James Stawpert (c. 1775-1814) was a Newcastle based brewer’s clerk/songwriter of the early 19th century.
James Stawpert was born c1775, assumedly somewhere in the North East of England.
According to the notes written by John Bell on some of his collected papers, James Stawpert was a clerk with Messrs. Burdon & Rayne, brewers, Quayside, Newcastle In a volume of odd broadsheets, which were held in the Reference Library, Newcastle, there was a document with a song "In memory of James Stawpert,[1] of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, brewer, who died March 12th, 1814, aged 39 years".
Both these two scraps of information are given in Allan’s Illustrated Edition of Tyneside songs[2][3] and this is about all that is known about him.
James Stawpert was the writer who took up the cudgels in defence of "The Bards of the Tyne" against Charles Purvis.