Neil Munro (1863 - 1930) - Scottish WW1 Writer, Poet, newspaper Editor and War Correspondent

Neil Munro by
William Strang RA

Neil Munro was born in Inveraray, Stornoway, Ross & Cromarty, Scotland on 3rd June 1863.  He became a journalist, newspaper editor, poet, author and literary critic.  He married Jessie E. Adam and they lived in Busby, Renfrewshire, Scotland. They had five children.  At the outbreak of war in August 1914, Neil commented in verse:

       “Come awa, Jock, and cock your bonnet,

Swing your kilt as best ye can;

Audl Dumbarton’s Drums are dirlin’

         Come awa, Jock, and kill your man.”

Neil Munro as official
war correspondent, WW1

In his capacity as an official war correspondent, Neil visited the Western Front several times in 1914 and 1917.  The war touched him personally when his elder son, Hugh Adam Munro – a Captain in the 1st/8th battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders – was killed in France on active service on 22nd September 1915. Neil then concentrated on journalism again, but his work was affected by his poor health and the death of his son.

Neil died on 22nd December 1930.

Neil Munro’s WW1 poems were published by William Blackwood and Sons Ltd., Edinburgh in 1931, with the title “Poetry by Neil Munro” – with a preface by John Buchan. 

Some of Neil Munro’s poems were also published in 12 WW1 anthologies, among them:

Clarke, George Herbert 1873-1953 .- “ A Treasury of war poetry: British and American poems of the World War, 1914 – 1919.”  With intro. And notes. Second series. Houghton Mifflin, Boston (Mass.) 1919, which is available to read as a free download on Archive:

https://archive.org/stream/s2treasuryofwar00claruoft/s2treasuryofwar00claruoft_djvu.txt

NEIL MUNRO:  “Pipes  in  Arras” pp. 27 - 28

PIPES IN ARRAS  (APRIL 1917) 

IN the burgh toun of Arras 

When gloaming had come on, 

Fifty pipers played Retreat 

As if they had been one, 

And the Grande Place of Arras 

Hummed with the Highland drone! 

Then to the ravaged burgh, 

Champed into dust and sand, 

Came with the pipers' playing, 

Out of their own loved land, 

Sea-sounds that moan for sorrow 

On a dispeopled strand. 

There are in France no voices 

To speak of simple things, 

And tell how winds will whistle 

Through palaces of kings; 

Now came the truth to Arras 

In the chanter's warblings: 

“O build in pride your towers, 

But think not they will last; 

The tall tower and the shealing 

Alike must meet the blast, 

And the world is strewn with shingle 

From  dwellings of the past." 

But  to  the  Grande  Place,  Arras, 

Came,  too,  the  hum  of  bees, 

That  suck  the  sea-pink's  sweetness 

From  isles  of  the  Hebrides, 

And  in  lona  fashion 

Homes  mid  old  effigies: 

"Our  cells  the  monks  demolished 

To  make  their  mead  of  yore, 

And  still  though  we  be  ravished 

Each  Autumn  of  our  store, 

While  the  sun  lasts,  and  the  flower, 

Tireless  we'll  gather  more." 

Up  then  and  spake  with  twitt'rings 

Out  of  the  chanter  reed,  ^ 

Birds  that  each  Spring  to  Appin, 

Over  the  oceans  speed, 

And  in  its  ruined  castles 

Make  love  again  and  breed: 

"Already  see  our  brothers 

Build  in  the  tottering  fane! 

Though  France  should  be  a  desert, 

While  love  and  Spring  remain, 

Men  will  come  back  to  Arras, 

And  build  and  weave  again.'* 

So  played  the  pipes  in  Arras 

Their  Gaelic  symphony, 

Sweet  with  old  wisdom  gathered 

In  isles  of  the  Highland  sea, 

And  eastward  towards  Cambrai, 

Roared  the  artillery. 

Neil  Munro

Sources:  Wiki[pedia, Find my Past, FreeBMD,

Catherine W. Reilly.- “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin, Press, New York, 1978). P. 232, 

Clarke, George Herbert 1873-1953 .- “ A Treasury of war poetry: British and American poems of the World War, 1914 – 1919.”  With intro. And notes. Second series. Houghton Mifflin, Boston (Mass.) 1919.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world-war-1/466382/Scotland-the-brave-Tough-kilties-battled-for-Britain-in-WWI

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poet/neil-munro/

http://www.inverclydeww1.org/honour-roll/hugh-adam-munro

Pastel Portrait of Neil Munro by William Strang RA (13 February 1859 – 12 April 1921) - a Scottish painter and printmaker who illustrated the works of Bunyan, Coleridge and Kipling.

