Tom Skeyhill (1895–1932) - Australian poet and writer

With thanks to Discover War Poets

Thomas John Skeyhill was born in 1895 in Terang, Victoria. Australia..  His parents were Annie and James Percy Skeyhill.  

Tom enlisted in the 8th Battalion of the Australian Imperial Force and served as a Signaller in the First World War. On 8th May 1915, during the advance at Cape Helles, Tom was blinded by an exploding Turkish shell; his sight was successfully restored in 1918. 

Tom ghostwrote an account about Alvin York*, which was later made into a film of the same name in 1941.  He was killed in a plane crash at Barnstable Municipal Airport in Hyannis, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, USA and was buried with military honours in West Dennis, Massachusetts, where he had a summer home.

Here is one of his poems:

“Halt! Thy tread is on heroes' graves

Australian lads lie sleeping below:

Just rough wooden crosses at their heads

To let their comrades know.

They'd sleep no better for marble slabs,

Nor monuments so grand

They lie content, now their day is done

In that far-off foreign land.” 

Tom Skeyhill

NOTE:

*Alvin York was a celebrated American hero of the First World War, immortalized by the film version of his life story – “Sergeant York” (1941).

Sources Discover War Poets via X and Facebook

https://pennyspoetry.fandom.com/wiki/Tom_Skeyhill

https://kura.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/digital/collection/journals/id/16710/

Harley Matthews (1889-1968) - Australian

 With grateful thanks to Discover War Poets

Harley Matthews (registered at birth as Harry Matthews) was born on 27th April 1889 in St. Leonards, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. His parents were Henry Matthews, a clerk, and his wife Edith, née Morgan, both of whom were born in New South Wales   

Harley grew up on his parents' vineyard in Fairfield and was educated at Sydney Boys' High School. After working as an articled clerk from 1906 to 1914, he enlisted as a Private in the 4th Battalion of the Australian Imperial Force on 13th September 1914. 

Harley took part in the landing at Gallipoli on 25th April 1915, was Mentioned in Dispatches and wounded early in August. After service in France, in August 1916 he was posted to the Australian Army Pay Corps at A.I.F. Headquarters in London and was repatriated towards the end of 1917.  Repatriated towards the end of 1917, he was discharged on 29th December.

He was a prolific writer but Winemaking became a passion for him. He bought 58 acres of land near Sydney which he cleared himself and planted vines.

From 1912 to 1938 Harley Matthews published in Sydney three books of verse and a volume of short stories. 

Here is one of his poems:

“The Sleep of Death”

We see no terror in your eyes.

They say that sleeping you were found;

Now we with bayonets guard you round.

Night's shadow up the hillside creeps,

But you still watch the lighted skies,

Although the sentinel that sleeps

The next dawn dies.

Ah, the remorse is gone that grew

To think of what my comrade said:

"Give this to her when I am dead" -

A heart-shaped thing of little worth

That held her picture for his view,

But he was killed and in the earth

Before I knew.

It was last night. My watch I kept,

The stars just overhead shone dim.

Nought moved upon the hills' far rim.

But in the hollows shadows seethed,

And as I watched, towards me crept.

I listened: deep my comrades breathed

Where near they slept.

Below men moved innumerable -

Fancy! and yet there was a doubt.

I closed my eyes to shut them out,

And for relief drew deeper breath,

Across my lids Sleep laid his spell;

I flung it off - to sleep was death,

I knew too well.

There came a pleasant breath of air,

Cool-wafted from the stars it seemed.

I looked: now they all brightly gleamed,

Then long I watched, alert, clear-eyed.

No sleeper stirred behind me there...

Yet then of some one at my side

I grew aware.

I stared: for he stood there, though dead,

Yet looking, that seemed nothing strange;

About his form there was no change

To see within that little light.

"'Tis I. And yet you heard no tread.

A careless watch you keep to-night,"

He laughing said.

His voice no huskier had grown,

Then while I watched, he sat and told

Me of his love just as of old.

"Give this to her," I heard him say.

I looked, and found I was alone.

Within my hand the locket lay

Cold as a stone.

I have it here to prove he lies

Who says that sleeping I was found.

I fear not though you guard me round.

Night's shadow up the hillside creeps,

But I can watch the lighted skies,

Although the sentinel that sleeps

The next dawn dies.

Sources:  Discover War Poets via X and Facebook, Find my Past, Wikipedia,  https://allpoetry.com/Harley-Matthews and https://warpoets.org.uk/worldwar1/poets-and-poetry/harley-matthews/

Edward Owen Rutter (1889 –1944) - Historian, poet, novelist and travel writer.

