Alfred Austin (30 May 1835 – 2 June 1913) was an English poet who was appointed
Poet Laureate
A poet laureate (plural: poets laureate) is a poet officially appointed by a government or conferring institution, typically expected to compose poems for special events and occasions. Albertino Mussato of Padua and Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) ...
in 1896, after an interval following the death of
Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his ...
, when the other candidates had either caused controversy or refused the honour. It was claimed that he was being rewarded for his support for the Conservative leader
Lord Salisbury
Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (; 3 February 183022 August 1903) was a British statesman and Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom three times for a total of over thirteen y ...
in the General Election of 1895. Austin's poems are little-remembered today, his most popular work being prose idylls celebrating nature.
Wilfred Scawen Blunt wrote of him, “He is an acute and ready reasoner, and is well read in theology and science. It is strange his poetry should be such poor stuff, and stranger still that he should imagine it immortal.”
Life
Alfred Austin was born in
Headingley
Headingley is a suburb of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, approximately two miles out of the city centre, to the north west along the A660 road. Headingley is the location of the Beckett Park campus of Leeds Beckett University and Headingle ...
, near
Leeds
Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...
, on 30 May 1835, to a Roman Catholic family. His father, Joseph Austin, was a merchant in Leeds; his mother was a sister of
Joseph Locke
Joseph Locke FRSA (9 August 1805 – 18 September 1860) was a notable English civil engineer of the nineteenth century, particularly associated with railway projects. Locke ranked alongside Robert Stephenson and Isambard Kingdom Brunel as one ...
, the civil engineer and M.P. for
Honiton
Honiton ( or ) is a market town and civil parish in East Devon, situated close to the River Otter, north east of Exeter in the county of Devon. Honiton has a population estimated at 11,822 (based on mid-year estimates for the two Honiton Ward ...
. Austin was educated at
Stonyhurst College
Stonyhurst College is a co-educational Catholic Church, Roman Catholic independent school, adhering to the Society of Jesus, Jesuit tradition, on the Stonyhurst, Stonyhurst Estate, Lancashire, England. It occupies a Grade I listed building. Th ...
(
Clitheroe
Clitheroe () is a town and civil parish in the Borough of Ribble Valley, Lancashire, England; it is located north-west of Manchester. It is near the Forest of Bowland and is often used as a base for tourists visiting the area. In 2018, the Cl ...
, Lancashire),
St Mary's College, Oscott
St Mary's College in New Oscott, Birmingham, often called Oscott College, is the Roman Catholic seminary of the Archdiocese of Birmingham in England and one of the three seminaries of the Catholic Church in England and Wales.
Purpose
Oscott Co ...
, and
University of London
The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...
, from which he graduated in 1853. He became a
barrister
A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching law and ...
in 1857 but after inheriting a fortune from his uncle gave up his legal career for literature.''The Oxford Companion to English Literature'', 6th Edition. Edited by Margaret Drabble, Oxford University Press, 2000, p 53
He unsuccessfully stood as a Conservative Party candidate for
Taunton
Taunton () is the county town of Somerset, England, with a 2011 population of 69,570. Its thousand-year history includes a 10th-century monastic foundation, Taunton Castle, which later became a priory. The Normans built a castle owned by the ...
in 1865, finishing in fourth place, and at
Dewsbury
Dewsbury is a minster and market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees in West Yorkshire, England. It lies on the River Calder and on an arm of the Calder and Hebble Navigation waterway. It is to the west of Wakefield, east of Hudder ...
in 1880.
Politically conservative, between 1866 and 1896 Austin edited ''
National Review
''National Review'' is an American conservative editorial magazine, focusing on news and commentary pieces on political, social, and cultural affairs. The magazine was founded by the author William F. Buckley Jr. in 1955. Its editor-in-chief i ...
'' and wrote leading articles for ''The Standard''. He was Foreign Affairs Correspondent with the ''Standard'', and served as a special correspondent to the Ecumenical Council of the Vatican in 1870; at the Headquarters of the King of Prussia during the Franco-Prussian War, 1870; at the
Congress of Berlin
The Congress of Berlin (13 June – 13 July 1878) was a diplomatic conference to reorganise the states in the Balkan Peninsula after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78, which had been won by Russia against the Ottoman Empire. Represented at th ...
, 1878 where he was granted an audience by German Chancellor
Otto von Bismarck
Otto, Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg (, ; 1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898), born Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck, was a conservative German statesman and diplomat. From his origins in the upper class of J ...
. An ardent imperialist and follower of
Disraeli
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, (21 December 1804 – 19 April 1881) was a British statesman and Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He played a centr ...
he became, in 1883, joint editor of the National Review with W. J. Courthope and was sole editor from 1887 until 1896.
On Tennyson's death in 1892 it was felt that none of the then living poets, except
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne (5 April 1837 – 10 April 1909) was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He wrote several novels and collections of poetry such as ''Poems and Ballads'', and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition ...
or
William Morris
William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He ...
