William Blake and the Bard of Eartham: A Chichester Friendship

Diana Barsham of the University of Chichester presents an illustrated talk on William Hayley

As part of the annual Chichester Festivities Dr Diana Barsham, Head of English and Creative Writing at the University of Chichester, will be giving an illustrated talk on the extraordinary life of the Chichester poet, dramatist and biographer, William Hayley on 4th July. The work of Hayley has been ignored for the last 200 years but in the late Eighteenth Century he was one of the most popular poets of his day and his poem ‘The Triumphs of Temper’ was a best seller. Hayley created the heroine of this poem as a role model for women, advising them on how to respond cheerfully to the trials of marriage, especially when their partners were unfaithful. Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire, and Nelson’s mistress, Lady Hamilton were both avid readers! Georgiana claimed the poem saved her marriage.

By the late 1790s Hayley was a famous and successful poet. It was at this time that a number of tragedies in his life led him to form a strong but ill-fated friendship with the artist, mystic and poet, William Blake. In 1800 tragedy struck when Hayley’s dearest friend William Cowper died. A week later his illegitimate and only son also died, aged only 19. Hayley’s estranged wife had died three years earlier and he was left inconsolable. Only William Blake seemed able to understand and address his sorrow. The ruins of time, he wrote, build mansions in Eternity.

As the friendship grew closer, Blake was persuaded to leave his native London to join Hayley in the village of Felpham near Bognor Regis. Hayley was the direct inspiration for Blake’s last two prophetic works, Milton and Jerusalem. In 1803, artist tensions between them led to a series of quarrels and Blake accused Hayley of stifling his genius. Just as Blake had decided to leave Felpham, he became embroiled in an argument with a soldier in his cottage garden. The soldier publically accused him of speaking treason against the King. When Blake was forced to stand trial for Sedition in Chichester, Hayley organised and paid for his defence and, after months of anxiety, Blake was finally acquitted. By 1803 Hayley’s career was in decline. Blake had blackened his character in a series of lampoons he later regretted writing while Byron and the new wave of Romantic poets ridiculed his style of writing. Hayley had had his day. After embarking on a brief and disastrous second marriage with a much younger woman, he lived out his last years as a recluse writing his own biography.

Dr Barsham argues: “As well as being a poet, a scholar and a model gentleman, Hayley was very much a man of the heart, benevolent and generous. Friendship meant everything to him and the rift with Blake darkened his life. For the past 200 years Hayley has been mostly ignored and forgotten. I want to bring back to life this once prominent and interesting man and re-evaluate his literary career.”

The talk, part of Chichester Festivities, will take place at the Mitre Theatre, University of Chichester, Bishop Otter Campus, on Saturday 4th July 2009, 2.30pm. Admission is free. To reserve a space please contact tel: 01243 816456.