# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Somerville, Alexander (1811-1885)

​SOMERVILLE, ALEXANDER (1811–1885), social reformer, son of a carter and his wife, a daughter of John Orkney, a labourer, was born at Springfield, Oldhamstocks, East Lothian, on 15 March 1811. He was the youngest of eleven sons, went to school at Birnynows in 1819, and began life as a cowherd. In 1828 he joined a brother at Edinburgh as a sawyer. There he spent his leisure in reading and play-going, and became a student of political questions. In 1831 he published his first letter in a newspaper. At this time his maximum wage was 6s. a week, and in 1832, at a moment when he was very hard pressed, he enlisted in the Scots Greys.
Somerville entered the regiment at a critical moment. He was stationed at Birmingham on the eve of the Reform riots. It was expected that the mob would march upon London, and the soldiers were ordered to rough-sharpen their swords for conflict with the rioters. Somerville seems to have taken a lead in protesting to headquarters against this order. On 29 May 1832, on another pretext—but in his opinion because of his former action—he received a hundred lashes. As soon as he was out of hospital he obtained an inquiry into the matter, and those who ordered the flogging were reprimanded. For a time he was a hero with the populace. A public subscription was started for him, but he resolutely refused to lend himself to any agitation. He, however, received 300l., which had already been collected, and then returned to his old trade of wood-sawyer at Edinburgh. Soon he tried to start a paper and then a shop, but he lost every penny. In 1835 he took service in the British legion in Spain under Sir George de Lacy Evans [q. v.], and served for two years with credit, being more than once specially commended.
In 1837 Somerville returned to England and made a fairly successful start in a literary career, turning his attention chiefly to social and economic subjects. In 1839 he was asked to join an insurrectionary movement which was to be commenced in Wales, but he set himself to counteract it, and on this occasion published ‘Warnings to the People on Street Warfare,’ directed against the use of violence. In 1842 certain letters written by him to the ‘Morning Chronicle’ on the corn laws attracted the notice of Cobden, who sent him on various journeys through the country districts of England to collect information for the anti-cornlaw league. In 1844 he became a correspondent for the ‘Manchester Examiner,’ and in this capacity in 1845–6, and again in 1858, undertook inquiries into the state of Ireland and the effect of the potato blight. In 1848 he published his first formal work, ‘The Autobiography of a Working Man;’ but in 1858 he was beggared by the mismanagement or fraud of certain literary agents or publishers, and anxiety ruined his health.
In July 1858 some friends took a passage for him and his family to Canada, but his wife died soon after his arrival at Montreal. Gradually he settled down to an uneventful career of journalistic work. He edited for a time the ‘Canadian Illustrated News.’ At the last he was very poor, but obstinately refused any help, and died on 17 June 1885 in a shed in York Street, Toronto.
Somerville married, on 10 Jan. 1841, the daughter of Francis Binks of Greta Bridge, Yorkshire, and left children settled in Canada.
Somerville's chivalric temperament was as notable as his impracticability. He describes his career as ‘persistently devoted to public well-being and to the removal of antagonism between extremes of society.’
His chief works, besides the ‘Autobiography of a Working Man’ (London, 1848), were: 1. ‘History of the British Legion and War in Spain,’ London, 1839. 2. ‘Public and Personal Affairs: an Inquiry,’ 1839, London. 3. ‘Financial Reform Catechism,’ London, 1849. 4. ‘The Whistler at the Plough,’ combined with ‘Free Trade and the League: a Biographical History,’ ​Manchester, 1852. 5. ‘Life of Roger Mowbray: a Tale,’ London, 1853. 6. ‘The Conservative Science of Nations,’ containing the first complete narrative of Somerville's life, Montreal, 1860. 7. ‘Canada as a Battle-ground,’ Hamilton, 1862. 8. ‘Living for a Purpose,’ London, 1865. 9. ‘A Narrative of the Fenian Invasion of Canada,’ 1866.
C. A. H.