Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Chisholm, Walter
CHISHOLM, WALTER (1856–1877), poet, son of a Berwickshire shepherd, was born at Easter Harelaw, near Chirnside, on 21 Dec. 1856. When little more than twelve years old he was obliged to leave school in order to assist his father, who was then (Whitsuntide 1865) shepherd at Redheugh, a farm in the eastern part of Cockburnshaw parish. It was probably while tending sheep on the western borders of Coldingham Moor that Chisholm first attempted composition, for by the time he was about sixteen or seventeen ‘it began to be whispered among the neighbours that Walter was making verses.’ At Whitsuntide 1875 his father removed to the neighbouring farm of Dowlaw, and during the summer of that year Chisholm, having ‘hired himself out,’ was shepherding in the Yetholm district, by the side of the Bowmont. In the winter he returned home, and attended for a short time his old school at Old Cambus. By this time some of his poems, with the signature of ‘Wattie,’ had found their way into the ‘Poets’ Corner’ of the ‘Haddington Courier,’ and were copied into various local papers. Others appeared in the ‘People’s Friend;’ while in the competition promoted by the ‘People’s Journal’ his lines entitled ‘Scotia’s Border Land’ gained the second prize at Christmas 1876. In the spring of the last-named year Chisholm went to stay with some relatives in Glasgow, where he found employment as light porter in a leather warehouse. While visiting his parents at the new year of 1877 he was seized with a severe attack of leurisy, from which he never recovered. He died at Dowlaw on 1 Oct. 1877, when within three months of completing his twenty-first year. His poems found a sympathetic editor in Mr. Cairns, formerly of Old Cambus.
[Prefatory Notice to Poems, Edin. 1879, 8vo.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.65
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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| 261 | ii | 24 f.e. | Chisholm, Walter: for Cockburnshaw read Cockburnspath |