John Edward Masefield papers

John Edward Masefield was born to Caroline and George Masefield on June 1, 1878 in Ledbury, Herefordshire, England. He studied at King's School in Warwick from 1888-1891 and apprenticed aboard a windjammer before moving to the United States, where he worked in an Alexander Smith carpet factory in Yonkers, New York. Masefield recounted his time there in his autobiography, In the Mill, before returning to England in 1897 to work as a journalist, writing for the Manchester Guardian. Masefield was a poet and writer, with the sea was the subject matter of his best known poetry, including "Sea Fever" and "Cargoes," featured in his first collected works, Salt-Water Ballads (1902).

On his return journey from the United States in 1897, Masefield met his future wife, Constance de la Cherois Crommelin, whom he married July 23, 1903. Crommelin, who was Irish, of French Huguenot descent, and eleven years his senior was a proprietor of a girls school in London at the time of their marriage. Together they had two children, Judith (1904-1988) and Lewis (1908-1942). Both children would go on to have literary careers like their father, Judith as a book illustrator and Lewis as a journalist and novelist. During World War II, Lewis served in a field ambulance unit and was killed in north Africa in 1942. He was the author of Cross Double Cross.

Masefield's narrative poems, including "The Everlasting Mercy," "The Widow in the Bye Street," and "Dauber," won Masefield praise among critics and the Edmond de Polignac prize in 1912. During World War I, Masefield served as a hospital orderly in 1915 at Hôpital Temporaire d'Arc-en-Barrois, in Haute-Marne, France and wrote Gallipoli to boost British morale after the unsuccessful attempt by the Allied Powers to take control of the Dardanelle straight and Gallipoli Peninsula. In 1919, Masefield published his most famous poem, "Reynard the Fox." From 1930 to 1967, Masefield was Poet Laureate of England, and in 1935 was awarded the Order of Merit by King George V.

In addition to being a poet Masefield was a novelist, playwright, and children's book author, penning the novels Captain Margaret (1908) and Multitude and Solitude (1909), and his most successful play, The Tragedy of Nan (1909). Other novels followed, including Lost Endeavour (1910,) The Bird of Dawning (1933,) Dead Ned (1938,) and children's books The Midnight Folk (1927) and The Box of Delights (1935).

John Edward Masefield died on May 12, 1967 from an infection brought about by gangrene in his ankle. According to his wishes, Masefield was cremated. His ashes are in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.