Arthur Lewis Jenkins Explained

Arthur Lewis Jenkins (1892 - 1917) was a British soldier, pilot and war poet.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Early life

He was born 9 March 1892, in Barton Regis, near Bristol, Gloucestershire. His parents were Sir John Lewis Jenkins KCSI (1857 - 1912), a civil servant who became Vice President of the Indian Viceroy's Council, and Florence Mildred Trevor (1870–1956). He attended Packwood Haugh School, as did his four brothers. In 1905 he won a Foundation Scholarship to Marlborough College (1905-1911), where he was head boy, played rugby and was a member of the Officers' Training Corps (OTC).[5] In 1910 he won a classical scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford, matriculating in 1911 and taking a Second in Honour Moderations in 1913.[6] [7] The family lived in 'The Beehive', Littleham, Exmouth, Devon; on the death of his father they moved to live at Sussex House, Kew Road, Surrey. Lady Jenkins later moved to Kennington, Kent.[8]

Career

Although probably destined to enter the Indian Civil Service he left Balliol to join the army. In September 1914 he was commissioned as Second-Lieutenant into the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry. He served in India, Aden, where he was in charge of a machine-gun section, and Egypt. His section was disbanded so in May 1917 he joined as a Lieutenant in the Royal Flying Corps, doing his training in Egypt. When he was posted back to England in August he was sent for training in night flying. He was killed while night flying on duty at Helperby, Yorkshire, on 31 December 1917.[9] [10]

Poetry

He had poems published in the Marlborough school magazine and then in Punch and The Westminster Gazette. His recollections of campaigning in Aden are recorded in 'Arabia,' written just before he left Aden for Palestine; it was published in Punch.[11] His poem 'The Inn of the Sword', "A mysterious romantic ballad of a dark challenge taken up", was published in the 1917 edition.[12] [13] His poem 'Happy Warriors' was published in The Westminster Gazette.[14]

After his death his collection of poems "Forlorn Adventurers and other poems” was published in 1918.[15] His poems were included in anthologies of World War I poems, such as 'The Spirit of Womanhood', 'Outposts' in "The Muse in Arms" (1917) and in "War Verse" (1918)[16] and "The Valiant Muse" (1936).[17] His poem 'Sending' was published in "The Children's Story of the War" (1918).[18]

Virginia Woolf reviewing his poems in The Times Literary Supplement wrote that he was "a poet and a sportsman who loved the wind and the sea, and would always take the fighting chance."[19] [20] The Western Mail reporting his death noted that "he, too, like the other gallant hearts that have gone before him, has found "a fuller life.”"[21]

In his poem 'Bondage' he wrote[22]

Oh, I am sick of ways and warsAnd the homeless ends of the earth,I would get back to the northern starsAnd the land where I had birth, ….The wine of war is bitter wine,And I have drunk my fill;My heart would seek its anodyneIn homely things and still….

Happy Warriors

Clear came the call; they leapt to arms and died,As in old days the heroes prayed to do;Great though our sorrow, greater yet our pride,O, gallant hearts in you.

Surely they sleep content, our valiant dead,⁠Fallen untimely in the savage strife:They have but followed whither duty led,⁠To find a fuller life.

Who, then, are we to grudge the bitter price⁠Of this our land inviolate through the years,Or mar the splendour of their sacrifice⁠That is too high for tears....

God grant we fail not at the test—that when⁠We take, mayhap, our places in the fray,Come life, come death, we quit ourselves like men,⁠The peers of such as they.

Arabia

An aching glare, a heat that kills, Skies hard and pitiless overhead, And, ever mastering lesser ills, Sad bugles keening comrades dead; Fever and dust and smiting sun, In sooth a land of little ease; Yet now my service here is doneI think on other things than these.

Dawn on the desert's shortlived dew,Blue shadows on the silver sand, Grey shimmering mists that still renewThe magic of the hinterland;Sunsets ablaze with crimson fire,Pale moons like plates of beaten gold,Soft nights that fevered limbs desire,And stars whereto our stars are cold;

Sharp rattling fights at peep of day,Machine-guns searching scrub and plain,Red lances questing for the prey,And shrapnel puffs that melt again;Swift shifting stroke and counterstroke,Advance unhurrying and sure,Until the stubborn foeman broke—These are the memories that endure.

Heigh-ho! I would not stay - and yet,Now that the trooper's fairly in,With vain unreasoning regretI turn my journey to begin;For through the haze of dust and heat That veils the desert and the town, Still glimmers something strange and sweet, The afterglow of old renown.

