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Home  »  A Treasury of War Poetry  »  Occasional Notes

George Herbert Clarke, ed. (1873–1953). A Treasury of War Poetry. 1917.

Occasional Notes

ASQUITH, HERBERT.He received a commission in the Royal Marine Artillery at the end of 1914 and served as a Second Lieutenant with an Anti-Aircraft Battery in April, 1915, returning wounded during the following June. He became a full Lieutenant in July, but was invalided home after about six weeks. In June, 1916, he joined the Royal Field Artillery and went out to France once again with a battery of field guns at the beginning of March, 1917. Since that time he has been steadily on active service.

BEWSHER, PAUL.He was educated at St. Paul’s School, and is a Sub-Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Air Service.

BINYON, LAURENCE.His war writings include The Winnowing Fan and The Anvil, published in America under the title of The Cause.

BRIDGES, ROBERT.He has been Poet-Laureate of England since 1913.

BROOKE, RUPERT.He was born at Rugby on August 3, 1887, and became a Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, in 1913. He was made a Sub-Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in September, 1914; accompanied the Antwerp expedition in October of the same year; and sailed with the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force on February 28, 1915. He died in the Ægean, on April 23, and lies buried in the island of Skyros. See the memorial poems in this volume, The Island of Skyros, by John Masefield; and Rupert Brooke, by Moray Dalton. His war poetry appears in the volume entitled 1914, and Other Poems, and in his Collected Poems.

CAMPBELL, WILFRED.This well-known Canadian poet has lately published Sagas of Vaster Britain, War Lyrics, and Canada’s Responsibility to the Empire. His son, Captain Basil Campbell, joined the Second Pioneers.

CHESTERTON, CECIL EDWARD.He has been editor of the New Witness since 1912, and is a private in the Highland Light Infantry. His war writings include The Prussian hath said in his Heart, and The Perils of Peace.

CHESTERTON, GILBERT KEITH.This brilliant and versatile author has written many essays on phases of the war, including weekly contributions to The Illustrated London News.

CONE, HELEN GRAY.She has been Professor of English in Hunter College since 1899. Her war poetry appears in the volume entitled A Chant of Love for England, and other Poems.

COULSON, LESLIE.He joined the British Army in September, 1914, declined a commission and served in Egypt, Malta, Gallipoli (where he was wounded), and France. He became Sergeant in the City of London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers) and was mortally wounded while leading a charge against the Germans in October, 1916.

DIXON, WILLIAM MACNEILE.He is Professor of English Language and Literature in the University of Glasgow. His war writings include The British Navy at War and The Fleets behind the Fleet.

DOYLE, SIR ARTHUR CONAN.He has written A History of the Great War.

FIELD, A. N.He is a private in the Second New Zealand Brigade.

FRANKAU, GILBERT.Upon the declaration of war he joined the Ninth East Surrey Regiment (Infantry), with the rank of Lieutenant. He was transferred to the Royal Field Artillery in March, 1915, and was appointed Adjutant during the following July. He proceeded to France in that capacity, fought in the battle of Loos, served at Ypres during the winter of 1915–16, and thereafter took part in the battle of the Somme. In October, 1916, he was recalled to England, was promoted to the rank of Staff Captain in the Intelligence Corps, and was sent to Italy to engage in special duties.

GALSWORTHY, JOHN.Mr. Galsworthy, the well-known novelist, poet, and dramatist, served for several months as an expert masseur in an English hospital for French soldiers at Martouret.

GIBSON, WILFRID WILSON.His war writings include Battle, etc.

GRENFELL, THE HON. JULIAN, D.S.O.He was a Captain in the First Royal Dragoons; was wounded near Ypres on March 13, 1915; and died at Boulogne on May 26. He was the eldest son of Lord Desborough. “Julian set an example of light-hearted courage,” wrote Lieutenant-Colonel Machlachan, of the Eighth Service Battalion Rifle Brigade, “which is famous all through the Army in France, and has stood out even above the most lion-hearted.”