 

 

Edward Owen Rutter was born on 7th November 1889, apparently in New York, United States of America. He went to live in the United Kingdom at an early age 

Educated at St Paul's School, London, Edward went on to serve with the North Borneo Civil Service from 1910 to 1915, Edward returned to Britain during The First World War and was commissione and served with the 7th Battalion of the Wiltshire Regiment in France and on the Salonika Front. He edited “The Balkan News” which included – using the pen name "Klip-Klip" - his parody of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's “The Song of Hiawatha” in serial form. Entitled “The Song of Tiadatha” it has been described as "one of the masterpieces of Great War verse".  Later, when published as a book, “Tiadatha” ("Tired Arthur") was the story of a naive, privileged young man who matures through his war experiences, particularly on the Macedonian front fighting against the Bulgarians, and including the Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917. This volume was followed by “Travels of Tiadatha” (1922).

Accompanied by his wife – Dorothy Janet, nee Younger, who also took many of the photographs for his books - Edward travelled around the world, making extended stops in Borneo, Hong Kong, Taiwan (then known as Formosa), Japan, Canada and the United States among other places.

From 1933, Edward was a partner in the Golden Cockerel Press. During the Second World War, Major Rutter worked for the Ministry of Information writing a number of booklets covering the British war effort.

Edward was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and of the Royal Anthropological Institute and a member of the Athenaeum Club, London.  

Edward Owen Rutter died on 2nd August 1944. 

From “THE SONG OF TIADATHA”

CHAPTER I

THE JOINING OF TIADATHA

Should you question, should you ask me

Whence this song of Tiadatha?

Who on earth was Tiadatha?

I should answer, I should tell you,

He was what we call a filbert,

Youth of two and twenty summers.

You could see him any morning

In July of 1914,

Strolling slowly down St. James’s

From his comfy flat in Duke Street.

Little recked he of in those days,

Save of socks and ties and hair-wash,

Girls and motor-cars and suppers;

Little suppers at the Carlton,

Little teas at Rumpelmeyer’s,

Little week-ends down at Skindle’s;

Troc and Cri and Murray’s knew him,

And the Piccadilly grill-room,

And he used to dance at Ciro’s

With the fairies from the chorus.

There were many Tired Arthurs

In July of 1914.

Then came war, and Tiadatha

Read his papers every morning,

Read the posters on the hoardings,

Read “Your King and Country want you.”

“I must go,” said Tiadatha,

Toying with his devilled kidneys,

“Do my bit and join the Army.”

So he hunted up a great-aunt,

Who knew someone in the Service,

Found himself in time gazetted

To a temporary commission

In the 14th Royal Dudshires.

Straightway Tiadatha hied him

To the shop of Bope and Pradley,

Having seen their thrilling adverts.

In the Tube and in the Tatler.

Pradley sold him all he needed,

Bope a lot of things he didn’t,

Pressed upon him socks and puttees,

Haversacks and water-bottles.

Made him tunics for the winter,

Made him tunics for the summer,

And some very baggy breeches.

There he chose his cap of khaki,

Very light and very floppy

(Rather like a tam-o’-shanter),

And a supple chestnut Sam Browne,

Quite a pleasant thing in Sam Brownes,

Rather new but very supple.

Many pounds spent Tiadatha

On valises, baths and camp beds,

Spent on wash-hand stands and kit bags.

Macs and British warms and great-coats,

And a gent’s complete revolver.

Then he went to Piccadilly,

Mr. Wing, of Piccadilly,

Where he ordered ties and shirtings,

Cream and coffee ties and shirtings,

Ordered socks and underclothing,

Putting down the lot to Father.

Compass, torch and boots and glasses

All of these sought Tiadatha;

All day boys with loads were streaming

To and from the flat in Duke Street,

Like a chain of ants hard at it

Storing rations for the winter.

“One thing more,” cried Tiadatha,

“One thing more ere I am perfect.

I must have a sword to carry

In a jolly leather scabbard.”

So he called the son of Wilkin,

Wilkin’s son who dwelt in Pall Mall,

Bade him make a sword and scabbard.

And the mighty son of Wilkin

Made a sword for Tiadatha,

From the truest steel he made it,

Slim and slender as a maiden,

Sharper than a safety razor,

Sighed a little as he made it,

Knowing well that Tiadatha

Probably would never use it.

Then at last my Tiadatha

Sallied forth to join the Dudshires,

Dressed in khaki, quite a soldier,

Floppy cap and baggy breeches,

Round his waist the supple Sam Browne,

At his side the sword and scabbard,

Took salutes from private soldiers

And saluted Sergeant-Majors

(Who were very much embarrassed),

And reported at Headquarters

Of the 14th Royal Dudshires.

