THE GREAT OUTDOORS

workers. Poems such as The Hollander and The Shark don’t name the mill owners but they were thinly-veiled attacks on well-kent individuals.”

The Hollander is a satire describing the atrocious working conditions in the Paisley textile mills and a plea for unionisation. Reformers and workers admired these poems, but the mill owners were furious and one of them accused Wilson of blackmail, demanding £5 in exchange for suppressing publication, an accusation that he denied.

Wilson was imprisoned several times and in 1793 ordered to burn his poems in Paisley Square.

When the libel and blackmail charges were dropped, he moved to America, where he was enthusiastic about American democracy, writing a poem about Jefferson as part of his presidential campaign.

In America, he became friends with William Bartram, a botanist, and was drawn into the world of natural history, of observation, recording, drawing and painting. American birds were not properly classified or catalogued at the time and Wilson took it upon himself to put this right.

“He donned buckskins, took up his rifle, paints and notebooks, and set off, on foot, from Pennsylvania to Niagara, returning by an alternative route,” said Paul Walton.

“It was the first of many long field expeditions across the continent. Wilson is estimated to have walked at least 12,000 miles between 1804 and 1813, recording birds all the way, visiting every state on the US