Born in 1890 in Gloucester he was one of the most tragic victims
among the poets of the First World War. He survived the Front but so shattered that
his sanity was never secure again and his undoubted creative gifts arguably never
reached fruition - though many loyal admirers think they did.
He was a skilful and prolific composer, excelling in setting poems, and a poet of
great talent. In 1922 mental disequilibrium turned to full-blow paranoia, and he
spent the remaining 16 years of his life in mental institutions, dying in 1937 aged
47.
Few of his poems found their way into print during his lifetime.