Masefield, John Edward

(1878-1967)

   Born at The Knapp, Ledbury, Herefordshire, he was orphaned at a very early age and was brought up by relatives in Warwickshire. He was educated from 1891 to 1894 on board the HMS Conway on the River Mersey-the training ship for officers for the Merchant Navy. For several years he worked in a carpet mill in Yonkers, New York, and traveled around in America doing menial jobs. In 1907 he began to work on the Manchester Guardian newspaper. His first major poem, "The Everlasting Mercy" (1911), with its mixture of beauty and ugliness, and in places, language of the tap-room, shocked the literary world. He also wrote naval histories, novels, children's books and plays, and edited selections of the works of various poets and dramatists. He was appointed poet laureate in 1930 and received the Order of Merit in 1935, as well as honorary degrees from Oxford, Liverpool, and St. Andrews universities. He died at his home near Abingdon and his ashes are buried in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey. Some of his other poems: "August, 1914," "Dauber," "Reynard the Fox," "Sea Fever," "The Blacksmith," "The Daffodil Fields," "The Song of Roland."

   Sources: Ballads, 1903, Revised and Enlarged, 1910. Cyder Press, 2004. Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. Moods of the Sea: Masterworks of Sea Poetry. George C. Solley and Eric Steinbaugh, eds. Naval Institute Press, 1981. Introduction to HMS Conway: Cadets and Old Boys, Events and Daily Life, Closure. (http://www.mersey-gateway.org/server.php?show=ConNarrative.73). Salt Water Ballads, John Masefield, 1902. Cyder Press, 2002. The Collected Poems of John Masefield. William Heinemann Ltd., 1923. 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 Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. Westminster Abbey Official Guide (no date).