Thomas Hood

Thomas Hood (1799–1845) was an English poet and humorist, famous in his own lifetime chiefly for comic verse and outrageous puns, but remembered today at least as much for a handful of serious social poems — above all ‘The Song of the Shirt’ and ‘The Bridge of Sighs’ — written from genuine anger at the suffering of the poor.

Chronically ill for most of his adult life, he supported a family through unrelenting magazine work, editing and writing comic annuals even as his health failed; he died at forty-five, not long after a government pension was finally arranged for him.