Shady waters of a river,

Feels when by some turn of fortune

He gets plopped into a cistern

At a comic dime museum,

Finds himself among strange fishes,

Finds his happy freedom vanished,

Even so felt Tiadatha

On the day he joined the Dudshires.

But he pulled himself together,

Found the Adjutant, saluted,

Saying briefly, “Please I’ve come, sir.”

Such was Tiadatha’s joining.

Sources:  Wikipedia, Find my past and Project Gutenberg

https://www.google.com/search?q=where+was+the+poet+Edward+Owen+Rutter+born%3F&rlz=1C1CHBD_en-GBGB794GB794&oq=where+was+the+poet+Edward+Owen+Rutter+born%3F&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i512i546j0i751j0i512i546j0i751j0i512i546.8640j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

“The Song of Tiadatha” is available to read on Project Gutenberg

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/67937/67937-h/67937-h.htm

Jack Girling (?1898 - ?1916) – soldier poet

Found by Stephen Cribari 

Stephen contacted me recently with the following information:

The following is from Seldon & Walsh, "Public Schools and The Great War - a generation lost" at 126-127 (Pen & Sword Military, 2013):

Jack Girling took pride in being both an athlete and a scholar at Wellington College.  He played rugby for the 1st XV, wrote poetry and won a scholarship to Corpus Christi College, Oxford University. Jack was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant into the Hampshire Regiment and in 1916, at the age of 18, arrived on the Somme on the Western Front in France.

Jack took with him to France his rugby colours scarf and pinned it above his bed, as it reminded him of happier and more secure times.  Its image prompted him to write a short poem, “School Colours”, while in his dugout near Lesboeufs, waiting to go over the top.  It is easy to ridicule it as jejune and sentimental, but the truth of what he felt shines through the lines:

It hangs before me on a nail

For when I gaze on you above

I see dear Wellington again;

And in the mud and drifting rain

In fancy play the game I love.

(from “J. Girling, poems” published by his father for private circulation, quoted in P. Mileham, Wellington College, 2008, p. 75.)

Jack led his platoon over the top in an attack on 23rd October. Their mission was unclear and he was shot clean through the chest.  His grieving father consoled himself by collecting his poems and publishing them for private circulation, writing in the preface that, 'His friends will pardon any immaturity for the sake of the boy that they knew and loved.'"

Original source: Information received from Stephen Cribari

Additional sources:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2230352/Pupils-enact-horror-Somme-tribute-pupils-killed-trenches-World-War-One.html

Somme-tribute-pupils-killed-trenches-World-War-One.html

https://viewer.joomag.com/wellington-college-yearbook-2010-2011/0480860001381163132/p6

If anyone has any definite information about Jack Girling and a photograph please get in touch.

Walter Butler Palmer (1868 - 1932) - American Poet

With thanks to Hazel Basford who found this poem typed on a folded sheet of paper and dropped at the Lochnagar Crater on the morning of 24th June 2025.  

Hazel posted a photo of the poem on the Lochnagar Crater. Official Page on Facebook

Walter was born on 22nd June 1868 Prairie Center, LaSalle County, Illinois, USA. His parents were Ephraim Milo Palmer and Sarah Henderson Butler. Walter married Irena B. Lardin on 25th September 1889. A year and a half later, Irena died in May 1891. Walter married his second wife, Mary Frances White, on 11th December 1894 in Chicago, Illinois. They were the parents of two children:  Burton White Palmer and Margaret Allison Palmer.

Walter was a family historian, breeder of trotting and show horses, and an accomplished poet. He wrote the poem "Dear Ancestor" in 1906 while he was visiting the grave of his great grandfather, Ephraim Palmer (1760-1852).

Sources: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/87759950/walter-butler-palmer

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/87759950/walter-butler-palmer

John Hay Maitland HARDYMAN, DSO, MC, FZS (1894 – 1918) - British

J

John was born in Bath on 28th September 1894.  He was the eldest son of Dr. George H. Perrymead Hardyman, a medical practitioner, and his wife Eglantine Henrietta Keith, nee Maitland, who were both originally from Scotland.   John’s siblings were: Constance Christian Beatrice Beath, b. 1893, Malcolm, b. 1896, Myrtle Rothes Eglantine, b. 1899, Harry Frederick Ralph, b. 1900 and George Hugh Murray, b. 1903.

