Nicholas Herbert Todd (1878 – 1916) – British poet and playwright

Nicholas Herbert Todd was one of the soldier poets featured

in the commemorative exhibition of Somme Poets held in 2016

Nicholas was born in Occold, Eye, Suffolk, UK on 21st September 1878.  His father was Horatio Lovell Todd, an Anglican Church minister - Rector of St. Michael and All Angels Church in Occold – and his mother was Frances Catherine Todd, nee Todd.  Nicholas had three brothers – Horatio J. Todd, b. 1865, Francis S. Todd, b. 1866 and  Charles F. Todd, b. 1872.

After attending Felsted School in Essex, Nicholas went up to Keble College, Oxford.  He became a teacher and taught at a school in Balham, London and then at Sedburgh Preparatory School in Yorkshire.

In 1916, after ten years at Sedbergh School, Nicholas enlisted as a Rifleman in the 1st/12th Battalion of the London Regiment (The Rangers).   He trained at a camp in Winchester before being sent to the Western Front, where he was killed on 7th October 1917 near Baupaume.

Nicholas Herbert Todd is remembered on the Thiepval Memorial in France, on the Sedbergh School Memorial and on a plaque in St. Michael and All Angels Church in Occold.

Written while at Hazeley Down training camp near Winchester in August 1916:

Dear Geoff I wonder if you'd like to be
A soldier of King George, the same as me.
To live in Huts arranged in long straight rows,
Or if you'd rather, call them Bungalows.
Your bed, three boards, on which you rest at night,
Which you're required by order to keep white.
To rise at six-or usually much later
And wash, and dress, and shave at such a rate, a
Bedroom at the P.S.S. would hardly equal,
Then marching; about for hours as a sequel.

To listen to advice from N.C.O's
How to stick bayonets inside your foes,
And many other military jaws,
And all the mysteries of forming fours.

A change indeed from that old room I sat in
Trying to teach the elements of Latin,
And bringing boys, whose names I will not mention,
In army parlance " to strict attention."
I hope when I return, if e'er I do,
You'll know your Latin Grammar all right through!
And have no trouble, when I am a civvy,
In reading off at sight a page Livy.
Meanwhile I wander sometimes up and down,
Along the ridges circling, Winton Town
Finding the orchids bending to the breeze,
Or lying on the wild thyme at my ease,
Or hearing ill the Minster's giant pile,
The throb of glory thrilling up the aisle,
And Dreaming of the Princess Who, years past,
Built their memorials, and only asked
Those who came after just one prayer to say
For those who went into the eternal day
For ever, where the tracery of I heaven
Lets in the light from all file planets seven.

And so farewell much love, and may we meet,
Where the swift Rawthey splashes round the feet
Of laughing boys, and Winder's dear old crest
Catches the sunlight dying in the West.
And laden with the spoils, the P.S.S.
Return with shouting in the usual mess.

Nicholas Herbert Todd’s WW1 collection “Poems and plays” was published in 1917  by Jackson, Sedbergh.

Source: http://occold.onesuffolk.net/people/we-will-remember-them/nicholas-herbert-todd/

Other sources:  Find my Past, Free BMD,  http://occold.onesuffolk.net/people/we-will-remember-them/nicholas-herbert-todd/ and Catherine W. Reilly; "English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography" (St. Martin's Press, New York, 1978, p. 316.

J.B.Priestley (1894 - 1984) - British Poet, Writer, Artist, Dramatist & Critic

Featured in the commemorative exhibition of Somme Poets held in 2016, John Boynton Priestley was born on 13th September 1894 in Manningham, Bradford, Yorkshire, UK. His father was a schoolmaster. John’s mother died when he was young and his father re-married.

John worked as a clerk after leaving Belle Vue Grammar School but his ambition was to become a writer.

In September 1914, John joined the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment with the rank of Lance-Corporal.  Posted to the Western Front in August 1915, he was wounded during The Somme Offensive in June 1916, when he was buried alive by a Trench Mortar. He was sent back to Britain to recover.

After a long period in various hospitals, John recovered, was commissioned into the Devonshire Regiment and posted to the Western Front again in the summer of 1918. He was gassed but recovered sufficiently to supervise Prisoners of War.

