T.P. Cameron Wilson

[Guest Merryn Williams]

I am very keen to find out more about the war poet Theodore Percival Cameron Wilson, Captain, 10th Sherwood Foresters, killed 24th March 1918. He wrote a wonderful poem, 'Magpies in Picardy, which you can read on the internet, and I am writing a booklet about him for Cecil Woolf's series on war poets in the twentieth century. His letters have also been published in collections. His father was the vicar at Little Eaton, Derbyshire, and he had five siblings - Christopher, Marjorie, Alice, John and Charles. I'd be particularly pleased to find a photograph of him or to hear from any relatives - or poetry lovers.

Merryn Williams

[squirrel]

Magpies in Picardy is probably my favourite WW1 poem.

I have it in a book which I can't remember the title of that has details of a number of WW1 poets, their background, service, death etc.

Some of his other poems are good too.

[linge]

Merryn

T P Cameron Wilson does feature in "For Remembrance" (Soldier Poet who have Fallen in the War) .

Unfortunately in his case the book does not contain a photograph .

He graduated in 1907 from Non-Collegiate , Oxford. His entry in the Oxford University Roll of Service has the following:

Enlisted August 1914 initially in the ranks (per For Remembrance his initial enlistment was in the Grenadier Guards)

MID France 1917

Regards

pam

[squirrel]

A fair write up of his service in A Deep Cry, by Anne Powell, Sutton Publishing 1998 and 2000. ISBN O 7509 1987 6.

I think his poem Sportsmen in Paradise is very tongue in cheek and for the last week or so topical. The poem Heaven found in his pocket after his death is superb.

[Andrew Hesketh]

Theodore Percival Cameron Wilson was born in 1889. He was the son of Rev. Theodore Cameron Wilson and Annie Fredeline Wilson, of The Vicarage, Little Eaton. He wrote for Punch and wrote poetry.Wilson enlisted in the Guards in August 1914 but was later attached to the 10th Sherwood Foresters.

On 21 March 1918 the Germans launched a major offensive which penetrated the British lines at many points. On the 22nd he rescued one of his men who was stranded on the barbed wire in no-man's land. The following day he was hit by an enemy bullet and killed. His body was not recovered, or not identified, and he is commemorated on the Arras Memorial. He was 29.

Wilson's book of poems, 'Magpies in Picardy' (The Poetry Bookshop, 1919), did not sell well and it was not until Field Marshal Lord Wavell included some of Wilson's poetry in his own war time anthology that he received artistic recognition.

He once wrote, "War is indescribably disgusting."