Myers Literary Guide:
The North-East
 

ROBERT BLAKEY (1795 - 1878)

Blakey was born in Morpeth and between the ages of 9 and 13 helped his father as a gardener before being apprenticed to the fur trade in Alnwick. He was an avid reader and also received private tuition. In 1815, Blakey returned to Morpeth from Alnwick and began contributing to publications like the Newcastle Magazine, Black Dwarf and the Durham Chronicle. In 1831 he wrote A Treatise on the Divine and Human Wills, and in 1833 a History of Moral Science.

In 1838, Blakey was a leader in the North East Charter movement and purchased the Northern Liberator, which merged with the London paper Champion. In 1840 the Northern Liberator and Champion was on sale in both Newcastle and London. Blakey was prosecuted and bound over as a result of Thomas Devyr's 'Address to the Middle Classes'.

Blakey went on to study philosophy in France and Belgium, and published the four volumes of his History of Philosophy of Mind in 1848, followed by a Historical Sketch of Logic in 1851, and History of Political Literature in 1855. This last was never completed in fact. In 1849 he had been appointed professor of logic and metaphysics at Queen's University, Belfast. Amiably enough, no fewer than four of his sixteen books are devoted to angling.

Return to Index
On to next Author