'ENGLAND'S INSULT'

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 194, 17 August 1936, Page 5

'ENGLAND'S INSULT'

BITTER POET'S WIDOW. TO LEAVE FOR SOUTH AFRICA. PENSION " PITTANCES." (Special.—By Air Mail.) LONDON, July 25. "Should Britain's greatest men in art, music, philosophy and literature, or their dependents, be compelled to live on pittances of £60, £70 or £80 a year? Is even £100 or £120 a year the proper standard by which even an honorary recompense for genius should be assessed?" Maureen Lady Watson, widow of Sir William Watson, the famous poet whom Gladstone wished to make Poet Laureate, put these questions to Britain this week. Sir William Watson died almost penniless last sumrher at the age of 77, and his widow and two daughters, aged 19 and 22, have been hard put to make ends meet. Lady Watson has just been awarded a Civil List pension of £120 a year. "We cannot possibly live on our small means in this country, she said, "and on August 22 we leave for South Africa, where the pound is worth about 5/ more. You may say that our departure is our protest. The smallness of the pension has convinced me further that Great Britain never really appreciated my husband's work." An edition of Sir William's poems was published in 1928. The public response was so poor that Lady Watson bought up dozens of copies secretly so that her husband should not know. "I am going to burn them," she said. "I would rather know that they were ashes than that they should rot forgotten in this England. One night I shall secretly take them all to the Sussex Downs and burn them. "Apart from my" own circumstances, I feel that it is time that Civil List pensions were brought up to date. 1 he present awards date from Victorian times, when socially £120 was looked

on as the equivalent of, say, £300 today. I feel sorry for those dependents of famous men who have to manage on only £00. Really, is it not an insult which most of them have to bear to live ? But I am concerned with the future of my daughters, for if I die the £120 a year would stop immediately. "I am grateful for my pension, and I thank those people who signed the petition for it. The money will certainly keep the wolf from the door —but it will not be an English door. It spells banishment for William Watson's dear ones, not a very creditable picture for this rich country to look upon. We can all make a fresh start," she said. "Our departure will see the last of the Watsons in England."