POET AND HISTORIAN

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23019, 22 April 1938, Page 9

POET AND HISTORIAN

SIR H. NEWBOLT'S DEATH VERSE ON NAVAL THEMES (Received April 21, G. 5 p.m.) LONDON. April 21 The death has occurred of Sir Henry Newbolt, poet and naval historian. Sir Henry John Newbolt was born in •June, 1862, at Bilston, Staffordshire, of which his father was vicar. Educated at Clifton College and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he took a first in classics, he was called to the Bar in 1887. His inclinations Avere, however, toward literature, and, although he practised as a barrister until 1899, a great part of his time was devoted to writing. In 1892 he published "Taken from the Enemy" and three years later the tragedy "Mordred," but it was not until "Admirals All," a volume of stirring verse on naval themes, made its appearanco in 1897 that his work attracted attention. The book was so sucj cessful that he decided to drop the law entirely for literature. In 1900 ho founded the Monthly Review, and for four years edited it. Ho also wrote "The Race," "Stories from Froissart," "The Sailing of the Longships," "Songs of the Sea," "The Year of Trafalgar," "Songs of Memory and Hope" and "Songs of the Fleet." During the Great War he was Controller of "Wireless and Cables and was knighted in 1915. He was afterward chairman of the Departmental Committee on English in National Education and. in 1922, was created a Companion of Honour. A year later he was appointed Official Naval Historian. He was vice-president of the Navy Records Society and of th.e Royal Society of Literature, and, in 1928, was appointed a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery.