The son of Thomas Procter, he was born of poor parents in Paradise Vale, Salford, Lancashire, on 19 December 1816.
Apprenticed to a barber, in due course he set up in business for himself in Long Millgate, Manchester, where he also ran a circulating library.
[1] Procter died at 133 Long Millgate, Manchester, on 11 September 1881, and was buried at St. Luke's, Cheetham Hill.
[1] From around 1840 he became part of a collective of working class poets known as the Sun Inn Group, whose members included Samuel Bamford, John Critchley Prince, John Bolton Rogerson, and Robert Rose.
[2] He had pieces published in City Muse (1853), edited by William Reid of Manchester.