Memorials

He had a military funeral with the band of the East Surrey Regiment playing,[23] and is buried in Richmond Cemetery[24] [25] [26] next to his sister, Elinor May Jenkins (1893-1920), who was also a war poet.[27] [28] The inscription on his grave is "Per ardua ad astra".

He is commemorated on the memorials at the Marlborough College Memorial Hall,[29] Balliol College,[30] Packwood Haugh School, and St Anne's Church, Kew.[31]

Books

Works about Jenkins

Notes and References

  1. Web site: 7 March 2019 . Arthur Lewis Jenkins (1892 – 1917) – British Soldier and Aviator Poet . 19 December 2022 . Forgotten Poets of the First World War.
  2. Web site: WE REMEMBER ARTHUR LEWIS JENKINS . Imperial War Museums.
  3. 6 March 1918 . LIEUT. ARTHUR LEWIS JENKINS, D. C.L.I., R.F.C. . The Marlburian . LIII . 25 . Marlborough College..
  4. Book: St. John Adcock, Arthur . For Remembrance: Soldier Poets who Have Fallen in the War . Hodder and Stoughton . 1920.
  5. Web site: Williams . Tracey . 31st December 1917 . 21 October 2023 . Solihull Life. Solihull Heritage & Local Studies.
  6. News: 13 December 1910 . University Intelligence . 12 . Times . 19 December 2022.
  7. News: 20 December 1910 . University Intelligence . 7 . Western Daily Press . British Library Newspapers.
  8. 1931 . Marriages . Prior's Field Magazine . 42 . 48 . Prior's Field.
  9. Web site: Arthur Lewis Jenkins . 19 December 2022 . Marlborough College.
  10. News: 5 January 1918 . Welsh Airman Killed . 1 . Herald of Wales and Monmouthshire Recorder . The National Library of Wales.
  11. 1916 . Arabia . Punch . 151 . 3913 . 284 . Internet Archive.
  12. 1917 . The Inn of the Sword . Punch . 152 . 66 . Internet Archive.
  13. Book: Drayton Henderson, W B . Poems from Punch: 1909-1920 . Macmillan . 1922 . 213–214 . Internet Archive.
  14. News: 10 February 1916 . Happy Warriors . 3 . Westminster Gazette.
  15. News: 6 November 1918 . The critic on the hearth . 20 . The Sketch.
  16. Book: Foxcroft, Frank . War Verse . New York: Thomas Y. Crowell . 1918.
  17. Book: Ziv, Frederic W . The valiant muse; an anthology of poems by poets killed in the World War . G. P. Putnam's Sons . 1936.
  18. Book: Parrott, Edward . The Children's Story of the War . Thomas Nelson and Sons . 1918 . Internet Archive.
  19. Woolf . Virginia . 23 January 1919 . Four Young Poets . The Times Literary Supplement . 888 . 40 . The Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive.
  20. Book: Levenback, Karen L. . Virginia Woolf and the Great War . Syracuse University Press . 1999 . 181.
  21. News: 3 January 1918 . Son of the late Sir J L Jenkins. Promising poet killed whilst flying. . 5 . Western Mail . Imperial War Museums.
  22. Web site: Holford . Josie . 31 December 2017 . Night Patrol . 21 October 2023 . Josie Holford.
  23. News: 12 January 1918 . Funeral of the late Lieutenant A G Jenkins . 7 . Richmond and Twickenham Times.
  24. News: 5 January 1918 . Arthur Lewis Jenkins . 8 . Richmond Herald.
  25. News: 19 September 1918 . Poetry . 2 . The Scotsman.
  26. News: 7 January 1918 . Welsh Airman's Funeral . 3 . The Cambria Daily Leader . The National Library of Wales.
  27. News: 3 January 1916 . Poems by Elinor Jenkins . 7 . Western Daily Press . British Library Newspapers.
  28. News: 6 March 1920 . Death of a poetess . 11 . Richmond Herald.
  29. Web site: Surrey in the Great War: A County Remembers . Surrey in the Great War.
  30. Web site: 1999 . Balliol College Archives & Manuscripts. Memorial inscriptions . Balliol College.
  31. Web site: 2018 . Kew, St Anne's, Men Of Kew Memorial . Surrey in the Great War: A County Remembers.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Arthur Lewis Jenkins".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.