"ON TUESDAY, March 15," points out Patrick Regan, "a bronze bust of Robert Buchanan was unveiled on his grave in the churchyard of St John the Baptist, Southend-on-Sea." Which may not seem especially relevant to the readers of The Sentinel, but as this paper pointed out in their obituary of June 13, 1901, 'Mr Robert Buchanan, the author, who died on Monday, was a local man'."

Patrick was originally researching a website about Stoke-on-Trent's place in the literary world when he happened across the name of Buchanan. Intrigued by this largely unknown Potteries figure, his subsequent painstaking research has injected new life into "one of the most controversial writers of the Victorian age".

"He was born in Caverswall on August 18, 1841," explains Patrick, 59, of Milton, "the only child of Robert Buchanan, a Scottish journalist and prominent missionary for the Socialist cause of Robert Owen, and Margaret Williams, the daughter of a Stoke lawyer. He left the area when still a child and, as far as I know, never returned."

As his investigations continued, Buchanan, somewhat unexpectedly, began to get under the skin of Patrick. "I came to view him with affection," he says. "I'd come across his opinions – anti-war, women's rights, animal rights, a bit of bloody-mindedness really – and they'd fit with mine.

"He was a forward-thinker and yet, at the same time, he's a fool."

Thanks to Patrick painstakingly adding endless works of Buchanan to his website, the prose of one of North Staffordshire's most under-rated renowned former residents can now be enjoyed by all.

"Although some of Buchanan's works were extremely popular," says Patrick, "he himself was not. He had few friends, but made a lot of enemies, particularly among the literary classes. When Britain was ruling the world, Buchanan was anti-Empire and anti-war, anti-capital punishment, pro-women's rights, and animal rights for that matter, and his views on religion were unorthodox, to say the least.

"In 1893, his poem, The Wandering Jew, wherein Christ is made to wander the earth in atonement for the sins committed in his name by the Christian Church, caused a month-long debate in the letters section of The Daily Chronicle, and in pulpits up and down the land.

"When Oscar Wilde was arrested, Buchanan was the only writer, outside Wilde's immediate circle, to stand up in his defence. And on several occasions he used his pen to support those he felt had been wrongly convicted and were facing the death penalty.

"There is a quotation incised on the base of the new bust of Buchanan, selected by the sculptor, Lisa Hawker – 'Truth first; afterwards, if possible, Beauty'. It occurs in a letter Buchanan wrote to Robert Browning in 1870, and it's a clue to Buchanan's failure to secure a place among the favoured authors of English Literature. People don't like the truth, especially in their poetry. For example, Buchanan's ode to Queen Victoria on the occasion of her Golden Jubilee in 1887, begins, quite conventionally, with a hymn of praise, before embarking on a catalogue of all the things that are wrong with the British Empire, at home and abroad."

Buchanan, believes Patrick, may always have felt himself an outsider – possibly because he was born in Staffordshire and not in Scotland as everyone believed.

"After writing a particularly harsh criticism of the poems of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, which unfortunately caused Rossetti to attempt suicide," says Patrick, "he found that he could no longer make an honest living as a poet. So, in order to make money he turned to novels and plays."

Money, though, was a constant problem for Buchanan, especially after his father went bankrupt in 1860.

With a family to support, Buchanan, says Patrick, who used to work at Burslem Leisure Centre, wrote his poems for pleasure and his novels and plays for profit. Sadly, however, he had no notion of how to manage his finances.

"Buchanan wrote 27 novels and more than 50 plays," says Patrick, "but when he did have a success he tended to sell the rights as soon as possible and move on to the next project.

"It was in 1894," says Patrick, "at the apparent height of his success, living next door to the future Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, that the shaky edifice of Buchanan's finances finally crumbled.

"It was all Lillie Langtry's fault. Buchanan's friend, Henry Murray, reckoned people would pay good money to see Mrs Langtry dance on the stage. So Buchanan dusted off an old play, A Society Butterfly, hired a theatre and signed up Mrs Langtry. She took one look at it and refused to play the scene."

Attempting to rescue the situation, the pair came up with the idea of Mrs Langtry appearing in a tableau as Lady Godiva. It bombed. "Down to their last £100, they got a tip on a horse, went to the racetrack, but forgot to place the bet. The horse won – at 20 to 1. Buchanan was declared bankrupt."

In 1901, Buchanan passed away, aged 59, after suffering a stroke some months earlier.

There was, says Patrick, one last irony. An unperformed play, When Knights Were Bold, which became a huge hit, running in London for 579 performances with three silent movie versions made. "And there was never any credit for poor old Robert Buchanan of Caverswall."

As there isn't in all of Stoke-on-Trent. "Well there isn't even a statue of Arnold Bennett," Patrick points out, "so what chance of one for Buchanan?"

Read more of Patrick Regan's findings about Robert Buchanan on his website via www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/stayingin