James Robson (died c. 6 May 1757) was a Northumbrian landowner, poet, songwriter, "political criminal" and one time Jacobite rebel.
During this uprising, General Carpenter, after marching his men and horses into Scotland, returned to Newcastle tired and weary, but was immediately ordered to meet the Jacobite "rebels" at Lancaster.
[2] Also according to “Archaeologia Aeliana” James Robson (described as “a Jacobite bandsman”) had eventually been freed.
He wrote a satire on women, and several other poetical pieces, while confined prisoner at Preston in Lancashire.
When the song was finished, the former observed, "That young man seems very severe upon our sex, but perhaps he is singing more from oppression than pleasure; go give him that half-crown;" which the girl (sic – her maid) handed through the grating at a period when the captive poet was on the point of starving".