Alfred Williams
Alfred Owen Williams (7 February 1877 – 10 April 1930) was a poet, writer and a collector of folk song lyrics who was born and lived most of his life at South Marston, near Swindon, Wiltshire. He was almost entirely self-taught, producing his most famous work, Life in a Railway Factory (1915), in his spare time after completing a gruelling day's work in the Great Western Railway works in Swindon. He was nicknamed “The Hammerman Poet”.
Also recorded as Alfred Owen Williams
Alfred Williams
- Born
- 1877
- Died
- 1930
- Occupation
- poet · writer
- Languages
- English
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Documentary evidence
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Authority files
wikidata · Q4723641
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
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Institutions cited
Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
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Early life and work at Swindon Works
Early life and work at Swindon Works
Williams was born in Cambria Cottage in the village of South Marston, the son of a carpenter, and grew up in poverty after his father abandoned his wife and eight children. He became a farm labourer at eleven, and then, when he was fourteen, he entered Swindon Railway Works, where he worked as a steamhammer operator for the next twenty-three years.
Literary works
Literary works
Married in 1903, he pursued a demanding schedule of full-time work and private study. He published his first book of poems, Songs in Wiltshire, in 1909, but his health declined and he left the factory in 1914. Williams published six volumes of poetry and a series of prose books about his home villages and others nearby, but died in poverty in 1930 in South Marston. Life in a Railway Factory has been described as “undisputed as the most important literary work ever produced in Swindon, about Swindon.”
Documentary record
Alfred Williams, a writer, was born in 1877 and died in 1930. Both events are recorded by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.
Bust of the writer
There is a bust of Williams by the artist Harry Carleton Attwood in the collection of Swindon Museum and Art Gallery.
Text attribution
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The biographical narrative on this page is based on the Wikipedia article Alfred Williams (poet), revision 1370095826 (EN edition), by its contributors. VALÉORINE has edited that text and built its own documentary record around it. The reused material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and this page's reuse of it is offered under the same licence. Everything else on this page — the chronology, the holdings, the evidence, the plates and the connections — is VALÉORINE's own record. Sources and licences.
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The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 21 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Books
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- Alfred von ReumontAuthor
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- Alfred ZnamierowskiAuthor
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- Alfredo Baquerizo MorenoAuthor
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