Tag: Edward Marsh

Rupert Brooke

Written by Lawrance, W on 3rd August, 2012. Posted in Poet Biographies.

Rupert Chawner Brooke was born at Rugby on 3rd August 1887, the middle of the three sons of William and Mary Brooke. William Brooke was a Classics master at Rugby, where Rupert and this brothers Richard and William grew up under the watchful eye of their domineering mother.

Brooke was educated at Hillbrow Preparatory School, then at Rugby, where he showed himself to be gifted, both academically and on the sports field. This, coupled with his handsome features, made him a popular student. In 1906, Brooke won a scholarship to King’s College, Cambridge, where he read Classics and enjoyed an idyllic life of outings, picnics and boating on the Cam. At the same time, he embarked upon a series of unsuccessful love affairs and at the end of each, became almost suicidally depressed: a situation not helped by the death of his older brother Richard in 1907. During his final year at King’s Brook moved to the Old Vicarage at Grantchester in order to make a determined effort to put his problems behind him and focus on his studies.

In 1910, Brooke’s father died, so he stood in as temporary housemaster for one term, before beginning to work on a thesis on Webster and the Elizabethan dramatists, which would later earn him a fellowship at King’s. He also embarked on another doomed affair with Katharine Cox, the failure of which saw him leave England, bound for the Continent. In May 1912, while travelling, he wrote his most famous pre-war poem, The Old Vicarage, Grantchester, which evokes the archetypal image of Edwardian England.

Upon his return to England in late 1912, Brooke was introduced by Edward Marsh (a leading patron of the arts and private secretary to Winston Churchill) to many literary figures, including Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, with whom Brooke collaborated on the Georgian Anthology of poems.

In spring 1913, Brooke left England again, travelling to America and Canada, before proceeding to New Zealand and then Tahiti, where he fell in love with a beautiful Samoan girl named Taatamata. By the summer of 1914, Brooke was back in England and following the declaration of war, he gained a commission as a sub-lieutenant in the Royal Naval Division – with the assistance of Winston Churchil (then First Lord of the Admiralty). On October 4th, Brooke and his battalion, Anson, left for Antwerp to help stem the German advance through Belgium. This exercise proved a failure and the men joined the Belgian refugees fleeing the approaching German troops. By October 9th, Brooke was back in England and this would prove to be his only military experience of the war.

Brooke transferred to Hood battalion and at the end of November began working on the five sonnets that would make him famous. He completed them in early 1915 and send them to Wilfrid Wilson Gibson. On February 28th, Brooke boarded the Grantully Castle, bound for Gallipoli but, while en-route, at the beginning of April, he became unwell, developing a sore on his upper lip. Slowly his health seemed to improve and he received a letter from Edward Marsh telling him that his sonnet The Soldier had been read during a sermon at St Paul’s and subsequently published in The Times.

However, on April 20th, Brooke’s illness returned and by the following day he had deteriorated even further. After examination by several doctors it was agreed that the problem was an infected mosquito bite and despite all attempts to save him, Rupert Brooke died on the afternoon of 23rd April 1915. He was buried in an olive grove on the island of Skyros, where his grave still lies.

The blow to Brooke’s mother was compounded by the death of her only remaining son, William just nine weeks later on the Western Front, where he was serving as a Second Lieutenant with the London Regiment (Post Office Rifles).

In the aftermath of Brooke’s death, his friends sought to bring his poetry to the attention of the general public and volumes of his work sold in large numbers. Brooke had made Wilfrid Wilson Gibson a legatee of his literary estate (along with Walter de la Mare and Lascelles Abercrombie), thus ensuring that Gibson’s previous financial difficulties were a thing of the past.

Although Brooke’s poetry has sometimes been criticised for its lack of realism and its sentimentality, it should be born in mind that many poets were writing in a similar style at the time. Whether Brooke would have changed his tone had he gone on to experience the realities of trench warfare later in the war, remains an unanswerable question. However, we must credit him for capturing the very essence of his time, encapsulating the pride and patriotism then being displayed by so many of his generation.

Robert Graves

Written by Lawrance, W on 24th July, 2012. Posted in Poet Biographies.

Robert Von Ranke Graves was born in Wimbledon on 24th July 1895, the third of five children born to Alfred Perceval Graves and his second wife, Amalie Elizabeth Von Ranke. Graves was educated at Charterhouse School, where he was befriended and influenced by one of the masters, mountaineer, George Mallory. In 1914, Graves has just won a scholarship to St John’s College, Oxford, when the First World War began, so he put his studies to one side and enlisted, being commissioned into the Royal Welch Fusiliers. Although not a popular officer, Graves formed one important friendship early in the war, with fellow Fusilier, Siegfried Sassoon. He also wrote and published war poetry, the first volume of which was entitled Over the Brazier.

