There was also a botanist named Allan Cunningham, see Allan Cunningham (botanist)

Allan Cunningham (December 7, 1784 - October 30, 1842) was a Scottish poet and author.

He was born at Keir, Dumfriesshire, and first worked as a stone mason's apprentice. His father was a neighbour of Robert Burns at Ellisland, and Allan with his brother James visited James Hogg, the "Ettrick shepherd", who became a friend to both. Cunningham contributed some songs to Roche's Literary Recreations in 1807, and in 1809 he collected old ballads for Robert Hartley Cromek 's Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song; he sent in, however, poems of his own, which the editor inserted, even though he may have suspected their real authorship.

In 1810 Cunningham went to London, where he worked as a journalist till 1814, when he became clerk of the works in the studio of the sculptor, Francis Chantrey, a post he kept until Chantrey's death in 1841. Cunningham meanwhile continued to write. His prose is often spoiled by its misplaced and too ambitious rhetoric; his verse also is ornate, and both are full of mannerisms, Some of his songs, however, hold a high place among British lyrics. "A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea" is one of the best British sea-songs, although written by a landsman; and many other of Cunningham's songs became popular.

He was married to Jean Walker, who had been servant in a house where he lived, and they had five sons and one daughter.

Other Works

• Sir Marmaduke Maxwell (1820) (play)
• Lives of Eminent British Painters, Sculptors and Artists (1829-33)

See also

• Scottish literature

This entry is updated from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.