Coningsby Dawson (1883 - 1959) - British-born Poet and Writer

William Coningsby Dawson was born in High Wycombe, England, on 26th February 1883.  After graduating from Oxford University, he went to America to study theology at Union College in Schenectady, NY.

Coningsby’s family moved to America, settling in Newark, New Jersey.  Summer holidays were spent on the family fruit ranch in British Columbia, Canada.

Commissioned into the Royal Canadian Field Artillery, Coningsby was posted to France in September 1916, during the height of the Somme Offensive.   January 1917 brought some well-earned leave with his family in London, after which Coningsby returned to the front lines.  He was badly wounded during the fight for Lens in June 1917 and almost lost an arm. He returned to Britain for treatment and that was followed by some home leave convalescing  in America and Canada, during which time he wrote about his war-time experiences and had his work published.  Coningsby returned to his Regiment in France at the end of October 1917.

After the war, Coningsby returned to Britain on behalf of the American Government, in order to report back on the problems involved in rebuilding war-torn Europe,  reporting and lecturing on what he saw.

Coningsby died in 1959.

“The Glory of the Trenches” by Coningsby Dawson with an introduction by his father, W.J. Dawson, was published in 1918 by John Lane, New York.

“To You at Home” by Coningsbuy Dawson

Each night we panted till the runners came,
Bearing your letters through the battle-smoke.
Their path lay up Death Valley spouting flame,
Across the ridge where the Hun's anger spoke
In bursting shells and cataracts of pain;
Then down the road where no one goes by day,
And so into the tortured, pockmarked plain
Where dead men clasp their wounds and point the way.
Here gas lurks treacherously and the wire
Of old defences tangles up the feet;
Faces and hands strain upward through the mire,
Speaking the anguish of the Hun's retreat.
Sometimes no letters came; the evening hate
Dragged on till dawn. The ridge in flying spray
Of hissing shrapnel told the runners' fate
We knew we should not hear from you that day —
From you, who from the trenches of the mind
Hurl back despair, smiling with sobbing breath,
Writing your souls on paper to be kind,
That you for us may take the sting from Death.

The book can be downloaded free from Project Gutenberg:

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7515/7515-h/7515-h.htm

Photograph of Coningsby Dawson by Waters, Newark, New Jersey during WW1

Frank Prewett (1893 - 1962) - Canadian-born WW1 soldier poet

Frank was born on 24th February 1893 on his grandfather’s farm in Ontario, Canada, where he grew up.

Studying at the University of Toronto when war broke out, Frank enlisted in the Canadian Army as a Private and was posted to the Western Front.  He was commissioned as an officer into the British Army, joining the Royal Horse Artillery.  He served on the Western Front during the Battle of Passchendaele and was severely shell-shocked when a shell burst near him. 

Frank was sent back to Britain for treatment at Lennell House in Berwickshire, where he met Siegfried Sassoon.  After repatriation to Canada, Frank returned to Britain and made his home there.

With Siegfried’s help, Frank had some of his poetry published – “The Rural Scene” was published in 1924.

Frank Prewett was included in the exhibition of Poets of Arras, Messines, Passchendaele & MOre, 1917" which was held at The Wilfred Owen Story in Birkenhead, Wirral, UK in 2017.  The photograph is of David Youngs, a relative of Frank Prewett, holding a copy of Frank's exhibition panel.

“Card Game” by Frank Prewett

Hearing the whine and crash
We hastened out
And found a few poor men
Lying about.

I put my hand in the breast
Of the first met.
His heart thumped, stopped, and I drew
My hand out wet.

Another, he seemed a boy,
Rolled in the mud
Screaming, "my legs, my legs,"
And he poured out his blood.

We bandaged the rest
And went in,
And started again at our cards
Where we had been.

Thomas Forrest Craig (1879 - 1918) - British soldier poet

Thomas Forrest Craig (1879 - 1918) – British soldier poet - Royal Army Medical Corps WW1 wounded died 2nd February 1918

Thomas was born on 24th February 1879 in Kelso, Roxburghshire, Scotland.  His parents were The Reverend Alexander McRae Craig, a Church Minister, and his wife, Margaret Craig.  Thomas had the following siblings:  Elizabeth I, b. 1871, Marion M., b. 1873, Maggie G., b. 1875, William, b. 1877, Hester, b. 1878, Eleonora, b. 1881, John, b. 1884, Alice Agnes B., b. 1886 and Archibald C., b. 1889.

Educated at Kelso High School and Edinburgh University, Thomas studied chemistry and qualified as a chemist. He began studying medicine in 1905, qualified and was in practice at St. John’s Tron, Ayrshire when war broke out.   He volunteered to join the Royal Army Medical Corps and was commissioned as a Captain in July 1915.  Posted initially to Malta, in 1917 Thomas was sent to Alexandria, Egypt .