On July 20th 1916, during the Battle of the Somme, Graves was caught in shellfire and badly wounded in the chest and thigh. The battalion doctor, Captain J. C. Dunn, believed that nothing could be done to save Graves’ life, so he was left on a stretcher until the following day, when it was discovered that he was still alive. He was immediately transferred to hospital at Heilly, although the casualty list had already been prepared and a letter of condolence had been dispatched to his parents.

By the time this letter was received, Graves had arrived at Rouen, where he scribbled a hasty note to his parents. Upon receipt of this, the grief-stricken Graves family were thrown into confusion and it was not until 30th July that they received official confirmation that Robert was alive and would soon be arriving in England. In the meantime, however, The Times had printed Graves’ name among the casualties and were obliged to publish a retraction on August 5th.

Graves recovered fairly quickly from his wounds and was passed fit by a medical board on November 17th, returning to France in January 1917. However, the damage caused to his lungs was more serious than anticipated and he succumbed to pneumonia. He was sent to Osborne House on the Isle of Wight to recuperate.

In July 1917, Siegfried Sassoon made his Declaration against the continuation of the war and upon hearing of this, Graves travelled to London, where he met with Edward Marsh and Robbie Ross, both of whom were equally concerned for Sassoon’s future. Graves then travelled on to the regimental headquarters at Litherland, where he persuaded Sassoon that the authorities would never court-martial him, as Sassoon hoped, but would have him declared insane. Sassoon agreed to appear before a medical board, which pronounced him as suffering from neurosis and he was sent to Craiglockhart Military Hospital in Edinburgh.

January 1918 saw Graves’ marriage to Nancy Nicholson, with their first child Jenny being born a year later. In October 1919, Graves resumed his education at Oxford, although he would be forced to postpone this as financial and health problems beset him. Nancy gave birth of a second child, David, in March 1920, followed by a daughter, Catherine two years later and finally Sam in January 1924. As the family grew, so did the financial problems and Graves, now studying again, borrowed money from family and friends, including Sassoon.

Graves finally completed his degree in 1925 and accepted the post of English Professor at Cairo University, so the whole family embarked for Egypt, together with the American poet Laura Riding, with whom Graves was collaborating on several projects. However, the position in Cairo proved disappointing and within six months they had all returned to Oxfordshire, where Graves and Laura Riding became lovers.

By September 1929, Graves had finished his autobiography Goodbye To All That, whereupon he and Laura moved to Majorca, leaving many sad and angry friends and relations behind, upset by both their lifestyle and the content of Graves’ book. Both Edward Marsh and Siegfried Sassoon took action against Graves’ publishers, forcing changes to be made prior to publication.

In Majorca, Graves began working on his historical novel, I Claudius, while Laura, who believed herself to be a Goddess, manipulated the emotions of everyone around her. In 1936, the Spanish Civil War forced the couple to abandon Majorca and they settled in Northern France with an old friend, Alan Hodge and his new wife Beryl. The outbreak of the Second World War saw all four of them heading for America, where Laura began an affair with critic Schuyler Jackson. Graves returned to England, followed by Beryl Hodge, who had become very attached to him. While Alan Hodge agreed to an amicable divorce, Nancy would not relent, so Graves and Beryl moved in together and their son, William was born in September 1940.

Graves’ children from his first marriage all served in the armed forces during the Second World War, except for Sam, who was exempted on account of his deafness. Jenny and Catherine enlisted in the WAAF’s while David served, like his father, with the Royal Welch Fusiliers, fighting in Burma, where he was shot and killed in April 1943.

Beryl had two more children during the war: Lucia in 1943 and Juan in 1944, then after the conflict was over, the family moved back to Majorca. In 1949, Nancy finally agreed to a divorce, enabling Graves and Beryl to marry in May 1950.

Over the remaining years of his life, Graves had relationships with several “muses”, some more serious than others. In January 1953, Beryl gave birth to her final child, Tomas, and remained loyal to Graves, despite his behaviour with other women and the divisions this caused in their marriage.

In 1961, Graves was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford University, which position he held until 1966, when he stepped down and was replaced by Edmund Blunden. 1964 brought tragedy, when Graves’ oldest child, Jenny died suddenly, although Graves did not attend her funeral.

By the early 1970s, Graves’ memory and eyesight were beginning to fail and over the next fifteen years, despite Beryl’s loyal and unwavering care, his health slowly deteriorated until his death on December 7th 1985, at the age of 90.

Isaac Rosenberg

Written by Lawrance, W on 25th November, 2011. Posted in Poet Biographies.

