Background
He was born at Ashton-under-Lyne on 12 April 1842, the son of Peter Dean Blythe and his wife Elizabeth.
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John Blythe
Edit ProfileEducation
He attended night classes and studied by himself.
Career
After a brief stay at the Ryecroft British school, Blythe worked in a factory. Then obtained a post on a local paper as reporter, and afterwards entered a firm in Manchester, in whose employment he remained until his death. He learned Latin, French, and Spanish, and read English literature.
A retentive memory enabled him to recall an immense number of passages, especially from Shakespeare.
On one occasion, Blythe supplied the references to fifty-seven out of sixty passages selected to try him. Amongst his manuscripts was one containing over five hundred entries, alphabetically arranged, of the contents of "A Midsummer Night"s Dream".
In politics he was a philosophical radical. He attended, as a teacher, the Sunday school of the Methodist New Connexion, in Stamford Street, Manchester, during the greater portion of his life.
On 5th February 1869, he was killed by the accidental discharge of a revolver in the hands of a friend.
