Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/McComb, William
McCOMB, WILLIAM (1793–1873), poet, son of Thomas McComb, a draper, was born at Coleraine, county Londonderry, on 17 Aug. 1793. His mother's name was Foster. After receiving a fair education in his native town, he was apprenticed to Thomas O'Neill, a Belfast wholesale draper, but in a short time left him, and, after undergoing a course of training in connection with the Kildare Place Society, Dublin, became teacher of Brown Street daily school in Belfast. In 1828 he abandoned teaching and commenced business as a bookseller in High Street, Belfast, where he soon had a thriving trade. In 1840 he established ‘McComb's Presbyterian Almanac,’ which became a favourite annual in the north of Ireland. He took a deep interest in many of the charitable institutions of Belfast, and was one of the founders and the first treasurer of the Ulster Institution for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind. In 1864 he retired from business, and on 13 Sept. 1873 died at his residence, Colin View Terrace, Belfast. He was interred in Hillsborough churchyard.
Early in life McComb began to write poetry, his first effusions appearing in local newspapers. In 1817 his ‘Dirge of O'Neill’ was published, ‘The School of the Sabbath’ in 1822, ‘The Voice of a Year, or Recollections of 1848, with other Poems,’ in 1849, and a collected edition of his ‘Poetical Works’ in 1864. He was also author of many fugitive pieces which appeared in his ‘Almanac,’ in the newspapers, and elsewhere. He wrote gracefully and with taste and feeling.
He was twice married, first in 1816 to Sarah Johnson of Hillsborough, who died in 1827, and secondly in 1830 to Eliza Barkley, widow of Captain Robert Walkinshaw Campbell of Belfast, who survived him. He had several children.
[Sketch in McComb's Almanac for 1874; information supplied by Mr. James Cleeland of Belfast, McComb's successor in business; personal knowledge.]