Thomas was wounded while tending a wounded fellow officer at Beit Ur El Tahta.  Appearing to recover sufficiently to be sent back to Britain, Thomas was travelling home on a Hospital Ship but died on the way.  He is remembered on Chatby Memorial in Alexandria, El Eskenderiya, Egypt
MEMORIAL ID 14695887  several women of WW1 )

Thomas’s WW1 poetry collection “Poems” (Tingling, Liverpool, 1919) was published posthumously by his family.

Sources:
Catherine Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978),  p. 98
Find my Past

Hugo Ball (1886 - 1927) - German author, poet and founder of the Dada Movement

Hugo Ball was born in Pirmasens, Germany on 22nd February 1886. He went to University in Munich and Heidelberg, where he studied sociology and philosophy.  Aspiring to be an actor, Hugo moved to Berlin in 1910, where he worked with Max Reinhardt, the theatre and film director.

When war broke out in 1914, Hugo volunteered to join the German Army but was turned down due to health issues. At the time, Hugo said:  "The war is founded on a glaring mistake, men have been confused with machines." Branded a traitor, he fled to Switzerland with the cabaret performer and poet Emmy Hennings.  They were married in 1920

In 1916, Hugo Ball created the Dada Manifesto.  He also wrote the poem "Karawane," around that time.

Hugo was one of the founders of the Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich and was the leader of the Dada movement in Zürich.  Emmy Hennings, was also a member of Dada. Dada, or Dadaism, was an art movement in Europe during the early 20th century, with centers in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire; New York Dada began in about 1915, and after 1920 Dada flourished in Paris.

Hugo died in Sant'Abbondio, Switzerland on 14th  September 1927.

His poem "Gadji beri bimba" was adapted for the song "I Zimbra" on the 1979 Talking Heads album “Fear of Music” and Hugo was credited as the lyric writer for the song on the track listing.

“Glanz um die Fahne”

Glanz um die Fahne!
Steh auf! Steh auf!
Trommler rufen und Hufschlag bellt
Lass den Sang und das Mekka der Nacht.
Alles ist lodern und hell.

Komm hervor aus den wehenden Schmerzen!
Schüttle die goldne Mähne.
Sei mir zerstückte Hyäne,
Schrei in der Brust und bronzener Aufstand.
Glühe durchs Land.
Blute und bete.

"Rally round the Flag"

Let us rally around the flag!
Arise! Arise!
Beat the drums and hear the beat of hoofs
Leave the songs and the temples of night.
Everything is blazing and bright.

Leave your aches and pains!
Shake those golden manes.
Be like a wounded hyena,
From deep within your chests howl
A bronze uprising.
Glow throughout all the country.
Shed your blood and pray.

Dada or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centers in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire; New York Dada began circa 1915, and after 1920 Dada flourished in Paris.

Photographs of Hugo Ball – portrait and reading his poem "Karawane", Club Voltaire, 1916 – photographers unknown.

Remembering the Members of the South African Labour Corps who lost their lives in the sinking of the S.S. "Mendi" on 21st February 1917

With many thanks to David Walker who has a Facebook page commemorating the South Africans who died in the First World War for bringing Samuel Mqhayi to my attention.

The Steam Ship 'Mendi' was on her way to France from South Africa carrying members of the South African Labour Corps. The "Mendi" collided in thick fog at 5 a.m. on the morning of 21st February 1917 with the Royal Mail Packet Company's cargo ship  SS “Darro'.  The 'Mendi', which was the smaller of the two ships, rapidly sank with the loss of the lives of 616 South Africans and 30 members of the ship’s crew.

The South African Native Labour Corps (SANLC) was a force of workers formed in 1916 in response to a British request for workers at French ports. About 25,000 South Africans joined the Corps.  Although members of the Corps did not fight, their contribution to the war effort was extremely important.  The photograph shows King George V inspecting members of the SANLC in France.

From a translation of the Poem “Sinking of the Mendi” by Samuel Edward Krune Mqhayi

Yes, this thing flows as a normal thing from that.
The thing we know is not scared of that;
We say, things have happened as they should have,
Within our brains we say: it should have been so;
If it hadn’t been so, nothing would have come right.
You see Sotase, things came right when the Mendi sank!
Our blood on that ship turned things around,
It served to make us known through the world!

See the rest of the poem here: https://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poem/item/13291/auto/SINKING-OF-THE-MENDI

Samuel Edward Krune Mqhayi was born on 1st December 1875 in Gqumashe in Alice, Transkei, Cape Province, South Africa.  His family were Christians.  Samuel, whose mother tongue was Xhosa, trained to become a teacher in Lovedale and worked on the translation of the Bible into Xhosa.  He also worked as a journalist on Xhosa newspapers, as well as publishing novels and poems. Nelson Mandela considered Samuel to be a poet Laureate of the African people and heard him recite his poetry.  Samuel died in 1945.