After the war, John went to study at Trinity Hall, Cambridge University and a long and interesting literary career followed. John died on 14th August 1984.

J.B. Priestley’s WW1 poetry collection “The chapman of rhymes (poems)” was published in 1918 by Moring.

Sources:  Find my Past, Wikipedia and Catherine W. Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978) p. 258.
Photograph from:
https://www.bradfordmuseums.org/whats-on/jb-priestley-soldier-painter-writer

James Lyons (1896 – 1918) – British WW1 soldier poet

James was born in Winton, Salford, Manchester, UK on 10th September 1896.  His parents were James Lyons, a Provision Merchant, originally from Birmingham, and his wife, Lilian Maria, nee Rogers.

In 1901, the family lived in Monton Road, Ellesmere Avenue, Eccles, Barton upon Irwell, Lancashire.  James was the eldest child and he had the following siblings:  Alice Constance, b. 1898, Walter, b.. 1905, Lilian Elisabeth, b. 1909 and Grace Winifred, b. 1911.  In 1911, the family lived in Broughton, Salford.

When war broke out, James joined the RAMC as a Private but was invalided out of service in 1917.  He moved to Lytham St. Annes by the sea in Lancashire due to his health problems.  There, he wrote an opera and further poems.  James died on 19th August 1918 and was buried in Peel Green Cemetery, Eccles.

James wrote a poem entitled “Gallipoli – To the Fallen”, which was set to music by his friend Stanley H. Clarke and performed by the Beecham Operatic Choris on 6th November 1918 at a concert in Manchester.

James Lyons’ WW1 poetry collections were:

“Sons of the Empire, and other poems” (Heywood, Manchester, 1916) and
“Gleam o’ pearls: poems” (Cornish, Manchester, 1919)

A Shell-wrecked Village at Evening, 1917 by James Lyons

So bleak they stand against the twilit sky,
Those shattered walls that once held love and light.
No gleaming window greets the falling night,
But doubtful shadows on the pathways lie,
To shelter unseen things that start and fly,
Waking these selfsame echoes in their flight
That once caught children’s voices shrill and bright.
Ghosts keep those tumbled ruins – how they sigh! –
Or is but the night wind’s low lament,
Borne from a hundred places scattered wide,
Whence the poor exiles from the village went?
No eye observes the wan moon upward ride,
The place stands  in her pale light scarred and rent,
The silent witness of war’s crucified.

The poet Robert Cochrane, a graduate of Manchester Metropolitan University, has written a fantastic book about James Lyons.  Robert has extensively researched James Lyons and reprinted some of his poems in a book entitled "Do you Remember - the selected poems of James Lyons", published by The Bad Press, Manchester in 2018.  Robert Cochrane has also produced an anthology of WW1 poems entitled "As Ashes follow Fire: Neglected Voices of World War One" (The Bad Press, Manchester, 2018).

James Lyons is featured in Catherine W. Reilly's "English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography" on page 206 but the only details Reilly gives are that James was a Private in the Royal Army Medical Corps and that his WW1 poetry collections were "Sons of the Empire, and other poems" (Heywood, Manchester, 1916) and "Gleam o' pearls (poems)" (Cornish, Mancheter 1919).

Robert Cochrane has also produced a CD of some of the poems written by James Lyons which have been set to music.

For further information, please contact The Bad Press, PO Box 76, Manchester M21 8HJ or via their website www.thebadpress.co.uk  or via Facebook https://www.facebook.com/thebadpressmanchester/

Sources: Find my Past, Catherine W. Reilly’s “English Poetry of the First World War:  A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978) p. 206
“Do you Remember -The Selected Poems of James Lyons” Edited by Robert Cochrane (The Bad Press, Manchester, 2018) and "As Ashes follow Fire: Neglected Voices of World War One" (The Bad Press, Manchester, 2018).

Max Plowman (1883 - 1941) – British poet and pacifist

Max Plowman featured in a commemorative exhibition held in 2016 about

some of the Poets on The Somme, 1916

Born Mark Plowman in Tottenham on 1st September 1883, Max’s father was Mark Plowman, who ran a brick making business and his mother was Anna Maria Plowman, nee Hunt.  Max began writing poetry at an early age.  He became a journalist after working for ten years in the family business, and his poems were published in various magazines, with his first collection coming out in 1913 under the title “First Poems”.

