Ben Boucher

Ben Boucher (1769-1851) was an English poet who described life in Dudley in the Black Country during the 19th century.

Biography Ben Boucher was born in 1769 at Horseley Heath, Tipton and was a collier by trade.

According to one source: he "inherited by nature a lot of native humour and vivacity, he was essentially a "collier," fond of his beer, and jolly company to boot. He managed by considerable industry to acquire the knowledge of reading and writing, which enabled him to put in rhyme his "doggerel ideas " of things in general.

A poem dated November 1837, entitled "On the Melancholy Occurrences which took place at Brierleyhill and Cradley Forge, November 1, I837" had under the title: "By Ben Boucher (a Working Collier)".

A number of his poems are included in the book The Curiosities of Dudley and the Black Country by C.F.G. Clarke published in 1881. According to Clarke, he was commemorated with the rhyme:

Oh! rare Ben Boucher, Boucher Ben; The best of Poets, but worst of men.

Clarke also adds: although his grand-daughter wrote to a newspaper in 1902, claiming to have witnessed his death at a house in The Dock, Dudley.

Works Dudley Market with St Thomas's Church in the background, 2011. Boucher wrote about this market in 1827. He also wrote about the demolition of the old St Thomas's Church Ben Boucher sold his poems around the Dudley area, reportedly charging a penny a sheet. For example on the occasion of the 1832 election he wrote poems in support of the candidate John Campbell, including one mocking Campbell's opponent, Sir Horace St. Paul, entitled Tripe and cowheels.

A newspaper article quotes the chorus of a poem written as an "election squib" around 1832:

Each proud upstart Tory Was top full of glory Whilst filling his belly with tripe.

On the local Radical politician Samuel Cook, who owned a draper's shop in Dudley High Street, he wrote: A photograph of the portrait was reproduced in the book The Curiosities of Dudley and the Black Country by C.F.G. Clarke published in 1881.

As part of the refurbishment of Dudley Market, a bronze statue of Ben Boucher, designed by artist Steve Field and sculpted by John McKenna, was placed on one of a pair of specially-built benches near the fountain at one end of the marketplace in 2015. The benches, constructed using Portland stone, are inscribed with Boucher's "Lines On Dudley Market".