The Xhosa language is one of the official languages of South Africa and is a tonal language, written with a Latin alphabet. It is a ‘click’ language, the word ‘Xhosa’ starts with a click.
In the western world, the singer Miriam Makeba (Zenzile Miriam Makeba 1932 – 2008) made the Xhosa language famous when she released a recording of the song “Pata Pata” in 1957. “Pata Pata” (meaning ‘touch touch’ in English) was written by Dorothy Masuka.   Miriam’s “Click Song”, the name given to the song Qongqothwane (in English “knock-knock beetle), which is sung at weddings to bring good luck, is another example of a song in Xhosa. 

Here is a link to Samuel's poem about the sinking of the S.S. "Mendi" - a ship carrying members of the South African Labour Corps to the Western Front which sank off the Isle of Wight with great loss of life http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poem/item/13291/auto/SINKING-OF-THE-MENDI

Another of Samuel's poems can be seen here:
http://kaganof.com/kagablog/2007/10/03/sek-mqhayi-a-call-to-arms/#comment-3897998

Sources: https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/ss-mendi
`Xhosa Poets and Poetry” by Jeff Opland, published by David Philip Publishers (Pty.) Ltd., Clarement, South Africa in 1998
https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/commemoration_cult_of_the_fallen_union_of_south_africa

Walter E. Spradbery, DCM (1889 - 1969) - British Artist and Poet

With thanks to Historian Debbie Cameron for telling me about Walter and thanks to Walter’s cousin, Philip Spradbery, who has a lifelong passion for painting, who kindly supplied additional information and to Sergio Sbalchiero for finding paintings by Walter.

Walter Ermest Spradbery was born on 29th March 1889 in East Dulwich, London, UK. His parents were Joseph Spradbery and his wife Emily Spradbery, nee Feltham.  Walter had a brother, Charles V., b. 1879.  Walter studied at Walthamstow Art School, then worked as an art teacher. He regularly exhibited his work at the Royal Academy. His main artistic media were water colour, linocuts and poster design. Walter designed posters for London transport companies and for British Rail.

During the First World War, Walter, who was a pacifist, joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and served as a medical orderly and stretcher-bearer on the Western Front. He served with 36 Field Ambulance during the Somme Offensive in 1916 and was Mentioned in Despatches several times for bravery rescuing wounded men under fire.   He was awarded a Distinguished Conduct Medal.

On 11th November 1918, Walter wrote to his Mother:

"Hostilities ceased on all fronts at 11 o’clock today. Oh happy mothers, happy sweethearts, happy wives, whose loved ones will come safely back... and those lone souls who have lost their very own; today is too unkind to them - how can they face our joy? 'Peace on Earth, Goodwill towards men' - an unseen choir sings it in our breasts - prompting men to evolve a better world more worthy of our ideals and aspirations. Let us begin."

On 21st August 1929, Walter married opera singer Dorothy D’Orsay (maiden name Horsey) and the couple lived in Epping Forest.   They had two children. Walter died in Epping, Essex in 1969.

A biography of Walter Spradbery’s life and times, "My Dear Jim", has been compiled and published by his son, John Spradbery (Mail order from Elizabeth Spradbery: el.malet@gmail.com)

A poem by Walter Spradbery written in 1915 kindly supplied by his cousin, Philip Spradbery.

THE BALLAD OF BARNHAM COMMON

“Eyes Have They, But See Not”

The flowers that grow on Barnham’s plain
Are beautiful to see;
The bugloss and the speedwell’s blue
Fair as a summer’s sea,
Blue as a summer’s sky are they
As a child’s eyes may be:

And the tender little pansy’s
Uplifted cherub face,
With golden eye, and purple wings
And unpretentious grace,
Peeps shyly from amid the grass
In every shady place.

But wearily we drag our feet
Over the jeweled sods,
And discipline, it weighs us down
With the curse of an iron rod;
And ‘iron rods’ we carry
To kill the sons of God.

The cranebill’s starry floweret
Is scattered o’er the plain;
Its pale magenta blossoms
We trample in our pain,
And dully long for peace, and love
And our dear homes again.

With iron heels we tread them down,
We tread them in the sand;
We crush their beauty ’neath our feet
Too tired to understand
The ugly ruthless thing we do.
Now war is on the land.

The golden gorse, across the heath
Is a mass of yellow flame;
Its unconsuming fires praise
The Sun God’s glorious name.
But war it burns things black and dead,
And fills men’s hearts with shame.

