In 1902, John married Gertrude Frances Farren. In 1911 he was working as an insurance clerk and the family lived in Penge. John and Gertrude had two daughters, Lucy and Catherine.
During the First World War, John saw action on the Western Front, fighting at Messines and Passchendaele.
John was awarded the Hawthornden Prize in 1920 for “Poems new and old” (Selwyn & Blount, London, 1920). He died in Anerley on 23rd September 1929.
John Frederick Freeman’s WW1 poetry collections were:
“Presage of Victory and other poems of the time” Selwyn & Blount, London, 1916
“Stone trees and other poems” Selwyn & Blount, 1916
“Collected Poems” published in 1928 by Macmillan.
And his poems were published in 22 WW1 poetry anthologies.
“Last Hours” (which was set to music by poet, musician and composer Ivor Gurney - 1890 - 1937)
A gray day and quiet,
With slow clouds of gray,
And in dull air a cloud that falls, falls
All day.
The naked and stiff branches
Of oak, elm, thorn,
In the cold light are like men aged and
Forlorn.
Only a gray sky,
Grass, trees, grass again,
And all the air a cloud that drips, drips,
All day.
Lovely the lonely
Bare trees and green grass--
Lovelier now the last hours of slow winter
Slowly pass.
The Hawthornden Prize was set up in 1919 by Alice Warrender to be awarded to authors under the age of 41 for ‘imaginative literature’ – poetry or prose.
