[taken from Chapter 5 Manx Worthies, A.W.Moore, 1901]

PETER JOHN HEYWOOD (b. 1739, d. 1800 [sic 1790]),

great-grandson of Governor Robert Heywood, was the last of his family who held the Nunnery estate, which he sold to John Taubman, of the Bowling Green, Castletown. Though he was deemster, he is chiefly worthy of remembrance as being one of the few Manxmen, in the 18th century, who took any interest in the literature of his native country. For it is to him that we owe the preservation of Fin as Oshin, probably the oldest Manx ballad in existence.⁺ He sent a copy of it to Professor Thorkelin, of Copenhagen. by whom it was deposited in the British Museum. "I must own,"he writes, "I was much surprised end delighted with the discovery and similarity of the subject to some of Ossian's poems. '

+ The Manx Note Book, Vol. II., pp. 80-2.