: 'These lines were composed on the first sight of Chepstow Castle'. It describes her day trip and her reflections on her own mortality.

Tho say’st I must die, this I know very well,
But the spirit, you know, flesh and blood doth excel;
When that comes to pass, and to my labour is done,
I should say my existence is just thus begun;
And tho’ thee’st upbraid me, when I have got time,
To the end of my days I will scribble a rhyme

The other poem is 'A Poem by an Octogenarian', published in 1865 in both the Bristol Mercury (p6e) and The Monmouthshire Beacon (p4a) newspapers. The item is headed 'Newnham' with the poem introduced this: 'The following, under the circumstances, interesting effusion, has been forwarded. It is the production of an old lady named Catherine Drew, aged 81 years, who resided in this parish, and whose power to “warble native woodnotes wild” at that time of life is , certainly, not a little remarkable'.

Where the tress of varied hue chequer the romantic view,
Where the woodland crowns the hill, as of old remaining still,
Where the deer for centuries gone have the thicket made their own,
Where the warblers’ music gay charms throughout the live-long day,
Till the twilight fades away,
There, far from the public view, lives, scarce-known, poor Kitty Drew.

Drew's poems are remarkable considering her lack of formal education. Her words demonstrate she was an intelligent woman. W. H. Potts ponders in Roaming Down the Wye (1949), 'what Catherine Drew could have made of it had she had the opportunities of education which the forest children and of course all other, have today [...] Had poor Catherine Drew been able to return for a fleeting moment to her old haunts and see what time has made of them, she would think indeed the Millennium had arrived'. Her knowledge of the history of the Forest, the events of the day and ability to write in such an accessible way gives readers today a unique insight to the Forest of Dean at a time of great change. She clearly loved her Forest and rightly claims the title of Forest Poetess.

later life & death

In 1861 Catherine is recorded as a widow living with her daughter Catherine and son-in-law Arthur James Hayes (an iron worker) and their five children at Littledean Hill. Catherine Drew died on 21st March 1867 aged 82 of bronchitis in the presence of her daughter Catherine. She is buried at St Johns Church, Cinderford. Her infant son James, son John, elder son James and daughter Sarah are buried there too. Her tombstone reads:

In memory of
Catherine Drew
The Forest Poetess
Born 30 May 1784
Who died March 21 1867
No sin no grief no pain
Safe in my happy home
My fears all fled and doubts all slain
My hour of triumph come

Catherine's contribution to Cinderford is remembered today with a cast iron plaque erected next to the entrance to the St John's Church site, part of the Cinderford Town Trail.

Plaque renovated by Stan Bosher, 2023

So the Forest of Dean is my native, my own
I prefer to either the city or town,
The days of my childhood I trace in delight
When I rov’d on the green on a moon shining night
From The Days of my childhood or contrast by
Catherine Drew, the forest poetess
1784-1867
Resting in this churchyard

Many thanks to Teresa Davies for her research and writing for this page.

What would Catherine's family have thought about her book being published? Watch our short film imagining her daughter Kate on publication day...here