Isaac Rosenberg was born in Bristol on 25th November 1890, the oldest son and second child of Jewish-Lithuanian immigrants, Dovber and Hacha Rosenberg. Isaac’s twin brother died at birth, making his mother rather protective of him, especially given his poor health and diminutive stature. Dovber and Hacha changed their christian names to Barnet and Anne; the former working as a drapery dealer, although theirs was an impoverished life and the couple had a hostile relationship. This, however, did not prevent the births of four more children by 1899.

In 1897, the family moved to Stepney in London’s East End, where they joined a close Jewish community. Isaac’s artistic nature soon became apparent and his parents did everything they could to assist and encourage their son. He initially attended local Board Schools, but also took additional art classes at the Stepney Green Art School.

At fourteen, Rosenberg left school and was apprenticed as an engraver to Carl Hentschel’s in Fleet Street. This was not really what Rosenberg wanted to do, and he quickly became demoralised, although he kept this position until 1911, realising that his parents needed him to make a financial contribution to the household. In the meantime, to satisfy his craving for literature, Rosenberg joined The Whitechapel Group, which was an assembly of aspiring writers. He also enrolled at the Birkbeck Institute, where he met Paul Nash and concentrated mainly on life drawings, which greatly impressed his tutors.

Having left Hentschel’s in 1911, Rosenberg intended pursuing a career as an artist, but soon found that talent and ambition were not sufficient qualities to guarantee fee paying work. However, his luck changed later that year when three wealthy Jewish benefactors decided to sponsor his tuition at the Slade School of Art.

Although Rosenberg enjoyed his time at the Slade, he found it difficult to make friends and sought solace in poetry, some of which he sent to Laurence Binyon, who gave him enthusiastic encouragement. In 1913, Rosenberg was also introduced to Edward Marsh, who promoted several young poets and the two men would correspond regularly for the remainder of Rosenberg’s life.

When Rosenberg left the Slade in 1914, his health had deteriorated significantly, so he decided to visit his newly married sister, Minnie, in South Africa, where he remained until May 1915. Upon his return to England, Rosenberg still felt no burning urgency to enlist and, in fact only really did so in October 1915, because there was more financial stability to be gained in the army. He initially tried to enlist in the Royal Army Medical Corps, but his health and general physique were considered too poor, so he was sent to a regiment of “Bantams”, formed specifically for men under 5’3″ tall. He served at first with the 12th Suffolk Regiment, until January 1916, when he was transferred to the 12th South Lancs. After this, he was sent to complete his training with the 11th Battalion, Kings Own Royal Lancasters.

As in other establishments in the past, Rosenberg found it difficult to make friends in the army: he was over-sensitive, clumsy and absent-minded, being dubbed as “completely hopeless” by his captain. Despite this, he was sent out to France in June 1916, and went into the trenches near Béthune. Being a private, rather than an officer, it wasn’t easy for Rosenberg to write poetry – even acquiring paper was difficult, but in the autumn of 1916, he still managed to produce what is arguably his most famous poem, Break of Day in the Trenches.

In March 1917, Rosenberg was transferred behind the lines to work on repairing roads and railways and after and uneventful summer, he was finally granted some leave. Like many soldiers, however, although he appreciated the respite from the war, he also found it difficult to adjust to life on the home front. Back in France, the Bantams saw action at Bourlon Wood, where they suffered devastating casualties, although Rosenberg escaped this slaughter, as he was hospitalised in October, suffering from influenza.

March 21st 1918, saw the beginning of the German Spring Offensive and Rosenberg soon found himself in the front lines. On the night of March 31st, he went out on a routine patrol and was killed in the early hours of April 1st. Initially Rosenberg’s body was buried on the battlefield, together with nine of his comrades. Much later, in 1926, the grave was discovered and the bodies removed to Bailleul Road Cemetery. None of the bodies was identifiable, but the Imperial War Graves Commission decided that each should have his own headstone. The following year, the Rosenberg family asked to have the words “Artist and Poet” added to their son’s grave marker.

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

Written by Lawrance, W on 2nd October, 2011. Posted in Poet Biographies.

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson was born on 2nd October 1878 at Hexham in Northumberland, one of the nine children of John Pattison Gibson and his wife Elizabeth Judith (née Walton). Wilfrid Gibson’s father was a pharmacist by profession, but was also a part-time writer and historian and while his upbringing was by no means affluent, it was happy. Following a less than remarkable education, Gibson decided to become a professional poet, although his early works were rather unsuccessful and unrealistic studies of ancient legends. He found greater success when he turned his hand to writing about the plight of the poor, working classes. These poems were realistic and the style that he developed would form the basis for his war poetry, proving that a poet does not necessarily have to experience his subject in order to write about it convincingly.

As well as poetry, Gibson went on to write several plays between 1907 and 1912, at which point, he moved south to London, where Katherine Mansfield and John Middleton Murry, editors of the literary magazine, Rhythm, introduced him to other poets, such as Ezra Pound. More importantly, Gibson was also introduced to the patron of the arts, Edward Marsh and, through him, met Rupert Brooke with whom he became great friends.

