Henry Newbolt facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Sir Henry John Newbolt
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| Born | 6 June 1862 Bilston, Staffordshire, England |
| Died | 19 April 1938 (aged 75) Kensington, London, England |
| Occupation | Poet |
| Nationality | English |
| Notable works | "Vitaï Lampada" "Drake's Drum" |
Sir Henry John Newbolt, CH (6 June 1862 – 19 April 1938) was an English poet, novelist and historian. He also had a role as a government adviser with regard to the study of English in England. He is perhaps best remembered for his poems "Vitaï Lampada" and "Drake's Drum".
Background
Henry John Newbolt was born in Bilston, Wolverhampton (then in Staffordshire, but now in the West Midlands), son of the vicar of St Mary's Church, the Rev. Henry Francis Newbolt (1824–1866), and his second wife, Emily née Stubbs (1838–1921), the older brother of Sir Francis Newbolt. After his father's death, the family moved to Walsall, where Henry was educated.
Education
Newbolt attended Queen Mary's Grammar School, Walsall, and Caistor Grammar School, from which he gained a scholarship to Clifton College, where he was head of the school (1881) and edited the school magazine. His contemporaries there included John McTaggart, Arthur Quiller-Couch, Roger Fry, William Birdwood, Francis Younghusband and Douglas Haig. Graduating from Corpus Christi College, Oxford, Newbolt was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1887 and practised until 1899.
Family
Newbolt married Margaret Edwina née Duckworth (1867–1960) of the prominent publishing family -Duckworth Books; they had two children:
- a son, Capt Arthur Francis Newbolt CMG (1893–1966) and,
- a daughter, Margaret Cecilia Newbolt (1890–1975), who in 1914 married Lt. Col. Sir Ralph Dolignon Furse KCMG DSO (1887–1973), the Head of Recruitment at the Colonial Service.
Newbolt resided at 14 Victoria Road in Kensington from 1889 to 1898.
War and history
At the start of the First World War, Newbolt – along with over 20 other leading British writers – was brought into the War Propaganda Bureau, which had been formed to promote Britain's interests during the war and maintain public opinion in favour of the war.
He subsequently became Controller of Wireless and Cables at the Foreign Office. His poems about the war include "The War Films", printed on the leader page of The Times on 14 October 1916, which seeks to temper the shock effect on cinema audiences of footage of the Battle of the Somme.
Newbolt was knighted in 1915 and was appointed Companion of Honour in 1922.
In the late 1920s he was the editor of the Nelson's Classics series of books published by Faber and Gwyer and later by Faber & Faber.
The Newbolt Report
In 1921 he had been the author of a government Report entitled "The Teaching of English in England" which established the foundations for modern English Studies and professionalised the forms of teaching of English Literature. It established a canon, argued that English must become the linguistic and literary standard throughout the British Empire, and even proposed salary rates for lecturers. For many years it was a standard work for English teachers in teacher training Colleges.
Death and legacy
Newbolt died at his home in Campden Hill, Kensington, London, on 19 April 1938, aged 75. A blue plaque there commemorates his residency. He is buried in the churchyard of St Mary's church on an island in the lake on the Orchardleigh Estate of the Duckworth family in Somerset.
In his home town of Bilston, a public house was named after him, and a blue plaque is displayed on Barclay's bank near the street where he was born.
Early 20th century British composer Hope Squire wrote several songs based on Newbolt’s poems.
In June 2013 a campaign was launched by The Black Country Bugle to erect a statue in Newbolt's memory.
Recordings were made of Newbolt reading some of his own poems. They were on four 78rpm sides in the Columbia Records "International Educational Society" Lecture series, Lecture 92 (D40181/2).
Works
- Mordred: A Tragedy – an Arthurian drama
- Admirals All (1897) – including Drake's Drum
- The Sailing of the Long-ships and Other Poems (1902)
- The Old Country (1906)
- The New June (1909)
- Aladore (1914) – a novel
- St George's Day & Other Poems (1918) – published by John Murray.
- Devotional Poets of the XVII Century (1929)
- The Naval History of the Great War: Based on Official Documents Volumes IV and V – Newbolt took over after Sir Julian Corbett died
- A Ballad of Sir Pertab Singh
- He Fell among Thieves – about the explorer George Hayward
- Story of the Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (The Old 43rd & 52nd Regiments)
- A Child is Born (1931; one of Faber and Faber's Ariel Poems series, illustrated by Althea Willoughby)
- My World as in My Time (1932) – his autobiography
- A Note on the History of Submarine War
- Submarine and Anti-Submarine (1919)