Arthur Keedwell Harvey James (1875 – 1917) – British actor, soldier poet, Freemason and writer who took the stage/pen name Arthur Scott Craven

I have not been able to find much definite information about Arthur, although there is an interesting account of her early life written by his daughter who was born in 1906 and also became a writer. 

According to my extensive research, Arthur Keedwell Harvey James was born in 1875. His parents were Stephen and Sarah Harvey James.  Arthur was educated at Shrewsbury School in Shropshire, leaving In 1888. Arthur became an actor, adopting the stage name Arthur Scott-Craven, and starring in 'Ivanhoe'.  He wrote a number of books, poems and plays.

He was a Freemason – a member of the Drury Lane Lodge.

Arthur Married Meliora Louisa Harvey-James, née Milner, 1875-1944. – their son Basil Milner Keedwell James was born on 24th December 1904 and a daughter, Olive, was born in 1906. Arthur and Louisa separated at some point in 1912.

Within two days of the start of the First World War in August 1914, by which time he was nearly forty years old, Arthur applied for a commission in the Army. He wrote to all his friends urging them enlist. His application was rejected on health grounds, but he made his way down to the headquarters of The Artists Rifles and stood for the most part of two days in the queue that gathered at its doors, eager to enrol, before he was enlisted.

In November 1914, Arthur was commissioned into the 1st Bn. The Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment). He was speedily promoted to be a Temporary Captain, commanding a company. In spite of being given a series of staff jobs he volunteered for front line service and was killed on 15th April 1917. Mentioned in Despatches, Arthur was buried in ST. PATRICK'S CEMETERY, LOOS Cemetery/memorial – Grave reference: III. A. 6.  He is also remembered on the WW1 memorial in St Just Cornwall and in The Buffs (East Kent) Regiment - First World War Book Of Remembrance (WMR 40979), Canterbury, Kent, UK.

Arthur’s friend, fellow actor, Freemason, WW1 soldier poet and writer Robert  Henderson-Bland (1876 – 1941)  wrote a poem about his friend Arthur after his death in combat in 1917.

https://forgottenpoetsofww1.blogspot.com/2024/01/robert-henderson-bland-1876-1941.html

Works by Arthur Keedwell Harvey James - Arthur Scott Craven:

The Last of the English (1910) A play in four acts

The Fool's Tragedy (1913) A novel

Poetry:

Poems in Divers Keys (1904)

Joe Skinner, or, The man with the sneer (1907)

Alarums and Excursions (1910)

"ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS " BY ARTHUR SCOTT CRAVEN

In memory of the third of August MCMX (LONDON, ELKIN MATHEWS, VIGO STREET, W. MCMX)

AUTHOR'S NOTE

As the original editions of " Poems in Divers Keys "and " Joe Skinner " are now exhausted, I have made a selection here of some of those poems which appearedin the first volume. "Joe Skinner " reappears in extenso.

On a previous occasion I expressed my acknowledgments to the proprietors and editors of those papers by whose courtesy I was permitted to re-publish several of the shorter pieces. The present volume contains considerable matter now published for the first time, including " Fudge " and " Mukerji Lal," both in a light vein.

ARTHUR SCOTT CRAVEN. August, 1910.

Some of his poems:

“A Fragment”

IN Life's meridian could we hold

The sun, like Joshua of old -

To keep in check advancing night,

And change our fortune in the fight.

Or could we bid the moon abide

To suit our circumstance and tide -

Had we the power,

Or I, or you

(Who dream away this pregnant hour),

What things we'd do !

Page 31 

"The Call to Arms "

Hodge Loquitur

"TAINT no sort o' use denyin'

There's a summat about dyin'

To the sound o' bugle calls,

An' the thud o' cannon balls ,

An' the whiz o' bullets flyin' ,

An' the rumble o' guns firin'

Wot's consid’rable inspirin'

Tothe man as stays behind.

Yus, it's fine an' fair excitin' ,

An' a thing I takes delight in :

Just the thought o' beggars fightin'

Makes me tingle through and through !

It's the martial instinct brewin',

An' it kinder needs subjuin' ,

So my wery best I'm doin'

All sich feelin's to subjoo.

I'm a chap o' brawn an' muscle,

An' it's 'ard to ' ave to tussle

' Gin these bulldog inclinations

When sich fever fires the blood,

But the thought o' my relations -

(In pertikler dear old mother) -

Makes me wishful fer to smother

All sich feelin's in the bud.

Still, there ain't no use denyin'

There's a summat about dyin'

To the rumble o' guns firin'

Wot's pertikler inspirin'.

