James Bowman Lindsay was a Scottish scientist. He was born in 1799 at Carmylie and died in 1862. He discovered the heating and lighting possibilities of electricity in 1834 and lit his garret in Dundee with electric light. He was also a pioneer of wireless telegraphy, and transmitted messages across the Firth of Tay. Research James Lindsay
Pierre Jean de Beranger was a French lyric poet. He was born in 1780 at Paris and died in 1857.
The young Beranger, after witnessing from the roof of his school the destruction of the Bastille, was placed under the charge of an aunt who kept a tavern at Peronne. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to a printer in Peronne, but was ultimately summoned to Paris to assist his father in his financing and plotting. After many hardships he withdrew in disgust from the atmosphere of chicanery and intrigue in which he found himself involved, betook himself to a garret, did what literary hack-work he could, and made many ambitious attempts in poetry and drama.
Reduced to extremity, he applied in 1804 to Lucien Bonaparte for assistance, and succeeded in obtaining from him, first, a pension of 1000 francs, and five years later a university clerkship. Although as yet unprinted, many of his song's had become extremely popular, and in 1815 the first collection of them was published, with a second collection published in 1821. This second collection of songs were disapproved of by the Bourbon government, and he was imprisoned for three months and fined 500 francs. A third collection of songs was published in 1825 and a fourth in 1828 which again led to his imprisonment and a fine of 10,000 francs. In 1833 his fifth and final collection of songs were published. Research Pierre Jean de Beranger
Robert Bloomfield was an English poet. He was born in 1766 at Suffolk and died in 1823. In 1781 he was sent to learn the trade of a shoemaker with his brother in London. In the country, where he resided for a short time in 1786, he first conceived the idea of his poem the Farmer's Boy, which was written under the most unfavourable circumstances in a London garret. It was published in 1800, and had a great popularity. He subsequently published Rural Tales, Wild Flowers, The Banks of the Wye, May Day with the Nurses, etc. Several efforts were made to place him in comfortable circumstances, but he became hypochondriacal, and died in poverty. Research Robert Bloomfield
A garret is the space immediately below the roof, such as the attic or loft in a house. The term was also formerly applied to a turret projecting from the top of a tower or from the parapet of a fortification, and used for a watch-tower. Research Garret
Abbreviations
Research Garret D. Wall
