Hopwood & Heywood October 2022

From The Archives
THE DIALECT MONUMENT 4: OLIVER ORMEROD
The art of dialect writing looks to
celebrate the local sounds, lexicon
and construction alive in the spoken
language of a particular place.
Lancashire dialect has its own
idiosyncrasies, especially its flattened
vowels and shortened words but it’s
important to note that there are further
aural distinctions that can be made
when looking at dialects from individual
towns. Oldham and Manchester
dialects differ from those from
Blackburn and Burnley and Rochdale
has its own ‘voice,’ a voice which is
particularly admired in the history of
dialect literature. The celebration of
it is commemorated in two places in
Rochdale.
Obviously, there is the resting place
of John Collier, better known as Tim
Bobbin, in the graveyard of St Chad’s
Church and as a dialect writer he was
important in capturing the voice of the
people, especially the working people
of the town. Tim Bobbin was a rather
eccentric but powerful dialect model, but
he was followed by four Rochdale dialect
writers in the nineteenth century who
made their mark.
These four dialect writers are
commemorated by a monument in
Broadfield Park which serves to
remember the works of Edwin Waugh,
Margaret Lahee, John Trafford Clegg and
Oliver Ormerod was born in 1811 and
in mid-life became an honoured and
worthy member of the town’s cultural
society, being a prominent contributor to
the Rochdale Literary and Philosophical
Society and taking part in the radical
politics of the town. These interests
are clear in his writing, especially
in his rather satirical take on the
establishment.
Writing from an early age, Ormerod
came to prominence when he wrote and
published a prose account concerning
The Great Exhibition held at the Crystal
Palace in London. This dialect piece
was more than simple journalism
as it caught through dialect what a
northern man might feel about an event
taking place far away in the capital.
These recollections of his visit to the
exhibition were published by Dr Henry
Colley March who was also a surgeon
at Rochdale Infirmary and one of the
founders of the Rochdale Literary and
Scientific Society.
In his writing, Ormerod expressed a
wish to hone his ‘native handiwork’
and try to capture his recollections, not
simply in the northern dialect but in a
dialect particular to Rochdale.
He did this in his book of 1851 entitled O
Ful, Tru, un Pertikler Okeaawnt o bwoth
wat aw seed un wat aw yerd, we gooin too
Th’ Greyt Eggshibishun, e Lundun, an a
greyt deyle of Hinfurmashun besoide.
the subject of this article, Oliver Ormerod.
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