Gibson, Wilfrid Wilson

(1878-1962)

   Born in Hexham, Northumberland, son of a chemist and amateur archaeologist. His half-sister, Elizabeth Cheyne Gibson, encouraged him to write poetry. In 1907 he published "The Stonefolds" and "On the Threshold," poems that in plain speech told of country folk in everyday life. Around 1912, he was associated with many of the Georgian poets of his day in London, including (Sir) Edward Marsh, who became his patron. Gibson contributed to Marsh's five volumes of Georgian Poetry (1912-22). His friendship with Rupert Brooke resulted his being made one of three benefactors of Brooke's will, which included the lucrative proceeds of his poems. He died at Weybridge in Surrey and was memorialized by a stone in Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey along with other poets of the First World War. Some of his other publications: Daily Bread, 1910. Fires, 1912. Borderlands, 1914. Livelihood, 1917. Krindlesyke, 1922. Kestrel Edge, 1924. Coming and Going, 1938. The Outpost, 1944. Within Four Walls, 1950. Some of his poems: "Ambulance Train," "As Trout in the Amber Cool," "Breakfast," "Eagles and Isles," "Skye," "The Edinburgh Sisters," "Troopship: MidAtlantic."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. Never Such Innocence: A New Antholog y of Great War Verse. Martin Stephen, ed. Buchan and Enright, 1988. 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 Golden Room: Poems, 1925-1927 of Wilfrid Gibson. Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1928. The Home Book of Modern Verse. Burton Egbert Stevenson, ed. Henry Holt, 1953. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. Westminster Abbey Official Guide (no date).