Exploring Lincolnshire’s ‘Gilbert Country’, c.1910-1927: The Writings of Bernard Samuel Gilbert

Billinghay-born Bernard Gilbert has been largely forgotten by his home county of Lincolnshire and he has been over-shadowed by the County’s more famous writer Alfred Lord Tennyson. But, thanks to the publication of Professor Andrew J H Jackson’s book and associated talks and events, Gilbert is finally being rediscovered and celebrated. Come along to Caistor Arts and Heritage Centre to hear Professor Jackson argue the case for a ‘Gilbert Country’ which stretches across Lincolnshire and into Norfolk and East Yorkshire. Gilbert’s writing puts Lincolnshire at the centre of a new literary region and he could, arguably, be the Thomas Hardy of East England.

About Gilbert: Bernard Samuel Gilbert was an outstanding author whose name is all but forgotten today. Gilbert was born in Billinghay in Lincolnshire in 1882 and was returned there for burial following his death in 1927. He wrote prolifically from around the age of thirty up until his death in 1945. Gilbert’s literature spans poetry, novels, plays, agriculture, political pamphlets and newspaper columns. He wrote of contemporary Lincolnshire and rural England, life and work on the land and country customs and beliefs.