Sisson, Charles Hubert

(1914-2003)

   Born and brought up in Bristol, he read English and philosophy at Bristol University, then studied in Germany and France. He was in the civil service from 1936 until he retired in 1972 as director of Occupational Safety and Health in the Department of Employment, with the rank of undersecretary. During World War II he served in the British Army in India and recorded his military experiences in a satire, Asiatic Romance (1953). Sisson converted from Methodism to the Anglican Church and became a zealous defender of the Anglican traditions. His outspoken criticism of the civil service culminated in his Spirit of British Administration, a comparison with other European methods. On the Look-Out: A Partial Autobiography appeared in 1989. His writings about Anglicanism were collected together in Is There a Church of England? (1993). Sisson was a notable translator of, among others, Virgil, Catullus, Dante and Racine. He was appointed a Companion of Honor in 1993. Some of his poems: "Adam and Eve," "Au Clair de la Lune," "Ellick Farm," "Marcus Aurelius," "Over the Wall: Berlin, May 1975," "The London Zoo," "The Regrets," "Waking."

   Sources: Antholog y of Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry. Keith Tuma, ed. Oxford University Press, 2001. Carcanet Press (http://www.carcanet.co.uk). Collected Poems of C H Sissons. Carcanet, 1984 and 1998. The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). Obituary of Charles Sisson, News, Telegraph, Sept. 8, 2003 (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/09/08/db0801.xml). Portraits of Poets. Sebastian Barker, ed. Carcanet, 1986. 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 Direction of Poetry: An Anthology of Rhymed and Metered Verse Written in the English Language Since 1975. Robert Richman, ed. Houghton Mifflin, 1988. The Faber Book of Twentieth Century Verse. John Heath-Stubbs and David Wright, eds. Faber and Faber, 1975. The Faber Book of War Poetry. Kenneth Baker, ed. Faber and Faber, 1996. The Naked Astronaut: Poems on Birth and Birthdays. Ren Graziani, ed. Faber and Faber. 1983. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia).