Myers, Frederic William and Ernest James

(1843-1921)

   • Frederic William Henry, the elder brother, 1843-1901

   He was born at Keswick, the Lake District, the elder son of a clergyman, and when his father died in 1851 the family moved to Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Frederic was educated at Cheltenham College and graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1864. He took a year out traveling in Europe, the USA and Canada, where he swam across the Niagra River below the falls. From 1865 to 1869 he was he was classical lecturer in Trinity College, Cambridge, but teaching was not his forte, and from 1872 until his death he was a schools inspector. In addition to literature, his other passion was investigating the paranormal in connection with the Society for Psychical Research, which he helped found in 1882. He was also active in promoting education for women. He died at Rome and was buried at Keswick. Many of his poems appeared first in magazines and were afterwards collected and reissued with additions. Some of his poems: "Brighton," "Harold at Two Years Old," "God, How Many Years Ago," "Saint Paul," "Surrender to Christ," "When Summer Even Softly Dies," "Wind, Moon, and Tides."

   • Ernest James, the younger brother (1844-1921)

   Educated at Cheltenham College, he graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, in 1865, and was fellow and lecturer at Wadham College, Oxford, from 1868 to 1871. Although called to the bar in 1874, he never practiced. He published several prose works and a biography of Viscount Althorp (1890). His essay on Aeschylus, included in the collection entitled Hellenica, was edited by Evelyn Abbott (1880). From 1876 to 1882 he was secretary to the London Society for the Extension of University Teaching, and he was on the council of the Hellenic Society from its foundation in 1879. He was also on the Society for the Protection of Women and Children and was on the central administrative committee of the Charity Organization Society until he left London to live in Kent. He died at Fontridge, Etchingham, Sussex. Some of his other publications: Gathered Poems, 1904. The Judgment of Prometheus, 1886. The Puritans, 1869. Poems, 1877. The Defence of Rome, 1880. Some of his poems: "A Garden Fable," "Achilles," "Could Ye Not Watch One Hour?" "The Lost Shepherd," "The Wreck of the Birkenhead," "To the Army in Africa."

   Sources: A Sacrifice of Praise: An Anthology of Christian Poetry in English from Caedmon to the Mid-Twentieth Century. James H. Trott, ed. Cumberland House Publishing, 1999. Collected Poems of Frederic William Henry Myers. Macmillan, 1921. Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources (http://library.stanford.edu). The Home Book of Verse. Burton Egbert Stevenson, ed. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1953. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. Oxford University Press, 1971. The World's Great Religious Poetry. Caroline Miles Hill, ed. Macmillan, 1954.