Robert Rose (1806-1849), who styled himself the Bard of Colour, was a mixed-race poet from the West Indies active in early Victorian Manchester.
[4] Rose was said to have been the first to buy a copy of Philip James Bailey's 1839 poem Festus, which had been slow to leave the shelves of Wilmot Henry Jones, 'the 'Manchester Moxon, the provincial poets printer'.
[5] The Chartist bookbinder Benjamin Stott included a sonnet to Rose in his Songs for the millions, and other poems (1843).
[1] His fellow poet John Bolton Rogerson, who was the cemetery's registrar, read a specially composed service over the grave.
[1] In February 2024 Rose was the subject of a BBC Radio 4 documentary by the poet and beatboxer Testament.