, who were outside consideration on other grounds, was of sufficient distinction to succeed to the laurel crown, and for several years no new poet-laureate was nominated. In the interval the claims of one writer and another were assessed, but eventually, in 1896, Austin was appointed to the post after Morris had declined it. As a poet Austin never ranked highly in the opinions of his peers, and was often derided as being a "Banjo Byron".
The critic Edmund Broadus wrote that the choice of Austin for poet-laureate had much to do with Austin's friendship with
Lord Salisbury
Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (; 3 February 183022 August 1903) was a British statesman and Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom three times for a total of over thirteen y ...
, his position as an editor and leader writer, and his willingness to use his poetry to support the government. For example, shortly before his appointment was announced, Austin published a sonnet entitled "A Vindication of England", written in response to a series of sonnets by
William Watson William, Willie, Bill or Billy Watson may refer to:
Entertainment
* William Watson (songwriter) (1794–1840), English concert hall singer and songwriter
* William Watson (poet) (1858–1935), English poet
* Billy Watson (actor) (1923–2022), Ame ...
, published in the ''Westminster Gazette'', that had accused Salisbury's government of betraying
Armenia
Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''Ox ...
Owen Seaman
Sir Owen Seaman, 1st Baronet (18 September 1861 – 2 February 1936) was a British writer, journalist and poet. He is best known as editor of ''Punch'', from 1906 to 1932.
Biography
Born in Shrewsbury, he was the only son of William Mantle Sea ...
(1861–1936) gave added currency to the supposed connection with
Lord Salisbury
Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (; 3 February 183022 August 1903) was a British statesman and Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom three times for a total of over thirteen y ...
in his poem, "To Mr Alfred Austin", ''In Cap and Bells'', London & New York, 1900, 9:
At length a callous Tory chief arose, Master of caustic jest and cynic gibe, Looked round the
Carlton Club
The Carlton Club is a private members' club in St James's, London. It was the original home of the Conservative Party before the creation of Conservative Central Office. Membership of the club is by nomination and election only.
History
The ...
and lightly chose Its leading scribe.
Austin served as Deputy-Lieutenant for
Herefordshire
Herefordshire () is a county in the West Midlands of England, governed by Herefordshire Council. It is bordered by Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south-east, and the Welsh counties of Monmouthshire ...
. Austin died of unknown causes at Swinford Old Manor,
Hothfield
Hothfield is a village and civil parish in the Ashford Borough of Kent, England and is 3 miles north-west of Ashford on the A20. It is completely split in two by Hothfield Common.
Geography
In the north west is Hothfield Common, 58 hectares ( ...
, near
Ashford, Kent
Ashford is a town in the county of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Great Stour at the southern or Escarpment, scarp edge of the North Downs, about southeast of central London and northwest of Folkestone by road. In the ...
, England, where he had been ill for some time.
Family
On 14 November 1865 Austin married Hester Jane Homan-Mulock, tenth child of Thomas Homan-Mulock and Frances Sophia Berry at
St Marylebone Parish Church
St Marylebone Parish Church is an Anglican church on the Marylebone Road in London. It was built to the designs of Thomas Hardwick in 1813–17. The present site is the third used by the parish for its church. The first was further south, near Ox ...
, London. In his ''Autobiography'', Austin gives a curious account of how they met. Seeing the photograph of a young lady in an album belonging to his friend
Isa Blagden
Isa or Isabella Jane Blagden (30 June 1816 or 1817 – 20 January 1873) was an English-language novelist, speaker, and poet born in the East Indies or India, who spent much of her life among the English community in Florence. She was notably frie ...
in Florence, he had asked: "Who is that?" and received the reply, "The girl you ought to marry, if you can." Austin brought home a letter of introduction, the presentation of which led to his receiving at his cottage in Hertfordshire Hester (the young lady in the photograph), her sister and their chaperon, together with their friend
Thomas Adolphus Trollope
Thomas Adolphus Trollope (29 April 1810 – 11 November 1892) was an English writer who was the author of more than 60 books. He lived most of his life in Italy creating a renowned villa in Florence with his first wife, Theodosia, and later ...
, brother of
Anthony Trollope
Anthony Trollope (; 24 April 1815 – 6 December 1882) was an English novelist and civil servant of the Victorian era. Among his best-known works is a series of novels collectively known as the '' Chronicles of Barsetshire'', which revolves ar ...
. At a second visit Hester became engaged to Alfred. Throughout his career as journalist and writer Austin derived constant help and support from his wife. She died suddenly on 23 September 1929 at her residence in Kensington. His nephews included the Polar Explorer Captain
George Mulock
Captain George Francis Arthur Mulock, DSO, RN, FRGS (7 February 1882 – 26 December 1963) was an Anglo-Irish Royal Navy officer, cartographer and polar explorer who participated in an expedition to the Antarctic regions: the Discovery Expedi ...
and British diplomat Sir Howard William Kennard (1878–1955), British Ambassador to Poland at the outbreak of the Second World War.