Pp 33  - 34 

The Eternal Now

To dream of a gilded morrow shall we sleep through the golden day,

And steep for ever our senses in wishes and hopes and fears ?

E'en as we long and repine the hour hath glided away,

And added its wailing note to the dirge of the wasted years!

P. 38

Critique:

" Mr. Craven sings with equal ease in many tones-narrative,

reflective, dialect, the light song, the serious monologue ; the poet's

interest always centering in human joys and sorrows, and his note

clear, polished and musical. ”—The Times.

Sources: Free BMD, Find my Past, various other sites:

https://timenote.info/en/Arthur-Keedwell-Harvey-James

http://www.westwardhohistory.co.uk/memories/memories-by-olive-ordish/

There is also a very brief biographical note in the WW1 anthology “For remembrance: soldier poets who have fallen in the war” (1920) by A. St. John Adcock.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/For_remembrance:_soldier_poets_who_have_fallen_in_the_war/Chapter_3#73

Robert Henderson-Bland (1876 – 1941) – British actor, writer, Freemason and WW1 soldier poet

Born on 10th March 1876 in Croydon, Surrey, UK, Robert’s parents were William Charles Bland (1828 –1890), a clock manufacturer and church bell founder, and his wife, Frances Maria, nee Baker (1838 - 1910).

Robert’s siblings were: Rosetta (b.1861 d.1942), Clara Elizabeth (b.1864 d.1935), Charles Edward Evans (b.1866 d.1938), Spencer William (b.1872 d.1945), Percy Richard (b.1874 d.1917) and Leopold Grosvenor Bland (b.1877 d.1947).

Robert became an actor and worked with Sir Herbert Beerbohm-Tree during the great days of Her Majesty's Theatre in London.  He accompanied Lily Langtry on her tour of South Africa, and acted with American actress Mrs. Brown Potter.

In 1910, Robert married Maud Hyde in St. George’s, Hannover Square, London, UK. 

Away acting in America when the First World War broke out, Robert, who was a Freemason, returned to England and enlisted in the Gloucester Regiment, serving as a Captain.  Posted to the Western Front in July 1916, Robert was wounded in April 1918.

Robert Henderson-Bland, WW1
portrait in oil by Robert Hampton

Robert wrote the following poem after the death of his friend and fellow soldier, poet, writer, actor and Freemason, Arthur Scott-Craven - stage and pen name of Arthur Keedwell Harvey James (1875 – 1917) - to whom Robert dedicated a volume of his poetry published in June 1917:

‘O all my youth came singing back to me

When first I learnt that you were dead, my friend.

What of the years when you and I did see

In life a splendour daily spilt to mend

Our souls grown tired of trivial delights?

Not lost to you the glimpses of the heights,

For you went gladly where the worst is surely best.’

Robert acted in films between 1912 and 1921. He was killed during the Blitz in August 1941.

The Blitz was a German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom, in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War. The term was first used by the British press and originated from the term Blitzkrieg - the German word meaning 'lightning war'.

Films in which Robert acted: 

From the Manger to the Cross (1912)

Mr. Gilfil's Love Story (1920)

General Post (1920)

A Cigarette-Maker's Romance (1920)

The Wife whom God Forgot (1920)

Gwyneth of the Welsh Hills (1921)

Another of Robert’s poems:

Ramparts Cemetery Lille Gate, Ypres
CWGC 

THE RAMPARTS CEMETRY (LILLE GATE) YPRES

               (Night of June 4th, 1933)            

           Calm and lovely is the night,

              And the graves are lovely too:

           The moon rides high as if it rode

              With deep intent to strew

           Its beams upon the water

              Where peace is born anew.

    It is well with you, my brothers, it is well

       Sleeping in the shadows of this immortal place

    That saw your comrades pass, and pass again,

       And was the silent witness of their grace,

               And all their holy pain.

    (Printed in "The Ypres Times")

Sources: Wikipedia, Find my Past, Free BMD, CWGC website,

https://www.delahyde.com/joan/index.html?https://www.delahyde.com/joan/pagesj/cross.html

Information supplied by Antony R. Crofts - Professor of Biophysics & Computational Biology at the University of Illinois, a grandson of Spencer William Bland - and Richard Bland, who runs a company selling farm machinery in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England and is a grandson of Percy Richard Bland, who was killed in WW1 in the Battle of the Somme.

“Actor-sioldier-poet: (autobiography) with an appreciation by General Sir Herbert Gough. (Heath, Cranton, 1939). Includes “A Sheaf of poems” - Catherine W. Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978) p. 166