Joseph Tubb was a maltster from Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. His lasting legacy is the Poem Tree at Wittenham Clumps

Wittenham Clumps

Wittenham Clumps is the commonly used name for a set of small hills in the flat Thames Valley, in the civil parish of Little Wittenham in the English county of Oxfordshire....

.

Biography

Tubb lived at Lavender Cottage in Warborough

Warborough

Warborough is a village and civil parish in South Oxfordshire, about north of Wallingford and about south of Oxford. The parish also includes the hamlet of Shillingford, south of Warborough beside the River Thames.-History:...

, a village near the town of Dorchester

Dorchester, Oxfordshire

Dorchester-on-Thames is a village and civil parish on the River Thame in Oxfordshire, about northwest of Wallingford and southeast of Oxford. Despite its name, Dorchester is not on the River Thames, but just above the Thame's confluence with it...

. He wished to become a wood carver, but his father convinced him to become a maltster. He lived a country life as a bachelor.

Joseph Tubb opposed the enclosure of the commons and pulled down fences in rebellion against this. He spent a short time in the Oxford gaol.

Tubb's main legacy was to carve a poem on a large beech tree on the eastern side of Castle Hill at Wittenham Clumps. He took a tent and a ladder to Castle Hill and spent the summers of 1844 and 1845 carving the letters of a 20-line poem.
The poem demonstrates Joseph Tubb's passion for the Oxfordshire countryside. Discrepancies in wording between a written original and those on the tree are said to be because he carved from memory.