Max married Dorothy Lloyd Sulman in 1914.

When war broke out, Max volunteered to join the RAMC and was sent to the 4th Field Ambulance.  Commissioned into the Yorkshire Regiment’s 10th Battalion, he served on the Western Front on The Somme at Albert, where he was concussed by an exploding shell.  After treatment by Dr Rivers at Bowhill Auxiliary Hospital in Britain, Max refused to return to the war and was court martialled on 5th April 1918.  He was dismissed from the Army but escaped further punishment on the grounds that he was a Conscientious Objector.

After the war, Max ran a commune on a farm in Essex. His war-time memories were published in 1928, with the title “A Subaltern on The Somme”, under the pen-name ‘Mark VII’.

Max also helped to found the Peace Pledge Union, becoming the organisation’s first general secretary in 1937.  He died on 3rd June 1941.

Max Plowman’s WW2 poetry collections were:
“A lap full of seed (poems)” published by Blackwell, Oxford in 1917
“Shoots in the stubble (poems)”, published by Daniel in 1920. 

His poems were included in five WW1 poetry anthologies.

“When it’s over”

'Young soldier, what will you be
When it's all over?'
'I shall get out and across the sea,
Where land's cheap and a man can thrive.
I shall make money. Perhaps I'll wive
In a place where there's room for a family.
I'm a bit of a rover.'

'Young soldier, what will you be
At the last 'Dismiss'?'
'Bucked to get back to old Leicester Square,
Where there's good champagne and a glad eye winking,
And no more 'Verey Lights' damnably blinking
Their weary, dreary, white-eyed stare.
I'll be out of this.'

'Young soldier, what will you be
When they sign the peace?'
'Blowed if I know; perhaps I shall stick it.
The job's all right if you take it steady.
After all, somebody's got to be ready,
And tons of the blighters 'll get their ticket.
Wars don't cease.'

'Young soldier, what will you be At the day's end?'
'Tired's what I'll be. I shall lie on the beach
Of a shore where the rippling waves just sigh,
And listen and dream and sleep and lie
Forgetting what I've had to learn and teach
And attack and defend.'

'Young soldier, what will you be
When you're next a-bed?'
'God knows what; but it doesn't matter,
For whenever I think, I always remember
The Belgians massacred that September,
And England's pledge - and the rest seems chatter.
What if I am dead?'

'Young soldier, what will you be
When it's all done?'
'I shall come back and live alone
On an English farm in the Sussex Weald,
Where the wounds in my mind will be slowly sealed,
And the graves in my heart will be overgrown;
And I'll sit in the sun.'

'Young soldier, what will you be
At the 'Last Post'?'
'Cold, cold in the tender earth,
A cold body in foreign soil;
But a happy spirit fate can't spoil,
And an extra note in the blackbird's mirth
From a khaki ghost.'

Sources:  Catherine W. Reilly “English Poetry in the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978)
Find my Past
Wikipedia
https://www.poemhunter.com
https://mypoeticside.com/poets/max-plowman-poems
http://archive.ppu.org.uk/OpposingWorldWarOne.pdf

Nathan Percy Graham (1895 - 1920) – British WW1 soldier poet

Nathan Percy Graham was born in London, UK on 30th August 1895.

Nathan was educated at the City of London School and University College, London where he studied engineering.   He joined the Officers Training Corps (OTC) at University, was commissioned into The Royal Garrison Artillery and sent to France in August 1916.

Nathan saw active service on the Western Front at Ypres, Messines (Mesen) and Passchendaele, after which he was sent back to Britain suffering from shell-shock.  He was sent to Crailockhart Hospital in Edinburgh for treatment and was given a medical discharge in December 1917. 

After his discharge, Nathan returned to his university studies and edited the Union Magazine at UCL.  Following his graduation in June 1919, Nathan went to work as an engineer in Bolton, Lancashire, where he died in June 1920.

Nathan Percy Graham’s WW1 collection “Poems” was published by Arrowsmith, Bristol in 1921.

Passchendaele

“The Passing of the Day”

In the perfume-breath of even,
'Twixt the sun-glare and the night,
ere yet Venus from the heaven
Has put the day to flight,
When the poppy's strength is waning,
And the daisy's eye 'gins close,
And the lonely owl's complaining
Proclaims the day's repose,
And the zephyr-kiss of twilight stirs the dew-drop in the rose.