Educated at Hamilton House School in Bath, then Fettes College, Edinburgh University in Edinburgh, John joined Prince Albert’s (The Somerset Light Infantry) Regiment on 19th August 1914.   He joined the Royal Flying Corps as a pupil pilot at Brooklands in December 1914, but after two accidents in the air, he re-joined his Regiment in January 1915 and was promoted to the rank of Second Lieutenant on 23rd February 1915.  

On 19th November 1916, John was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant and on 12th April 1917 to the rank of Major.  On 13th April 1917, he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, thus becoming the youngest Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army at that time.  He was twice Mentioned in Despatches by Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig.

John was killed on 24th August 1918 and was buried in Bienvillers Military Cemetery, Pas de Calais, France, Grave Reference: XIX.F.11.

"From a Base Hospital in France" by John Hay Maitland Hardyman

Christ I am blind! God give me strength to bear

That which I most have dreaded all my days:

The palsied shuffling grasping air,

The moving prison five foot square

The haunting step that isn’t there –

These pictures dance before my sightless gaze …

Sources:  “Poetry of the First World War” edited by Marcus Clapham  Pp 85 and 167

Catherine W. Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St, Martin’s Press, New York, 1978); De Ruvigny’s Roll of Honour, 1914 – 1919, Find my Past

Photograph from https://opusculum.wordpress.com/2018/08/24/lieutenant-colonel-john-hay-maitland-hardyman-somerset-light-infantry/

John’s First World War poetry collection, “A Challenge”, originally published by Allen & Unwin, London in 1919, is available to read as a free download: http://www.archive.org/stream/challenge00hard#page/n11/mode/2up

In the Foreword we read: 

"... a world out of which the standard he aimed at and the goal he was like seem to have vanished amid the chaos of dissolution on the one hand, and the madness of ill-conceived avarice on the other."

Page 6 of "A Challenger by Maitland Hardyman, Foreword by Norman Hugh Romanes, page 6. (Published by George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., London, 1919).

Frank Stuart Flint (1885 – 1960) – British poet

Frank Stuart Flint was born on 19th December 1885 in Barnsbury, Islington, North London, UK.  His parents were William T. Flint and his wife Harriett A Flint. Frank left school when he was 13 and began work.  

On the 1901 Census Frank is listed as being “a lad in a belt warehouse’.  In 1904, he began his long and distinguished career in the Civil Service, and in 1908 he published a book about French poets.  By 1910, his intensive private study had gained him recognition as one of Britain's most highly informed authorities on modern French poetry. His first collection of poems was “In the Net of the Stars”  published in 1909.

F.S. Flint is mostly known for his participation in the "School of Images" with Ezra Pound and T. E. Hulme in 1909, about which he gave an account in the "Poetry Review" in 1909, and which was to serve as the theoretical basis for the later Imagist movement (1913). His subsequent association with Ezra Pound and T. E. Hulme, together with his deepening knowledge of innovative French poetic techniques, radically affected his own poetry's development.

Although F.S. Flint did not serve in the First World War, he did write a poem about soldiers in the war - see below. After the war he became a high-ranking official in the Ministry of Labour. As a poet and translator he was a prominent member of the Imagist group. Ford Madox Ford called him "one of the greatest men and one of the beautiful spirits of the country".

With the exception of some short works arising from his activities as a civil servant, Frank ceased writing for publication in the early 1930s.

“ Lament”

The young men of the world

Are condemned to death.

They have been called up to die

For the crime of their fathers.

The young men of the world,

The growing, the ripening fruit,

Have been torn from their branches,

While the memory of the blossom

Is sweet in women's hearts;

They have been cast for a cruel purpose

Into the mashing-press and furnace.

The young men of the world

Look into each other's eyes,

And read there the same words:

Not yet! Not yet!

But soon perhaps, and perhaps certain.

The young men of the world

No longer possess the road:

The road possesses them.

They no longer inherit the earth:

The earth inherits them.

They are no longer the masters of fire:

Fire is their master;

They serve him, he destroys them.

They no longer rule the waters:

The genius of the seas

Has invented a new monster,

And they fly from its teeth.

They no longer breathe freely:

The genius of the air

Has contrived a new terror

That rends them into pieces.

The young men of the world

Are encompassed with death

He is all about them

In a circle of fore and bayonets.

Weep, weep, o women,

And old men break your hearts.

“In the Net of the Stars” , BiblioBazaar (Jun 2009) ISBN 978-1-110-85842-2

Cadences, Poetry Bookshop. London, 1915

Sources: “Poetry of the First World War” edited by Marcus Clapham Pp. 58 and 265.

Wikipedia, Find my Past.

Poem and photograph from https://allpoetry.com/poem/8585373-Lament-by-F-S-Flint