With grateful thanks to Historian Debbie Cameron for finding the poet known as Percy Haselden in 2014 and to Linda Michelini* for her 2023 response to my original request posted on the Fascinating Facts weblog in 2014 for information regarding the poet.
Born Percy Haselden Evans in Liscard on the Wirral Peninsula, England on 5th December 1886, Percy was baptised on 27th March 1887. Percy’s parents were William Parry Evans, a cotton broker, and his wife, Matilda, nee Haselden, who were married in 1884.
Linda tells us that Percy was educated at Denstone College in Staffordshire. According to the college magazine ”The Denstonian”, he wrote using the name Percy Haselden.
It seems Percy may possibly have served during the First World War with the Cheshire Regiment. However in 1918 he registered as a teacher with The Teachers' Registration Council Registers 1914-1948 and is listed as having first worked as a teacher in 1909.
According to the “London Gazette” on 21st August 1919, Percy dropped the use of Evans and officially became known by Deed Poll as Percy Haselden. However, when he married Rose Phyllis Sutcliffe in 1921 in Essex, Percy still used the surname Evans. On the 1921 Census we find Percy Haselden Evans and his wife Rose Phyllis living in Brentwood, Essex. Percy was listed as an art teacher. Their son, Roger was born in Essex in 1937 – the birth being registered in March.
On the1939 Census, Phyllis was listed living in Kingsbridge, Devon with some of her family members and Roger. Phyllis was described as “Married” but, at that time, Percy was still in Billericay and described himself on the 1939 Census as “Assistant School Master (Art Master) (Travelling).
If anyone has any definite information and a photograph of Percy please get in touch.
"Searchlights on the Mersey" by Percy Haselden
A LONG lean bar of silver spans
The ebon-rippled water-way,
And like a lost moon's errant ray
Strikes on the passing caravans.
Ghost ships that from the desert seas
Loom silent through the steady beams,
Pale phantoms of elusive dreams
Cargoed with ancient memories.
Through the long night, across the cool
Black waters to their shrouded berth;
Bearing the treasures of the earth
Glide the fair ships to Liverpool.
DEVON MEN by Percy Haselden
From Bideford to Appledore the meadows lie aglow
With kingcup and buttercup that flout the summer snow;
And crooked-back and silver-head shall mow the grass to-day,
And lasses turn and toss it till it ripen into hay;
For gone are all the careless youth did reap the land of yore,
The lithe men and long men,
The brown men and strong men,
The men that hie from Bideford and ruddy Appledore.
From Bideford and Appledore they swept the sea of old
With cross-bow and falconet to tap the Spaniard's gold;
They sped away with dauntless Drake to traffic on the Main,
To trick the drowsy galleon and loot the treasure train ;
For fearless were the gallant hands that pulled the sweeping oar,
The strong men, the free men,
The bold men, the seamen,
The men that sailed from Bideford and ruddy Appledore.
From Bideford and Appledore in craft of subtle gray
Are strong hearts and steady hearts to keep the sea to-day ;
So well may fare the garden where the cider-apples bloom
And summer weaves her colour-threads upon a golden loom;
For ready are the tawny hands that guard the Devon shore,
The cool men, the bluff men,
The keen men, the tough men,
The men that hie from Bideford and ruddy Appledore !
PERCY HASELDON
Reprinted by special permission of London "Punch" Magazine in “The Great War in Verse and Prose” edited by James Elgin Wetherell, (Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Toronto, Printed and Published by A. T. Wilgress, 1919.)
*Linda Woodfine Michelini is one of the researchers for the Liverpool Pals in the First World War. To find out more about the Liverpool Pals and read some of their very interesting stories, please visit their website http://liverpoolpals.com
Sources: Find my Past, Free BMD,
https://allpoetry.com/Searchlights-on-the-Mersey#:~:text=Searchlights%20on%20the,ships%20to%20Liverpool.
https://search.findmypast.co.uk/record?id=GBOR%2FLONDON-GAZETTE%2F1929%2F08-27_33529_0055&parentid=GBOR%2FLONDON-GAZ%2F%2F05940701
http://www.worldwar1schoolarchives.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/1915_121.pdf
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46427/46427.txt
https://archive.org/stream/greatwarinversea00wethuoft/greatwarinversea00wethuoft_djvu.txt