HALL, JAMES NORMAN.He is a member of the French Aviation Corps, and author of Kitchener’s Mob and High Adventure. He was captured by the Germans, May 7, 1918, after an air battle inside the enemy’s lines.

HARDY, THOMAS.He received the Order of Merit in 1910.

HEMPHREY, MALCOLM.He is a Lance-Corporal in the Army Ordnance Corps, Nairobi, British East Africa.

HEWLETT, MAURICE HENRY.He has published a group of his war poems under the title Sing-Songs of the War.

HODGSON, WILLIAM NOEL.He was the son of the Bishop of Ipswich and Edmundsbury, and was a Lieutenant in the Devon Regiment. His pen-name is “Edward Melbourne.” He won the Military Cross. He was killed during the battle of the Somme, in July, 1916.

HOWARD, GEOFFREY.He is a Lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers.

HUSSEY, DYNELEY.He is a Lieutenant in the Thirteenth Battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers, and has published his war poems in a volume entitled Fleur de Lys.

HUTCHINSON, HENRY WILLIAM.He was the son of Sir Sidney Hutchinson, and was educated at St. Paul’s School. He was a Second Lieutenant in the Middlesex Regiment. He was killed while on active service in France, March 13, 1917, at the age of nineteen.

KAUFMAN, HERBERT.He has published The Song of the Guns, which was later republished as The Hell-Gate of Soissons.

KIPLING, RUDYARD.Mr. Kipling won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907. His war writings include The New Armies in Training, France at War, and Sea Warfare.

KNIGHT-ADKIN, JAMES.When war was declared he was a Master at the Imperial Service College, Windsor, and Lieutenant in the Officers’ Training Corps. He volunteered on the first day of the war and was attached to the Fourth Battalion, Gloucester Regiment. He went into the trenches in March, 1915, was wounded in June, and was invalided home. In 1916 he returned to France, and is now a Captain in charge of a prisoner-of-war camp.

LEE, JOSEPH.He enlisted, at the outbreak of the war, as a private in the 1st/4th Battalion of the Black Watch, Royal Highlanders, in which corps he has served on all parts of the British front in France and Flanders. Sergeant Lee has both composed and illustrated a volume of war-poems entitled Ballads of Battle.

LUCAS, EDWARD VERRALL.Mr. Lucas has undertaken hospital service.

MASEFIELD, JOHN.Mr. Masefield, whose lectures in America early in 1916 quickened interest in his work and personality, has been very active during the war. He has written an excellent study of the campaign on the Gallipoli Peninsula, having served there and also in France in connection with Red Cross work.

MORGAN, CHARLES LANGBRIDGE.In August, 1914, he received a volunteer commission in the Royal Naval Division, and he served at Antwerp in October, afterward becoming a Prisoner of War in Holland.

NEWBOLT, SIR HENRY.He is the author of The Book of the Thin Red Line, Story of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, and Stories of the Great War.

NOYES, ALFRED.His war writings include A Salute to the Fleet, etc.

OGILVIE, WILLIAM HENRY.He was Professor of Agricultural Journalism in the Iowa State College, U.S.A., from 1905 to 1907. His war writings include Australia and Other Verses.

OSWALD, SYDNEY.He is a Major in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps.

PHILLIPS, STEPHEN.His war writings include Armageddon, etc. He died December 9, 1915.

PHILLPOTTS, EDEN.Among his war writings are The Human Boy and the War, and Plain Song, 1914–16.

RATCLIFFE, A. VICTOR.He was a Lieutenant in the 10th/13th West Yorkshire Regiment, and was killed in action on July 1, 1916.

RAWNSLEY, REV. HARDWICKE DRUMMOND.He has been Canon of Carlisle and Honorary Chaplain to the King since 1912.

ROBERTSON, ALEXANDER.He is a Corporal in the Twelfth York and Lancaster Regiment. He was reported “missing” in July, 1916.

ROSS, SIR RONALD.He is the President of the Poetry Society of Great Britain, and is a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Royal Army Medical Corps.