God has made this time for thinking
Of the ones that we love best;
When the tired sun is sinking
On his couch beyond the West.
He has giv'n this hour of leisure,
Whose moments quietly glide,
That the hours of pain and pleasure
And poverty and pride
May be driven from our memory by the calm of eventide.

For the tranquil is a token
Of the love of friend for friend,
of the lover's love unspoken,
Of the friendless journey's end;
For the heart that droops with sorrow,
And the spirit that is grey
May forget until the morrow
The ghosts that haunt the way;
'Tis the time to think of loved ones at the passing of the day.

 “Tired Eyes”

Tired eyes and aching heart,
Why do you weep?
Why do you stand, pulling your flowers apart,
Tired eyes, searching their sanctity?
Oh, let life keep
Its bright illusions framed so tenderly!
The rose is no hundred leaves,
But one fair flower;
The firmament no myriad twinkling stars,
But one bright sky.
Sky, rose and life are one eternally
With unwilled dreams and faint-heard symphonies,
Wherein fair fancy weaves
Heart-aches and happy hours,
Cymbals and scimitars,
In one gay artless rosary. Oh, why
Pluck all the petals from your fleeting flowers?
Driving your visions from their vale of sleep,
Tearing your dreams apart –
Tired eyes and aching heart,
Why do you weep?

Sources:
Catherine W. Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978) and http://philgraham.info/percy.shtml
Poems from http://philgraham.info/percy2.shtml

John Collinson Hobson (1893 - 1917) – British soldier poet

Born in Hampstead, London, UK in 1893, John’s parents were Thomas Fredrick Collinson, a Barrister, and his wife Mary Innes Collinson, nee Grieg, whose father was John Borthwick Greig, of Hampstead, who was a Writer to the Signet*.

John’s father was a member of the London County Council. John had a brother, Fredrick Grieg Collinson, who studied medicine and became a General Practitioner, and a sister, Mary Grizel Collinson.  The family lived in Hampstead in London.   John was educated at Westminster School, where he joined the Officers’ Training Corps and became a Sergeant. In 1912, he went up to Christ Church College, Oxford to study history. He was a crack shot and also a boxer and cricketer.

Commissioned into the Royal Scots Regiment in September 1914 as a Second Lieutenant, John was posted to France in May 1915. He was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant, transferred to 116th Machine Gun Company and sent for training at the Machine Gunnery School in Grantham, UK.

Returning to the Western Front, John was killed during the 3rd Battle of Ypres on 31st July 1917 (also known as the Battle of Passchendaele).  A wooden cross with the inscription: “In loving memory of Lt J C Hobson, 116th Machine Gun Company. Killed July 31st 1917” was placed over the place where, as far as is known, his body was hastily buried. In 1920, the cross was removed and re-erected in the “Memorial Plot” in the New Irish Farm cemetery, near St Jean.  John Collinson Hobson is commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial, Panel 56, Ypres, Belgium.

John’s WW1 poetry collection “Poems, etc.” with a biographical note and a memoir by John Murray, was published by Blackwell, Oxford, in 1920.

Passchendaele

From “The Machine Gun” by John Collinson Hobson

Here do I lie,
Crouched in the grass
With my machine-gun
Loaded, lurking, ready,
Fast must he fly
Who fain would pass.
Sure is my eye
My hand is steady.
The sky is blue,
The planes are humming,
But my machine gun
Waits and watches ever.
Fair is the view,
Though guns be drumming,
Though yonder hill from this
King Death doth sever.
All around me
Blows the dogrose;
But my machine gun
Hidden is in daisies,
Lurking is he
Where the grass grows,
Peering ever forth
Through summer hazes


*The Society of Writers to Her Majesty’s Signet is a private society of Scottish solicitors, dating back to 1594 and part of the College of Justice.

Sources: https://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/fallen-alumni/lieutenant-john-collinson-hobson
http://firstworldwar.westminster.org.uk/?p=1126
Find my Past
Free BMD

The painting “Panoramic view of the battlefield leading towards Passchendaele, Ypres, August 1917”  was a watercolour painted by Lieutenant Richard Barrett Talbot Kelly MBE, MC, RI (1896-1971), Royal Field Artillery, 1917.

https://collection.nam.ac.uk/detail.php?acc=1994-12-10-1

Edmund John (1883 –1917) – British poet

Edmund John was born in Woolwich, Kent on 27th November 1883.

