William Mitford was born at Preston (which was a village close to North Shields) on 10 April 1788.
He became a shoemaker's apprentice, possibly to the father of Willie Armstrong, and worked in Dean Street.
The earliest record of William Mitford appears in the budget chapbook "Newcastle Songster" series in 1816.
It is known that Mitford played the part of the bishop in the "Coronation" by The Cordwainers Company of Newcastle upon Tyne[1] at The Freeman Hospital in Westgate, on the Festival of St. Crispin (the patron saints of cobblers, tanners, and leather workers) on 29 June 1823.
No pompous ftrains, nor labour’d lines are here, But genuine wit and sportive mirth appear: Northumbria’s genius in her simple rhymes, Shall live an emblem to succeeding times.
– Newcastle songs volume 1 – which is one of 20 CDs in the boxed set Northumbria Anthology[3][4] "The new fish market" also written by William Mitford – from the album Take Yourself a Wife sung by Megson (but not in dialect).