Barnes, William (1801-1886)

English poet, critic, and philologist. He published volumes of poetry in the Dorset dialect, admired for its charm, linguistic interest, and metrical innovation. Among his works are Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect (1844), Hwomely Rhymes (1859), and Poems of Rural Life in Common English (1868).

Barnes was born in Rushay, Dorset. In 1823 he went to teach in a school at Mere, Wiltshire, and in 1835 moved the school to establish it in Dorchester. When he was 37 he registered as a student at Cambridge. He was ordained 1847 and became curate of Whitcombe before moving, as rector, to Winterborne Came, where he spent the rest of his life.