SCOLLARD, CLINTON.His war writings include The Vale of Shadows, and Other Verses of the Great War, and Italy in Arms, and Other Verses.

SCOTT, CANON FREDERICK GEORGE.He is a Major in the Third Brigade of the First Canadian Division, British Expeditionary Force.

SEAMAN, SIR OWEN.He has been the editor of Punch since 1906. His war writings include War-Time and Made in England.

SEEGER, ALAN.Among the Americans who have served at the front there is none who has produced poetic work of such high quality as that of Alan Seeger. He was born in New York on June 22nd, 1888; was educated at the Horace Mann School; Hackley School, Tarrytown, New York; and Harvard College. In 1912 he went to Paris and lived the life of a student and writer in the Latin Quarter. During the third week of the war he enlisted in the Foreign Legion of France. His service as a soldier was steady, loyal and uncomplaining—indeed, exultant would not be too strong a word to describe the spirit which seems constantly to have animated his military career. He took part in the battle of Champagne. Afterwards, his regiment was allowed to recuperate until May, 1916. On July 1 a general advance was ordered, and on the evening of July 4 the Legion was ordered to attack the village of Belloy-en-Santerre. Seeger’s squad was caught by the fire of six machine-guns and he himself was wounded in several places, but he continued to cheer his comrades as they rushed on in what proved a successful charge. He died on the morning of July 5. The twenty or more poems he wrote during active service are included in the collected Poems by Alan Seeger, with an Introduction by William Archer.

SORLEY, CHARLES HAMILTON.He was born at Old Aberdeen on May 19, 1895. He was a student at Marlborough College, Cambridge, from the autumn of 1908 until the end of 1913, at which time he was elected to a scholarship at University College, Oxford. After completing his education in England, he spent several months as a student and observer in Germany. When the war broke out he returned home and was gazetted Second Lieutenant in the Seventh (Service) Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment. In November he was made a Lieutenant, and in August, 1915, a Captain. He served in France from May 30 to October 13, 1915, when he was killed in action near Hulluch. His war poems and letters appear in a volume entitled Marlborough and other Poems, published by the Cambridge University Press.

STEWART, J. E.He is a Captain in the Eighth Border Regiment, British Expeditionary Force. He was awarded the Military Cross in 1916. He was killed in April, 1917, during a victorious advance up the Messines Road.

TENNANT, EDWARD WYNDHAM.He was the son of Baron Glenconner, and was at Winchester when war was declared. He was only seventeen when he joined the Grenadier Guards, Twenty-first Battalion. He had one year’s training in England, saw one year’s active service in France, and fell, gallantly fighting, in the battle of the Somme, 1916.

TYNAN, KATHARINE.Pen-name of Mrs. Katharine Tynan Hinkson, whose war writings include The Flower of Peace, The Holy War, etc.

VAN DYKE, HENRY.He has been Professor of English Literature in Princeton University since 1900, and was United States Minister to the Netherlands and Luxembourg from June, 1913, to December, 1916. He has published several war poems. He is the first American to receive an honorary degree at Oxford since the United States entered the war. The degree of Doctor of Civil Law was conferred upon him on May 8, 1917.

VERNÈDE, ROBERT ERNEST.He was educated at St. Paul’s School and at St. John’s College, Oxford. On leaving college he became a professional writer, producing several novels and two books of travel sketches, one dealing with India, the other with Canada. He was also author of a number of poems. At the outbreak of the war he enlisted in the Nineteenth Royal Fusiliers, known as the Public Schools Battalion, and received a commission as Second Lieutenant in the Rifle Brigade, in May, 1015. He went to France in November, 1915, and was wounded during the battle of the Somme in September of the following year, but returned to the front in December. He died of wounds on April 9, 1917, in his forty-second year.

WATERHOUSE, GILBERT.Lieutenant in the Second Essex Regiment. His war writings include Railhead, and other Poems. He is reported “missing.”

WHARTON, EDITH.She has written Fighting France, etc.