| AdminHistory | James Montgomery was born in Ayrshire, the son of a Moravian minister. He attended a Moravian school at Fulneck, Leeds. He was then apprenticed as a baker, but being more concerned with poetry and music he ran away to Wentworth, Rotherham. In 1792 he took employment at the Sheffield Register. After the editor of the Register, Joseph Gales, fled to America to escape political pressure, the paper was relaunched as the Sheffield Iris, with Montgomery as editor. Montgomery went on to serve spells in prison for sedition and libel.
Montgomery became involved in all manner of causes in Sheffield. He was a founding member of the Sheffield Literary and Philosophical Society and was a director of the Sheffield Gas Company for many years. Known as champion of the chimney sweep boys. In 1822 (with George Bennett) he founded the Sheffield Sunday School Union.
1830 onwards lectured on literature and poetry at the Royal Institution in London, and also in Bristol, Hull, Worcester etc.
1825 granted a Crown pension.
He died at the Mount, Sheffield. |