Although Gibson’s poems were widely read, he was struggling financially, so Marsh helped him by paying him to assist with the editing of Rhythm, as well as publishing several of Gibson’s poems in his new anthology, Georgians. In November 1912, Gibson moved into the bedsit above Harold Monro’s Poetry Bookshop in Bloomsbury, enabling him to meet with even more literary figures, including Robert Frost. Before long, Gibson had also fallen in love, with Monro’s secretary, Geraldine Townshend and the couple were married on 9th December 1913 in Geraldine’s home town, Dublin.

They settled in the English countryside at Dymock in Gloucestershire and here, as well as being visited by Marsh and Brooke, the Gibsons also played host to Frost and his friend Edward Thomas. The “Dymock Group” was soon formed, holding regular meetings and launching a quarterly magazine entitled New Numbers, of which Gibson was the editor.

When the First World War was declared, the Dymock Group broke up, as Brooke enlisted and Frost returned to his native America. Gibson was rejected four times by the recruiting authorities, on account of his poor eyesight, but began writing war poetry, based on letters received from the front and newspaper accounts of battles.

In April 1915 came the dreadful news that Rupert Brooke was dead. Gibson was deeply affected by the death of his dear friend and, along with others, worked to have Brooke’s poetry recognised and praised. Brooke, in turn, made Gibson (together with Lascelles Abercrombie and Walter de la Mare) his literary legatee. This generous gesture ensured that, for Gibson, financial worries were a thing of the past.

In 1917, Gibson embarked on a popular poetry-reading tour of America, focusing on Brooke’s work and, when he returned, he successfully managed to enlist in the army. His poor eyesight meant he would never be sent to the front, but he worked initially as a driver with the Army Service Corps, before transferring to a job as a clerk to a medical officer. He never saw active service overseas and after his demobilisation in 1919 Gibson returned to private life. He and Geraldine had three children: Jocelyn, Michael and Audrey and he continued to write poetry until the 1950s. Gibson died on 26th May 1962, aged eighty-three.

Gibson’s war poetry represents the story of the ordinary soldier and displays his talent for capturing the essence of the working man. He writes so realistically that many critics and anthologists were – and are – convinced that he was a “soldier-poet” writing with first-hand experience of the front-line. Unlike many of the real “soldier-poets”, however, the war did not intrude into Gibson’s life in quite the same way: he did not have the same personal experiences of witnessing at first hand the death of a comrade, or having to kill a fellow human being. Yet the truth and realism shine through in his poetry, as though he had been there, with an authenticity that can be both breath-taking and heart-breaking.

Wilfred Wilson Gibson image: National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk).

Siegfried Sassoon

Written by Lawrance, W on 8th September, 2011. Posted in Poet Biographies.

Born on 8th September 1886, Siegfried Loraine Sassoon was the second of three sons of Alfred and Theresa Sassoon. His parents separated when he was four years old, leaving his mother to raise her three sons alone. Nonetheless, Sassoon spent a happy and secure childhood and was educated at Marlborough before going on to Clare College, Cambridge, although he failed to obtain a degree. Back home in Kent, Sassoon lived the life of a country squire, as well as writing poetry, some of which was shown to the influential art collector, Edward Marsh, who quickly became friends with Sassoon, introducing him to several other literary celebrities, including Rupert Brooke.

Upon the outbreak of war, Sassoon immediately enlisted as a Trooper in the Sussex Yeomanry, but a bad fall while riding left him with a broken arm. When he had recovered from this injury, Sassoon transferred to the infantry and was commissioned into the Royal Welch Fusiliers in May 1915, leaving for France that November, following training.

Sassoon’s war soon became personal. He received news of the death of his brother Hamo in Gallipoli in November 1915, then in March 1916, his close friend Second Lieutenant David Thomas was shot and killed. The tone of Sassoon’s poetry changed from this moment on, as did his attitude to the war: he wanted to avenge these deaths, regardless of his own personal safety and his exploits earned him the nickname “Mad Jack”, as well as a Military Cross.

In mid-1916, Sassoon was sent back to England, suffering from trench fever, and didn’t return to the trenches until February 1917, where he participated in the First Battle of the Scarpe and was wounded in the shoulder. By the end of April, Sassoon was back in England again.

While convalescing from his wound, Sassoon became more and more embittered about he war and also fell under the influence of a group of pacifists, including John Middleton Murry and Bertrand Russell. The culmination of these events was Sassoon’s now famous Declaration against the validity of the war. Once knowledge of his Declaration became public, his friends, especially Marsh and Graves, tried to convince him that his aim of being court-martialled would never be permitted. Sassoon therefore, reluctantly, agreed to attend a medical board and, following evidence from Robert Graves, was declared as suffering from shell-shock. On 23rd July, he was admitted to Craiglockhart Military Hospital in Edinburgh, where he came under the care of Dr. William H. R. Rivers.

