Seaman, Sir Owen

(1861-1936)

   Born in London, he was educated at Shrewsbury-a boys' boarding school on the banks of the River Severn and overlooking the ancient townwhere he was captain. He graduated from Clare College, Cambridge, in 1883 and was successively a schoolmaster, professor of literature at Durham College of Science, Newcastle-upon-Tyne from 1890 to 1903, and a barrister of the Inner Temple (1897). He joined the staff of Punch and was editor from 1906 to 1932. He was elected an honorary fellow of Clare College in 1909, received honorary degrees from the universities of Durham (1906), Edinburgh (1924), and Oxford (1933), and was created a baronet in 1933. He died, unmarried, in London. Some of his publications: Horace, 1895. In Cap and Bells, 1899. Borrowed Plumes, 1902. A Harvest of Chaff, 1904. War-Time, 1915. Made in England, 1916. From the Home Front, 1918. Some of his poems: "A Birthday Ode to Mr. Alfred Austin," "A Nocturne at Danieli's," "Ballad of a Bun," "England's Alfred Abroad," "Of Baiting the Lion," "The Warrior's Lament," "Time's Revenges," "To Julia in Shooting Togs."

   Sources: A Century of Humorous Verse, 1850-1950. Roger Lancelyn Green, ed. E.P. Dutton (Everyman's Library), 1959. A Nonsense Antholog y. Carolyn Wells, ed. Scribner's; paperback edition, 1930. Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The New Oxford Book of English Light Verse. Kingsley Amis, ed. Oxford University Press, 1978. Unauthorized Versions: Poems and Their Parodies. Kenneth Baker, ed. Faber and Faber, 1990.