Leslie Coulson (19 July 1889 – 8 October 1916) was an English journalist and a poet of the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Coulson was born in Kilburn, London, his father being a columnist for ''The Sunday Chronicle''. Leslie and his brother attended boarding school in

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

, and Leslie then worked as a reporter on the ''Evening News''. He joined the Royal Fusiliers in 1914, declining a commission as an officer and instead enlisting as a private. He carried out his training in Malta, then served in Egypt and Gallipoli before arriving at the Western Front in 1916. Coulson was fatally wounded at the

Battle of Le Transloy The Battle of Le Transloy was the last big attack by the Fourth Army of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in the 1916 Battle of the Somme in France, during the First World War. The battle was fought in conjunction with attacks by the Frenc ...

, and died the next day. He is buried at the

Commonwealth War Graves Commission The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) is an intergovernmental organisation of six independent member states whose principal function is to mark, record and maintain the graves and places of commemoration of Commonwealth of Nations m ...

Grove Town Cemetery near the village of

Méaulte Méaulte () is a commune in the Somme department in Hauts-de-France in northern France. Geography The commune is situated on the D329 road, some northeast of Amiens. Population Personalities * Henry Potez (1891–1981), aeroplane maker, w ...

. His collected poems were published posthumously in 1917, edited by his father, and sold 10,000 copies in the first year. The best known of the poems is "Who Made the Law?" It was one of the first poems to have questioned the need for the war, and Coulson had written it a few days before his death.

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Coulson, Leslie 1889 births 1916 deaths British military personnel killed in the Battle of the Somme British World War I poets Military personnel from London Royal Fusiliers soldiers British Army personnel of World War I