While at Craiglockhart, Sassoon wrote some of his most affecting and effective poetry. He also met Wilfred Owen (a fellow patient) and the two quickly became friends. Sassoon’s influence over Owen’s poetry is obvious, but Owen also idolised the older poet and war hero.

Under the influence of Rivers’s treatment, Sassoon came to realise that he could no longer tolerate remaining safely in Scotland while his men were suffering in France. On 26th November, he was declared fit for active service and left for Palestine in mid-February 1918, only returning to France in May. On 13th July, Sassoon was in No Man’s Land when he stood up and removed his helmet, whereupon he was shot in the head. He later discovered that it was one of his own men who had delivered the blow, believing him to be an advancing German. The wound was not fatal, but resulted in the end of the Sassoon’s war and he was placed on indefinite sick leave, eventually being discharged from the army in March 1919, with the rank of Captain.

Sassoon waited for several months to hear from Owen and it was quite some while before he heard of the younger poet’s death on 4th November 1918. Immediately after the war, Sassoon threw himself into literary work, meeting Thomas Hardy and T. E. Lawrence, among others, and becoming literary editor of the Daily Herald, in which position he was able to advance the career of Edmund Blunden, who became a lifelong friend.

In 1928, Sassoon began writing his autobiographies, initially as fictionalised accounts and then in non-fiction versions, as well as continuing to write poetry. During the 1920’s, Sassoon’s homosexuality became a more important part of his life and he embarked upon a few romantic liaisons, most notably with Stephen Tennant. Eventually, however, Sassoon tired of the fickle nature of these relationships and he married Hester Gatty in December 1933. They lived at Heytesbury House in Wiltshire and had one son, named George, in 1936. The marriage did not last, however, and the couple separated in 1945. In 1957 Sassoon converted to the Roman Catholic faith and he died on September 1st 1967.

Siegfried Sassoon’s war poetry is often – and unjustly – eclipsed by that of Wilfred Owen and yet Sassoon’s poems contain a brutal honesty that is lacking from almost every other poet in this genre. This, mingled with his humorous, ironic and occasionally lyrical style allows us to see the effects of the war: the anger, the waste, the bitterness; but underneath all of that, we can see the unutterable sadness of the “world’s worst wound” as Sassoon called the conflict, and a love for his fellow sufferers that few would succeed in conveying so beautifully or so honestly.

Brooke & Grenfell – Joined in the bright company of Heaven

Written by web.admin on 18th May, 2011. Posted in Background.

These two young men both died in the first half of 1915, at the age of 27; both had written poems which are now widely studied; both came from fairly privileged backgrounds. However, today almost everyone has heard of Rupert Brooke, while Julian Grenfell’s name is relatively unfamiliar to most, unless they are actually studying his poetry. In this feature article, we examine the background and legacies of these two extinguished stars.

Rupert Brooke’s name has become synonymous with the eager, handsome young Englishmen, who bravely volunteered to fight – and if necessary die – to protect their beloved country. Those who have heard of Julian Grenfell tend to think of him as having been somewhat warmongering and pugnacious, the spoiled son of Lord and Lady Desborough. Both descriptions are, to some extent, accurate but they also mask very different stories, demonstrating that these two men actually had a great deal in common.

THE EARLY YEARS

Rupert Chawner Brooke was born on 3rd August 1887 at Rugby, where his father, William, was a Classics master. He was the middle of the three sons of William and his wife Mary. Rupert’s older brother, Richard, (who died in 1907) was given the prophetic and patriotic middle name of ‘England’, while his younger brother was named William Alfred – both regal names. Rupert and Chawner were both names which were taken from his mother’s family – her grandfather having been named Rupert Chawner. Mary Brooke was a domineering woman, determined that her sons should do well, but equally intent on their happiness.

Rupert entered Rugby School in 1901 and was an immediate success, proving himself to be a hard-working and proficient student, as well as an excellent sportsman. This, coupled with his eye-catching mane of red-gold hair and classical good-looks, ensured his popularity.

In 1906, he won a scholarship to King’s College Cambridge where he had a thoroughly enjoyable time, boating on the Cam, having picnics and falling in love, which he did quite frequently. Needing, however, to focus on his degree, Brooke moved into The Old Vicarage at Grantchester, the atmosphere of which he would later capture in his most famous pre-war poem, of the same name. In 1910, Brooke’s father died suddenly, so he travelled back to Rugby and acted as temporary Housemaster for one term. This was followed by an unsuccessful love affair, the failure of which saw him leave the country to travel in France and Germany. He returned to London in December 1912, where he enlarged his circle of friends to include Arthur and Violet Asquith (children of the Prime Minister) and Edward Marsh, through whom he met Wilfrid Wilson Gibson and, later, Siegfried Sassoon.

