Madge, Charles

(1912-1996)

   The son of an army officer, he was educated at Winchester College and Magdalene College, Cambridge, though he left without graduating. He worked as reporter on the Daily Mirror in 1935, which provided useful insights for his later work as a sociologist. In 1937, with Humphrey Jennings and Tom Harrison, he founded Mass-Observation-a United Kingdom social research organization. Although their work ended in the early 1950s, it was revived by the University of Sussex in 1981. The archives at Sussex University houses 22 boxes of papers which give an insight into Madge's aptitude for poetry. His life as a poet was gradually eclipsed by sociology, but was revived in later life. He was a friend of David Gascoyne (see entry); like Gascoyne he was generally classed as a surrealist poet. His first wife was Kathleen Raine (see entry). His other poetry publications: The Disappearing Castle, 1937. The Father Found, 1941. Of Love, Time and Places, 1993. Some of his poems: "At War," "Blocking the Pass," "Delusions," "In Conjunction," "Lusty Juventus," "Rumba of the Three Lost Souls," "Solar Creation," "The Birds of Tin," "To Make a Bridge."

   Sources: Anthology of Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry. Keith Tuma, ed. Oxford University Press, 2001. Archives Hub. Charles Madge Archive (http://www.archiveshub.ac.uk/news/0402cm.html). English and American Surrealist Poetry. Edward B Germain, ed. Penguin Books, 1978. 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 Faber Book of Modern Verse. 4th ed., revised by Peter Porter. Michael Roberts, ed. Faber and Faber, 1982. The New British Poets: An Anthology. Kenneth Rexroth, ed. New Directions, 1949. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. University of Sussex Library Special Collections: Charles Madge (http://www.sussex.ac.uk/library/speccoll/collection_introductions/madge.html).