Poetry
In 1861, after two false starts in poetry and fiction, he made his first noteworthy appearance as a writer with ''The Season: a Satire'', which contained incisive lines, and was marked by some promise both in wit and observation. In 1870 he published a volume of criticism, ''The Poetry of the Period'', which was conceived in the spirit of satire, and attacked Tennyson, Browning,
Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888) was an English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the celebrated headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, lite ...
and Swinburne in an unrestrained fashion. The book aroused some discussion at the time, but its lack of balance meant that its judgments were extremely uncritical. Austin wrote of the "detestable gibberish" of Robert Browning, of Swinburne's "emasculated poetic voice," and of William Morris as "the idle singer of an empty day," and he prophesied that Tennyson's '' In Memoriam'' "will assuredly be handed over to the dust when a generation arises that has come to its senses." Austin himself, while he continued to "think that there was a strong element of truth in ''The Poetry of the Period''," soon came to deem "the tone in which it was written unfortunate," and in 1873, three years after its publication, he withdrew it from circulation.
A contemporary critic, Walter Whyte, praised the "purity" of Austin's style: "He writes sound unaffected English; his meaning is always transparent. He has not sought to emulate Tennyson's exquisite elaboration of diction; his lines are seldom jewelled by 'curious felicities.' But they are always graceful, and sometimes admirably vigorous and hearty. ..One of the charms of his poetry lies in the freshness and vividness of his descriptions of Nature. He has dealt powerfully with the grandeurs of Alpine scenery, but his happiest pictures are of English fields and woods."
The critic
George Saintsbury
George Edward Bateman Saintsbury, FBA (23 October 1845 – 28 January 1933), was an English critic, literary historian, editor, teacher, and wine connoisseur. He is regarded as a highly influential critic of the late 19th and early 20th centu ...
, while endorsing he general view that "Alfred Austin hardly deserved to be made poet laureate," found him "a really vigorous and accomplished writer of prose, and a tolerable master of unambitious form in verse." Austin, he wrote, "could keep up poems of some length like ''Prince Lucifer'' and ''The Human Tragedy''," and approach a modicum of "vigour and passion in lyric."
As poet-laureate, his topical verses did not escape negative criticism; a hasty poem written in praise of the
Jameson Raid
The Jameson Raid (29 December 1895 – 2 January 1896) was a botched Raid (military), raid against the South African Republic (commonly known as the Transvaal) carried out by British colonial administrator Leander Starr Jameson, under the emplo ...
in 1896 being a notable instance. A drama by him, ''Flodden Field'', was performed at His Majesty's theatre in 1903, with incidental music by
Percy Pitt
Percy Pitt (4 January 1869 – 23 November 1932) was an English organist, conductor, composer, and Director of Music of the BBC from 1924 to 1930.
Biography
A native of London, Pitt studied music in Europe at the Leipzig conservatory, t ...
Austin was the subject of a Vanity Fair cartoon by
Spy
Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangib ...
published on 20 February 1896.
He was
caricature
A caricature is a rendered image showing the features of its subject in a simplified or exaggerated way through sketching, pencil strokes, or other artistic drawings (compare to: cartoon). Caricatures can be either insulting or complimentary, a ...
d as "Sir Austed Alfrin" by
L. Frank Baum
Lyman Frank Baum (; May 15, 1856 – May 6, 1919) was an American author best known for his children's books, particularly ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' and its sequels. He wrote 14 novels in the ''Oz'' series, plus 41 other novels (not includ ...
in his 1906 novel ''
John Dough and the Cherub
''John Dough and the Cherub'' is a children's fantasy novel, written by American author L. Frank Baum, about a living gingerbread man and his adventures. It was illustrated by John R. Neill and published in 1906 by the Reilly & Britton Company. ...
''.
Van Morrison
Sir George Ivan Morrison (born 31 August 1945), known professionally as Van Morrison, is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose recording career spans seven decades. He has won two Grammy Awards.
As a teenager in t ...
's song "Haunts of Ancient Peace", the first track on his 1980 album ''
Common One
''Common One'' is the twelfth studio album by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison, released in 1980. The album was recorded over a nine-day period at Super Bear Studios, near Nice, on the French Riviera. Its title is in the lyrics of t ...
*''The Autobiography of Alfred Austin, Poet Laureate'', 1835 – 1910; ()
*''The Story of Mulock: The Pedigree of the Mulock Family of Ireland'' by Sir Edmund Thomas Bewley (Ponsonby & Gibbs, 1905)
*''By Virtue & Faith: A History of the Mulock & Mullock Families'' by Robert Hughes-Mullock FRAS (2012)