In March 1913, following a nervous breakdown, Brooke left England again, this time travelling firstly to America and Canada, then New Zealand, before arriving in Tahiti, where he fell in love with a beautiful Samoan girl called Taatamata. He returned to England in June 1914 and when war was declared in August, Edward Marsh used his influence with Winston Churchill (who was then the First Lord of the Admiralty), to gain Brooke a commission in the Royal Naval Division.

Julian Henry Francis Grenfell was born on 30th March 1888 in London, although his family lived mainly at the Grenfell estate, Taplow Court in Buckinghamshire. He was the oldest child of William and Ethel Grenfell, who were both well known in their own circles. William was an MP, but was also a renowned sportsman and adventurer, who would later become chairman of the British Olympic Association and organiser of the 1908 London Olympics. Ethel, or Ettie, as she was universally known, was a society hostess, renowned for her beautiful and lavish parties. She also enjoyed a series of mild flirtations, which – as was the custom in those days – were tolerated by her husband. A second child, Gerald William (known as Billy) was born in March 1890, followed by a daughter Monica in 1893 and a third son, Ivo, in 1898. A second daughter, Alexandra (known as Imogen), completed the family in 1905.

Julian and Billy were close enough in age to soon become rivals and they fought quite often. Their education was initially begun at home, with a governess named Miss Poulson, then in 1898 Julian went away to Summerfields – a boarding school near Oxford, where he was joined two years later by Billy. Being away from home brought the two boys closer together and although they were both competitive, they argued much less. Julian was good at sports and art, while Billy was more academically gifted.

In 1901, Julian moved up to Eton, where he was a contemporary of Edward Horner (who would later become brother in law of the Prime Minister’s oldest son, Raymond), Ronald Knox (who later converted to Catholicism and became a noted author) and Patrick Shaw-Stewart (who would later become one of Ettie Grenfell’s admirers and then go on to serve with Rupert Brooke during the First World War). Again, Billy followed on and here, their competitive natures were even more apparent than before, enhanced by Ettie, who played one boy off against the other in her letters. It was at this stage that Julian first began to question his mother’s domineering role in his life and her constant need to involve him in her social activities, when he really preferred his own company, or that of just a few friends. In 1905, Willy Grenfell was raised to the peerage as 1st Baron Desborough.

In 1906, Julian went to Balliol College, Oxford, along with Horner, Knox and Shaw-Stewart. Here he tried to exert his independence, a task made somewhat easier by Ettie’s infatuation with her latest admirer, a man named Archie Gordon, who was only three years older than Julian.

In his last year at Oxford, Julian became frustrated by his mother and her social set to such an extent that he wrote a book in which he questioned the moral standards of English Society – in other words, he appeared to openly criticise his mother and her friends. This was not well received by his family, who ignored both him and his publication. Julian turned instead to love, in the form of Marjorie Manners (Lady Victoria Marjorie Manners), although his choice did not please Ettie who connived to place as many obstacles in their path as she could. This was, therefore, a very frustrating time for Julian, made worse by the death in a car crash, of Archie Gordon. All of this accumulated into a nervous breakdown, as a cure for which, Julian travelled to Italy to recover his health.

He returned to England in 1910 and had a brief affair with Pamela Lytton, to whom Ettie raised less objections, mainly because Pamela was married, which made this a ‘fling’ rather than a serious relationship. In any case, this liaison was cut short by Julian’s decision to join the army.

In the autumn of 1910, having completed his training, Julian embarked for India with the Royal Dragoons. This was an enjoyable time for him, as he spent his spare time riding, hunting and playing polo. Less favourable, however, was South Africa, where Julian was posted in late 1911. He began to contemplate leaving the army: he’d becoming interested in painting, but more seriously, he considered a career in politics.

THE WAR

When the First World War began in August 1914, most of the regular British Army who were stationed overseas, were recalled to England, including Julian’s regiment, who sailed from South Africa on 25th August, landing in England on 10th September. Billy, meanwhile had applied for a commission in the Rifle Brigade. Julian embarked for France on 6th October, where he went immediately to the Ypres Salient. There was little requirement for cavalry regiments, so Julian’s first taste of action, in the First Battle of Ypres, was with the infantry.

Julian Grenfell’s reputation as a ‘happy warrior’ stems from a letter which he wrote to his mother at this time, in which he said that he adored war and found it be ‘like a big picnic’. However, when read as a whole, the context of this statement is that he was enjoying the companionship and the freedom of fighting – such as the fact that no-one ever complained at him for being ‘dirty’, and the tone is reminiscent of the letters which he had written to his mother while he was at boarding school. At the same time, he also admitted that he found war ‘bloody’ and that the sight of refugees and wrecked villages was ‘miserable’ and ‘piteous’. Julian was certainly a most courageous officer – he was twice mentioned in dispatches and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in November 1914.

