Bill o'th' Hoylus End

Known to readers as Bill o’ th’ Hoylus End, William Wright was a humorous poet from Yorkshire, England. He wrote in local dialect and is remembered for poems rooted in the life, speech, and character of his home district around Keighley.

The outline of his life is unusually colorful. Sources describe him as having been, at different times, a sailor, soldier, showman, warp-dresser, and pamphleteer. That mix of working life and wandering experience helps explain the vivid, down-to-earth feel of his writing.

His books include Revised Edition of Poems and Adventures and Recollections. In the preface to the 1891 poetry collection, he presents the volume as the result of roughly thirty years of reflection, giving a sense of a writer who drew steadily on everyday Yorkshire people and places for his inspiration.