POET OF THE PAST: Charles Masefield
Humbly, O England, we offer what is of little worth, Just our bodies and souls and everything else we have; But thou with thy holy cause wilt hallow our common earth, Giving us strength in the battle – and peace, if need, in the grave.
THE above words are from the poem Enlisted written in September 1914 by Charles John Beech Masefield, a man whose future was forsaken in the bloody conflict of
World War I. A cousin of the Poet Laureate John Masefield, Charles was born at Cheadle in the Staffordshire Moorlands on 15 April, 1882. Privately educated, he attended the acclaimed Repton School in Derbyshire where he won prizes for poetry and divinity. On leaving Repton, he was articled to his lawyer father at the family practice of Blagg, Son & Masefield. Qualifying as a solicitor in 1905, he also continued to develop his skills as an author and poet.
Charles’s first work was the novel Gilbert Hermer in 1908, set in the neighbourhood of Cheadle which he called “Cradleby”. This was followed in 1910 by Staffordshire in Methuen’s series of Little Guides on English Counties. To obtain material for this he visited every parish but one. According to his friend Dr Charles Henry Poole, the work “was a labour of love” for “he loved every inch of the County of his birth.”
This fascinating work is dedicated to “all those who are, to the dead who have been, and to the living and the unborn who will be lovers of Staffordshire.”
He dismisses those who regard Staffordshire as
“something of a slut among the counties”, contending “much of its scenery is beautiful.”
Being drawn more to verse than prose, he followed this with two volumes – The Season’s Difference and Other Poems (1911) and Dislikes: some Modern Satires (1913). It wasn’t long after, on 4 August 1914, that Britain declared war on Germany.
Despite having been married to his wife Muriel for only a short time, and with a young son, Geoffrey, Charles volunteered for service. In 1915 he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 5th (Territorial) Battalion of the North Staffordshire Regiment.
In July 1916 the battalion was sent to France. Following a short period of home leave and redeployment, he returned to France in May 1917, in the rank of Acting Captain. In the following month he led his company in a raid on enemy trenches at Lens for which he was awarded the
Military Cross for “conspicuous gallantry and good leadership.” Sadly, Charles did not know of the award as shortly afterwards he was reported as missing following an attack at Cite du Moulin, a western suburb of Lens. It was learned that he had been mortally wounded and died on 2 July in a German Field Hospital behind the line. He was buried with military honours in the Parish Cemetery at Leforest.
In tribute, one of his men later said, “He was a real gentleman. I would have followed him anywhere.”
His commanding officer, Colonel A. E. Blizzard, wrote, “the regiment mourns the loss of a good man and gallant officer . . . and I feel the loss of a true friend.”
Charles’s last poem In Honorem Fortium was composed in May 1917, shortly before his death. He seemed calmly to accept as inevitable the imminence of his death and that his grave would be in foreign soil.
In 1919, a posthumous volume of his verse Poems was published by Blackwell and, interestingly, it has been suggested that his later work, particularly that written while on active service, could perhaps even be deemed worthy to stand alongside that of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. One can only guess at what might have been his full potential.
Like many who were killed in wars, Charles became a forgotten statistic. The country was deprived of a great poet, a writer who may possibly have achieved or even surpassed the fame that his relative John achieved.
Charles Masefield lies in the British Military Cemetery at Souchez, Pas de Calais, with other men who fought and died for the freedom we enjoy today. May we remain worthy of their sacrifice.
GRAHAM BEBBINGTON The Life and Times of Charles Masefield M.C. by Graham Bebbington (North Staffordshire Press, £9.95).