The following month, he was back in England on leave and returned to the front in January 1915, having been offered – and declined – a safe ‘staff’ job, working for General Pulteney – a friend of his mother’s.

The War Memorial, Taplow Court Gardens, in memory of Julian and Gerald ‘Billy’

Spring of 1915 saw a renewal of offensives and on 22nd April the Germans made the first use of poison gas. Julian’s diary entry for 29th April notes: ‘Wrote poem – Into Battle’. On May 13th Julian was wounded when a shell exploded near to him and a splinter of metal was lodged in his skull. He was taken to a Casualty Clearing Station, from where he wrote to Ettie, saying that he was doing ‘splendidly’. He was then transferred to a hospital at Boulogne, near to where his sister Monica was nursing. She visited Julian and was able to send a telegram to her parents to allay their fears. However, an X-ray on the 16th showed that his wound was much more serious than had originally been assumed, and that an operation was required. Monica sent another telegram, urging her parents to travel to Boulogne, if possible. They used their influence and arranged to travel on an ammunition boat, which arrived at 5am on 17th May. Three days later, Billy also paid his brother a visit – his battalion had just arrived in France and he had been granted permission to visit Julian. His family kept a vigil at his bedside until May 26th, when Julian died. On the day that news of his death appeared in The Times, it was accompanied by the first ever publication of his poem, Into Battle.

Billy Grenfell was killed leading his men in a charge on 30th July 1915, less than one mile from where Julian had received his wound. His body was never found and he is listed among the missing on the memorial at the Menin Gate. Ivo, the third and only surviving son, was killed in a car accident in 1926, and thus the Desborough line died out, affording Willy the dubious honour of being ‘First and Last Baron Desborough’.

Rupert Brooke’s war was very different from that of Julian Grenfell. Sub-Lieutenant Brooke sailed for Antwerp on 4th October 1915. He was serving in a battalion named Anson (the Royal Naval Division named, rather than numbered, their battalions) and they were supposed to help stop the German army’s advance through Belgium. By the time they arrived, however, it was clear that this exercise had already failed, so Brooke found himself joining the Belgian refugees, who were fleeing the advancing German troops. By October 9th, he and his battalion were back in England.

In November, Brooke was transferred from Anson to Hood Battalion and was moved to Blandford Camp in Dorset, together with Arthur Asquith and Patrick Shaw-Stewart, who at that time was maintaining a regular and loving correspondence with Ettie Grenfell. It was around this time that Brooke started to write his 1914 Sonnets, which he completed in early 1915 and sent to his friend Wilfrid Wilson Gibson.

In early February, Brooke became ill and was nursed back to health at 10 Downing Street by Violet Asquith. Once fully recovered, he rejoined his battalion and in late February, set sail on the Grantully Castle, bound for Gallipoli. There were several stops during the journey, which afforded Brooke the opportunity to dine in Malta, enjoy a performance of Tosca and visit the Pyramids and the Sphynx.

At the beginning of April, while still on board the Grantully Castle, anchored at Skyros, Brooke complained of feeling unwell and had also developed a sore on his upper lip. He seemed to improve and received a letter from Edward Marsh, telling him that his sonnet The Soldier had been read out during a service at St Paul’s Cathedral.

On April 20th, the sore on Brooke’s lip was worse, he was once again unwell and had a very high temperature. By the following day his condition had deteriorated further and was now drifting in and out of consciousness. Medical officers and surgeons attributed his illness to an infected mosquito bite and despite their attempts to save him he died on the afternoon of 23rd April (appropriately, St George’s Day). He was buried in a hastily arranged funeral service, in an olive grove on the island of Skyros in the company of his friends including Patrick Shaw-Stewart and Arthur Asquith.

Brooke’s 1914 Sonnets sold in their thousands and ran to many, many editions, giving a secure financial future to his literary legatees, who included Wilfrid Wilson Gibson. In common with the Grenfells, there would be another blow to Brooke’s mother, Mary, when Rupert’s younger brother William, a Second Lieutenant in the London Regiment, was killed in action on 14th June 1915. As her eldest son Richard had already died in 1907, and her husband in 1910, Mary Brooke was now alone.

THE LEGACY

By the middle of 1915, both the Grenfells and Mary Brooke had suffered the tragic losses of two of their sons. Julian Grenfell was mourned by all who knew him as a ‘joyous’, ‘brave’ and ‘noble’ young man, of whom Winston Churchill privately wrote: ‘He was all… that our race needs to keep its honour fair and bright…’. Rupert Brooke was canonised, given the status of a Demi-God by many who wrote about him and Winston Churchill said of him, publicly in The Times, that ‘… he was all that one would wish England’s noblest sons to be…’. Given that their backgrounds were quite similar and their deaths so widely, greatly and similarly acknowledged, why are the perceptions of these two men so different today – both from each other and from the other soldier-poets who would follow in the later years of the war?

