Owen was born into a prosperous home in Oswestry, but two years later his family was obliged to move to a modest house in Shrewsbury and then to Birkenhead. His mother encouraged his ambitions to restore the standing of the family. From 1911 he worked as a lay assistant to an Oxfordshire vicar, but became increasingly disillusioned with the Church.

When war was declared Owen was in France, where he had been employed as a private tutor. He returned to England and joined the Artists' Rifles in October 1915. He was subsequently commissioned into the Manchester Regiment and was sent to France in December 1916. In April 1917, after a traumatic period of action, He was diagnosed as suffering from shell-shock and was sent back to Britain. At Craiglockhart War Hospital he met Siegfried Sassoon. There, with Sassoon's constructive support, he found his poetic voice, writing such poems as 'Anthem for Doomed Youth'. Owen returned to France in August 1918. He was awarded the Military Cross in October, but was killed in action on 4 November. His family received the telegram reporting his death as the Armistice bells were sounding in their home town.

Wilfred Owen Association
For information on events and membership
Tel: 01743 235904

My soul looked down from a vague height, with Death,
As unremembering how I rose or why,
And saw a sad land, weak with sweats of dearth,
Grey, cratered like the moon with hollow woe,
And pitted with great pocks and scabs of plagues.

from 'The Show'