OBITUARY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25172, 12 March 1943, Page 3

OBITUARY

MR LAURENCE BINYON (Rec. 7 p.m.) LONDON, Mar. 10. The death is reported of Mr Laurence Binyon, the poet, author, and lecturer; aged 74. Mr Binyon won the Newdigate Prize poem at Oxford University in 1890, and in the same year published a volume of poems, “Primavera,” in collaboration with his cousin Stephen Phillips. In 1893 he entered the Department of Printed Books in the British Museum, and later filled other positions there.

“ Being poor,” he explained, “1 had to choose between journalism and some such post as I had at the Museum. I am glad I chose as I did, but l have never had any real leisure, or I should have produced more.” During the last war he worked in an English hospital for French soldiers in Eastern France, and his poem, “ Fetching the Wounded,” echoed his experience there. His poem, “To the Fallen,” which belongs to this period, is probably the best-known and most-quoted of all those written in honour of the dead ot the Great War. He represented English men of letters at the Moliere celebration in Paris. He gave lectures in Japan in . 1929, and from 1934-35 was the Charles Eliot Norton professor of poetry at Harvard University, he having previously visited the United States on lecture tours. In 1940. he was Byron Professor at the University of Athens, Greece. He was president of the English Association in 1933-34 and president of the English Verse-speaking Association in 1934-35. Besides several volumes of poems, Mr Binyon published many books on art He also edited the popular “Golden Treasury of Modern Lyrics.”

MR W. BARRINGTON MILLER (P.A.) GISBORNE, Mar. 11. The death has occurred of Mr W. Barrington Miller, aged 74. Starting business in Gisborne in a small way many years ago, he became active in theatrical production. He went to Sydney in 1912, and became general manager of Union Theatres, Ltd., and a director of Australian Films, Ltd. After several visits to America he went to England in 1919, retiring from active participation in the business he had created, but maintaining a financial and a personal interest in it. He returned to Gisborne shortly after the outbreak of war. Mr Miller was a liberal benefactor to many local institutions.