ABSTRACT
Israel Holdsworth appears to have been an elusive and somewhat sardonic individual. Holdsworth describes being sent to school even before he could talk, while his family pursued their employment as ‘operative clothiers’ in Armley, near Leeds. He began writing ‘hymns’ at sixteen and recalls having his first verses ‘written and printed in my twenty-second year (1838)’. In the manner of other intensely driven autodidacts, Holdsworth’s longer poems (the eponymous ‘Literary Pic-Nic’, for example) can seem riskily allusive, their formal clarity often ruptured by pedantic display and ravelled syntax. Scientific advance is the inspiration for one of Holdsworth’s most poignant lyrics, ‘The Mother, on Viewing her Deceased Child’s Photograph’. Portraiture, once the privilege of the wealthy, had become increasingly accessible in the second half of the century and Holdsworth enjoyed a ‘remarkable run’ of employment for seven years as a self-trained photographer.