He fought in the First World War, serving with the 28th (London) Battalion (Artist's Rifles)
and was invalided out of the Army in 1916. Edmund died a year later in Taormina, Sicily on 28th February 1917.

Edmund’s poetry collections were:

“The Flute of Sardonyx: Poems” (1913)
“The Wind in the Temple: Poems” (1915)
“Symphonie Symbolique”(1919)

https://archive.org/details/windintemplepoem00john/page/n11

“The Wind in the Temple: Poems” by Edmund Johyn was published by Erskine Macdonald, London in 1915 and was printed by W. Mate & Sons, Ltd., Bournemouth.

That collection of poems was dedicated to the writer and poet Maud Churton Braby

Poems of the War pp. 51 - 52

1. The Huns. 1914

2. Ave Indi

3. In Memoriam


THE HUNS, 1914

Only the bent ghosts of pain, the grey phantoms of fear
Inhabit the desolate streets in the silence, and peer
Out from the charred, blackened windows. No more than the breath
Of the fresh fields shall stir the drawn lips of the dead whose blood dyes
Their own hearths, where from out the spent ashes dim spirals yet rise
Like the smoke of dark incense that burns on the Altars of Death.

All the prayers are stilled ; there is blood in the holy place.
And over the lintels, and splashed on the pale, lined old face
Of the dead peasant woman who lies where the hollyhock blows.
And blood on the breasts of the maiden who yesterday smiled.
And blood on the white broken body of each flower-like child.
Like red wme that is spilled on a petal of some fallen rose.



And blood there shall be on the throats of the devilish throng.
And an eye for an eye, and for every unnameable wrong
Anguish and death and despair shall find out a reward.
Lo, the clamour of battle is calling to all who are men
To succour the helpless, and vanquish and drive to their den
The murdering Huns who have drawn and shall die by the sword.

(p. 51)


AVE INDI

The West is grey, and pale with sweat of pain,
Save where the flicker of a funeral pyre
Stabs the dull pallor with fine jets of fire.
And ashen cheeks are grim with some dark stain.

Gold is the East, and bright the Indian sea ;
And princes of a race that knows no fears
Pour out their treasures of a thousand years,
And call to battle all their chivalry.

For lo, at last the East and West have met,
In splendid friendship sealed by splendid blood ;
So shall they conquer death and stem the flood
That seethes from hell — and heaven shall not forget !

For every tortured child, and all the shame
Of women slain, the Indian hosts shall bring
Bitter reward ; and through God's halls shall ring
Their mighty vengeance and eternal fame.


(p. 52)



IN MEMORIAM

(To Field-Marshal Lord Roberts of Kandahar, obiit November, 1914)

Rest, though the clamorous surge of war
Follow thy peace to the great doors of Death ;
As in thy fearless life, so now, the cannons' roar.
The roll of drums, at thy last breath

Proclaim thee Conqueror !
The prophets and the warriors who have passed
That way before thy coming, welcome thee ;

The Angel's trumpet sounds a nobler blast,
And kings and knights of the old chivalry
Now hail thee at the last.

Thy days, thy deeds, thy words of proven gold.
Thy son, and last of all, thyself didst give
For Country's sake ; and now the tale is told
Thy splendid memory shall breathe and live
Till all men's hearts lie cold.

Here is a review from “The Southport Guardian," of September l0th, 1913 about “The Flute of Sardonyx”

“Mr. Edmund John is one of our new singers. His first book  on its first appearance made a great stir. ..." The Flute of  Sardonyx " contains much of performance and even more of  promise. . . . He has a rare sense of colour and a strong sense of words ; his verse pulsates with passion and with life. With him to live is to love ; and to love is alternately to smile and to sorrow — and he expresses the joy and the pain with equal felcity and fervour. . . . Here in these poems is the spirit of song, the passion of youth, the seductive colour of life, and all the throbbings of hope and desire . . . this book will ensure  a critical welcome to Mr. John's future work. Here, at any rate, is a singer — and a singer who is not afraid to sing his own songs in his own way.”