If one says to a group of people the words ‘If I should die, think only this of me…’, almost everyone will have heard them spoken, many may be able to recite the next line and some will know who wrote them. However, if one says ‘The naked earth is warm with Spring…’ people are likely to look quizzical and shrug their shoulders, unaware that this is the first line from Julian Grenfell’s Into Battle. Even when informed of this fact, they are wont to reply ‘Julian Who?’.

Much of this inequality in the legacies of these two poets stems from the immediate aftermath of their deaths. When Brooke died, his friends were quick and eager to bring his work to the public eye. His type of patriotic poetry was very popular at the time and this, coupled with the fact that Brooke had died on St George’s Day and his stunning good-looks, made the creation of a myth quite an easy task. Brooke suddenly achieved the status of a brave, almost God-like creature who had died defending and preserving the honour of his beloved England.

Grenfell’s immediate legacy, on the other hand, was entirely controlled and moulded by his mother, Ettie, who wrote a Family Journal in memory of Julian and Billy. In this, she ‘doctored’ letters and even made minor amendments to Julian’s poem Into Battle (none of which were improvements). To Ettie, Julian was primarily a soldier, not a poet. The army was the profession into which she had always intended he should go, so to her, he was really a soldier who wrote a few verses and painted a bit.

That said, in the eyes of both the critics of the day and the public, both men were thought of as heroes and their poetry was, generally speaking admired. T. Sturge Moore, in his 1920 appraisal of war poets entitled Some Soldier Poets, comments that Grenfell and Brooke stand together, and that he sees them ‘through their work, in attitudes that suggest statues more worthy of the acropolis of the supreme city than any of those which the public figures of these times have yet assumed.’ He goes on: ‘The ardent Grenfell leaps forward; Brooke with smiling grace escapes from the uncomfortable admiration of a bygone age – both bent on grasping by the hand their new best friend, Death.’ The only real difference between the two men would be that Brooke’s friends advanced and perpetuated his poetic legacy, while Ettie looked upon Julian’s as only a small part of the soldier who had once been her son.

Today, many students will research Brooke’s poems and compare them with those written much later in the conflict by Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon or Isaac Rosenberg: few will carry out the same task with Grenfell’s Into Battle. Perhaps this is because Brooke, with his God-like mythical status, still captures the imagination, while Grenfell’s less appealing upper-class professional soldier background holds less attraction. Brooke, for most people, typifies the young, loyal Englishmen who willingly answered his country’s call; Grenfell does not.

Others might argue that Brooke’s poetry is more appreciated today, simply because it is better than Grenfell’s. Well, Brookes’ sonnets are certainly shorter, but they are by no means superior and indeed they show signs of being quite repetitive. Brooke, it could also be said, is a little obsessed with sentiment and self-sacrifice – an argument first propounded in 1915 by Charles Hamilton Sorley. One could equally claim that in Into Battle Grenfell focuses too much on the glories of death in battle – seen by him as an ‘increase’ – and that the poem becomes a little lost and confused, which is not surprising, given that the original manuscript contains many changes, including some which Grenfell made to the order in which the verses should appear. The works of both poets contain flaws; they also contain moments of utter genius and beauty – a hint perhaps of what might have been.

Since their deaths, these two men have been eclipsed – to different degrees – by the over-idolised and seriously over-studied, Wilfred Owen, who appears at times to be the only war poet that many examining boards have ever heard of, and by the fact that their poetry and its subject declined in popularity as the decades passed. The myth of ‘lions led by donkeys’ which became popular in the 1960s meant that people did not want to believe that men had gone willingly to their deaths, but preferred to read the irony and bitter cynicism of poems by Owen and Sassoon, or the sad recollections of Blunden, even if for no better reason than that it fitted in with their image of the war. However, both Grenfell and Brooke, and their stories have a great deal to offer those who are studying, or take a genuine interest in this topic and neither they nor their poetry should be derided, simply because its content does not fit in with commonly-held misconceptions about the conflict. These two men offer us a glimpse of a forgotten time, when glory, honour and duty still mattered. Reading their biographies, one can see that they had a lot in common; not least of which was their acknowledgement that to fight in the Great War was their responsibility – even, one might say, their privilege, or their right. More importantly though, one can also see their dissatisfaction with their own pre-war lives and almost sense their relief that the war (as they perceived it) finally offered them a means of escape from the banality. They also show us that, for them at least, their generation was, to a certain extent, already ‘lost’, long before the carnage of the battlefields afforded them that hard-earned title.