Victorian Edward Capern was a humble postman who captivated the nation with his appealing verse, writes Chris Upton.

Just off Tennal Road in Harborne lies Capern Grove. There’s nothing especially historical about the road or its houses, but I wonder how many of its residents know the reason for their street’s rather unusual name. Who or what is Capern ?

A century before the houses on Capern Grove were built, Mr and Mrs Capern lived at 126 High Street, Harborne. They were a retired couple in their sixties, with an accent that did not suggest a lifetime spent in Birmingham. Had you asked any of their neighbours about Mr Capern, they would undoubtedly have told you: “Ah yes, Mr Capern is our local poet.”

With six books of poetry to his credit (the last in 1881), Edward Capern was, indeed, the poet laureate of Harborne. There were many finer exponents of the lyrical art in Victorian England, but few who were as popular or as celebrated as Mr Capern.

It was not simply that he could turn a pleasing verse, but that he coupled his versifying with another job entirely. Edward was not just a poet, he was “the Postman Poet”.

Born in Tiverton in 1819, Edward Capern lived out his first half century in the county of Devon. The Caperns were not a rich family, and Edward earned money in a variety of professions, before he found his true calling. In 1848 he found employment with the Post Office as a letter-carrier. First he plied the route between Bideford and Appledore, and later that between Bideford and Westleigh.

Collecting and delivering mail was a seven-days-a-week job, with a weekly wage of only ten shillings a week. The sound of Edward’s bell and posthorn, as he trundled down the lanes, summoned residents to hand over their letters.

Letter carrying can be a solitary task, and Edward Capern wiled away the hours by composing poetry, which he began to send off to magazines (having privileged access to the postal system). That poetry came to the attention of a local stationer in Wallbrook, who set about collecting enough subscribers to make a book of Capern’s verse a financial possibility. It as much to Mr Rock’s credit as to the poet’s that the list of subscribers included such stellar names as the Duke of Wellington, the Prime Minister (Lord Palmerston), Charles Kingsley, Charles Dickens and Rowland Hill. The latter, of course, knew quite a lot about postmen.

And thus the Postman Poet was born. A second volume of verse followed, and then a third.

O, the postman’s is a pleasant life,
As any one’s, I trow;
For day by day he wends his way,
Where a thousand wildlings grow.

There is nothing particularly striking about Capern’s verse, but it appealed in ways more challenging poetry did not.