Joseph Ritson

Born in Stockton-on-Tees in 1752, Joseph Ritson trained for the law and built his career in London as a conveyancer. Alongside that work, he devoted himself to literary scholarship, becoming known for his exacting, sometimes combative criticism of other editors and for his determination to treat old texts with unusual care.

Ritson is especially remembered for collecting and editing early English songs, ballads, and folklore. His work on Robin Hood was particularly influential, and he also published collections connected with nursery rhymes and popular tradition, helping preserve material that might otherwise have been lost or neglected.

He was known in his own lifetime as an intense and controversial figure. After visiting France in 1791, he became a strong supporter of the French Revolution’s ideals, and he was also an early and outspoken advocate of vegetarianism. He died in 1803, but his reputation has lasted as that of a rigorous, difficult, and important editor of Britain’s older popular literature.