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Newbolt, Henry, 1862-1938We have 1 book for this author.
Henry Newbolt is an early 20th century English poet. He is best known for "Vitai Lampada". Background and FamilyHe was born in Bilston, Wolverhampton, then in Staffordshire, but now in the West Midlands, the son of the vicar of St Mary's Church, Rev. Henry Francis Newbolt, and his second wife, Emily. (In his biography, My World as in My Time, he claims to have been Jewish.) After his father's death, the family moved to Walsall, where Henry was educated. He attended Queen Mary's Grammar School, Walsall, and Caistor Grammar School, from where he gained a scholarship to Clifton College, where he was head of the school (1881) and edited the school magazine. His contemporaries there included Douglas Haig. Graduating from Corpus Christi College, Oxford, Newbolt was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1887 and practised until 1899. In 1914, Newbolt's only child, his daughter Celia, married Lt Col. Sir Ralph Furse (of the Furse Family of Devon). She died in 1975. PublicationsHis first book was a novel, Taken from the Enemy (1892), and in 1895 he published a tragedy, Mordred; but it was the publication of his ballads, Admirals All (1897), that created his literary reputation. By far the best-known of these is "Vitai Lampada". They were followed by other volumes of stirring verse, including The Island Race (1898), The Sailing of the Long-ships (1902), Songs of the Sea (1904). In 1914, Newbolt published Aladore, a fantasy novel about a bored but dutiful knight who abruptly abandons his estate and wealth to discover his heart's desire and woo a half-fae enchantress. It is a tale filled with allegories about the nature of youth, service, individuality and tradition. It was reissued in a limited and illustrated edition by Newcastle Publishing Company in 1975, as the new holders of the copyright. Vitaï Lampada
 Probably the best known of all Newbolt's poems and the one for which he is now chiefly remembered is Vitaï Lampada. It refers to how a future soldier learns stoicism in cricket matches in the famous Close at Clifton College:
The poem was both highly regarded and repeatedly satirised by those who experienced World War I. Monthly reviewBetween 1900 and 1905, Newbolt was the editor of the Monthly Review. He was also a member of the Coefficients dining club of social reformers set up in 1902 by the Fabian campaigners Sidney and Beatrice Webb. During the First World War, he became controller of telecommunications and worked as an official historian. It was at this time that his style of poetry, like that of Rudyard Kipling, began to go out of fashion. HonoursNewbolt was knighted in 1915 and was awarded the 'Companion of Honour' in 1922. In his home town of Bilston, a public house was named after him, and a blue plaque is displayed on a modern building in the street where he was born. Ella ColtmanPlaying the Game: A Biography of Sir Henry Newbolt, by Susan Chitty, claimed that he and his wife each had a sexual relationship with Ella Coltman, who even accompanied them on their honeymoon. Newbolt died in Coltman's house in Kensington. One of Newbolt's later poems is entitled "To E.C." and in it he refers to E.C. as "dearest." Works
Sources and References
This biographical information was gathered from the Henry_Newbolt page, courtesy of the Wikipedia project. BooksCollected Poems 1897 - 1907, by Henry Newbolt |
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