And scarlet is the pimpernel
And bright the poppy’s red
But brighter still is the blood we’ll spill
Ere we ourselves are dead:
No flower so rich, in the deep dug ditch,
As the blood our guns may shed.

The grass is worn with the ceaseless tread
Of our marching to and fro,
And where we drill on the mossy hill
Great bare patches show;
For ’neath the heel of the War God’s foot
No fair thing may grow.

But time revenges the patient weak
Whom the Ruthless crush and kill,
And delicate things that droop and die,
Like the flowers on the grassy hill,
Will bloom again on another plain
Fairer and sweeter still.

The barren stretch of Flander’s plains
Is desolate and bare,
And the shriek of shell, and stench and smell
Float on the morning air
And splintered stumps are all that speak
Of what once blossomed there.

Yet the flowers our feet have trodden down
Will be born again,
And rich and fine, on Flander’s fields,
Will dance in the gentle rain
Will dance on the dead that feed their roots
The countless, ghastly slain.

The little flowers we’ve trodden down
Will scent each ugly grave,
Will hide the ghastly torn limbs
O the coward and the brave
And gaily smile at the morning sun,
O’er the foolish and the knave.

Oh, the river runs o’er Barnham’s plains
This where our horses drink –
And a thousand fair and charming things
Blossom on its brink.
But we have trod them in the mud
Nor paused to praise or think.

The pinkish purple loose-strife
Bows on the river’s edge,
Forget-me-not and orchids,
The flowering rush and sedge
While briar rose and bryony
Entangle in the hedge.

And crowsfoot gleams on the river,
Like snowflakes in the sun
And sways in the moving waters
That over the pebbles run.
But we cannot pause for such a thing,
Who’re crossing the stream with a gun.

But the rivers which flow in Flanders
Are rivers of blood methinks
And will, one day, colour the roses
Whose roots from that soil drink,
And a thousand flowers will blossom
Where a corpse now rots and stinks.

And we who train at Thetford
Parade on Barnham Hill
And prod coarse sack with bayonets
To gain the skill to kill
To disembowel and mutilate
Men who are brothers still.

While all around is beauty
And overhead the sky,
Where fleecy clouds in freedom float
Over the men that die;
And nature laughs at our folly
As we pass her treasures by.

With a garland of peaceful beauty
She tempts us to lay down our arms;
With a myriad of fearless blossoms
She mocks at our childish alarms,
With a tangle of wonderful flowerets
She seeks to ensnare us with charms.

Oh, he who sees God in a daisy,
Can see more clearly in man,
The light of the Glorious Eternal
That through all Living Things ran,
When the wheels of time first started,
And the Song of Life began.

Walter E. Spradbery (1915)

Sources:  http://www.xcsconsulting.com.au/walter-e-spradbery.html
https://theatricalia.com/person/k2t/dorothy-d-orsay
https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/collections/collections-online/people/item/1996-5125

James Howard Stables (1896 - 1917) - British Soldier Poet

I am indebted to Connie Ruzich for reminding me that, although James is included in the List of Poets of 1917 in the book “Arras, Messines, Passchendaele & More”, I had not yet researched him.

Born in 1896, the birth being registered in the third quarter, in Derby, Derbyshire, UK, James was the eldest son of the Rev. Walter Howard Stables, MA, an Anglican Church Minister and Vicar of St. Chad’s Church, Headingly, Leeds, and his wife Harriet Emily Stables, nee Morse. The family lived at Inverugie, Haslemere, Surrey.  James had the following siblings:  Katherine A., b. 1899 and Francis H., b. 1900.

Educated at St. David’s School in Reigate, Surrey, Culver House, Winchester College and Christ Church, Oxford, James joined 6th Hampshire Regiment on 29th September 1914.

Posted to Mesopatamia, James was commissioned in August 1916.  Wounded and missing during the Battle of Sannan-I-yat, on17th February 1917, James was later presumed to have been killed.  He is commemorated on the Basra Memorial in Iraq – Panel 55.
Also remembered on Haslemere – Cross Memorial (WMR 23646) Haslemere, Surrey.

James’s WW1 poetry collection “The Sorrow that Whistled, and Other Poems” was published by Elkin Mathews, London in 1916. Several of his poems were published in the “New Statesman”.  At the time of publication of his WW1 collection, a cricit said:  " ‘The Sorrow that Whistled’ is an unusual little book, as suits with its name.  The writer, whom one takes to be young, revels in Eastern colour and fragrance.  He can do something quite good and simple...On the other hand, he can do something extremely bad...Yet there is here a promise, and, not unconnected with it, indications that J.H. Stables is a young soldier.  There could be no better school for a young poet who wants to shed the faults of youth than the trenches." 




Sources:  Find my Past and Catherine W. Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978) p. 302

The Photograph of James is from the Winchester College Memorial Website.