Masefield Matters, 12th August 2025

The image to the left is Cutty Sark, a tea clipper built in 1869 that is now part of Royal Museums Greenwich. She is now housed in a dry dock and receives hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. After a career trading tea and wool, and many years as a training ship, she has been a museum ship since the 1950s. In his later years, John Masefield visited Cutty Sark, as recalled by his friend Audrey Napier-Smith in her introduction to Letters To Reyna, a collection of correspondence from Masefield to Napier-Smith.

Masefield knew Cutty Sark well, and she reminded him of his youth aboard HMS Conway and HMS Gilcruix, and he was, even though it had been many years since he had been to sea, able to explain to his friend  in detail how the ship ran. Masefield wrote fiction, non-fiction and autobiographies about sailing. He detailed his first term aboard HMS Conway aged just thirteen in New Chum, wrote extensively about historical seafaring in Sea Life in Nelson’s Time, and set many of his poems and novels at sea, including ‘Dauber’ and Dead Ned, among many other works.

Near to Cutty Sark is the National Maritime Museum, also part of Royal Museums Greenwich. This houses a range of exhibitions on sailing life and voyages, from exploration of far-off seas to naval warfare and colonial history. John Masefield was hugely knowledgeable about historical sailing, as evidenced by his vivid descriptions of early 19^th century seafaring in his book Sea Life in Nelsons’ Time. Many objects and exhibitions in the National Maritime Museum represent this same time period, including items owned by Nelson himself, such as the coat he wore at the time of his death, shown in the image to the left.

Masefield Matters has an upcoming trip with John Masefield High School to visit Cutty Sark at Greenwich to learn more about Masefield’s teenage years at sea and how it impacted his later life.

Masefield Matters, 29th July 2025

John Masefield was a very popular poet in the early 20^th century, both in Britain and the United States. Many composers took inspiration from his poems and set them to music, which to many people are now the most familiar forms of Masefield’s work.

Many (though not all) of these settings feature Masefield’s earlier poems about the sea. The reason for this is likely twofold. Firstly, these poems are some of Masefield’s most popular, and are likely to have sparked the imagination of other artists with their romance and drama of the sea. Secondly, the structure of these poems lend themselves particularly well to music. Masefield named his first collection Salt Water Ballads, and many of the poems are based on musical forms popular at sea. Masefield, who retained his keen interest in sailing throughout his life, was well-versed in sea shanties, and these clearly inspired his writing.

Most arrangements of Masefield’s work were composed in the first half of the 20^th  century, with very few being written after his death, and still fewer in the 21^st century. Some, such as John Ireland’s arrangement of ‘Sea Fever’, are still regularly performed today, but are in a style that no longer has popular appeal.

How would you set Masefield’s poetry to music? There are versions of Robert Burns set to Scottish folk, Thomas Hardy Christmas carols, rapping Edgar Allan Poe and even Emily Dickinson sung to alternative country (hear these songs here).

Masefield Matters, 15th July 2025

In his later years, Masefield wrote a short pamphlet entitled the Ledbury Scene: as I have used it in my verse in order to raise funds for the church bells of St Michael’s in Ledbury. Despite not having lived in Ledbury for many decades by this point, this demonstrates the strong connection he still felt.  

The first work he discusses in the Ledbury Scene is his early poem the Everlasting Mercy. The Everlasting Mercy is set firmly in the reality of Ledbury at the time of the canal, with local landmarks including the St Michael’s Church, St Katherines Hall, and the Market Hall referenced, as well as the woods between Ledbury and Eastnor. Masefield’s description of this area and the route taken by the protagonist, Saul Kane, is obviously that of someone who knows the area well. Kane’s route is possible to track using maps from the time, though is harder to place in the modern landscape now the canal is no longer present.

Check back soon for the final instalment of this blog post

Masefield Matters, 3rd July 2025

The Masefield Matters staff went to Cardiff Bay last week to visit HMS Ledbury, named for the town. HMS Ledbury was built in 1981 and is currently one of the oldest working ships in the Navy. She is a Hunt Class Mine Counter Measures Vessel, and has a range of methods to target mines, including sonar, divers and the Seafox Mine Disposal System. The purpose of the ship is to ensure safe passage for other vessels. She has recently returned from three years operating in the Persian Gulf.

We met the ship’s officers, including the Captain and Executive Officer, who led us on a tour of the ship. We got to see the top deck, the mine destroying technology, and a pressure chamber for diving. We saw control rooms and the bridge, which control the mine detection and navigation of the ship, as well as living areas for the crew.

The officers were interested in events in the town and in the Masefield Matters project. They heard about the importance of Masefield to the town and his connection to the sea, as well as the range of events we are running. The Chairman of the Town Council, Liz Harvey, gifted the crew a copy of Masefield’s first collection of poems, ‘Salt Water Ballads,’ which is heavily inspired by his time in the Merchant Navy. We hope to work with HMS Ledbury in the future and build our mutual connection with the town and the sea.

Caroline Magnus, 26th June 2025

John Masefield recalled his early years at The Knapp as a time of living in Paradise.  After the grieving children were taken in at The Priory by Uncle William and Aunt Kate in 1886 his life became more difficult and complicated.  Aunt Kate, a daughter of, and sister to, succeeding vicars of Aston Ingham, struggled to cope with six young children.  She found the boys particularly boisterous, especially John and his younger brother Harry, but favoured the Masefield girls, Ethel and Norah.  She discouraged John’s love of reading and insisted on him joining the Merchant Navy.   William and Kate were childless as their only baby had died when he was six months old.  Taking in six recently orphaned, unhappy children ranging in age from one to twelve must have been extremely difficult and demanding, and the situation was made worse by the fact that the Masefield family had recently lost its money and possessions in order to shore up the family business.  No doubt education and literature in particular came a poor second to the need to earn a living in Kate and William’s view, and the Merchant Navy offered education and a steady career, even if as John Masefield describes in his poem Dauber, life at sea could be very dangerous.

In a future post I will describe the bitterness that arose between Aunt and nephew as a result of her inability to accept his literary leanings and creative ability, and show how he overcame the handicaps imposed by his difficult childhood, even turning them to advantage in his writing.  The influence of Ledbury – and of The (wicked) Aunt – can be found in all his best works, and especially in his Kay Harker stories.

My mother stayed with Uncle William and Aunt Kate at the Priory as a child when the family returned to England from Sri Lanka in 1920.  She remembers her being strict, but also fair.  On one occasion my mother broke a vase and owned up, trembling with terror, to Aunt Kate.  But, she told me, because she had admitted to breaking it, Aunt Kate was nice about it  her and forgave her. 

Above: The Knapp, John Masefield's childhood home

Left: Three of the Masefield brothers: John (top), Reggie (middle) and Harry (bottom)

Caroline Magnus is a great-niece of John Masefield and Chair of the John Masefield Society. 

Masefield Matters, 17th June 2025

Masefield Matters took part in Ledbury’s 11^th Annual Community Day which marked the first day of the Great Big Green Week, which was celebrated with a special visitor to the recreation ground – a giant whale!

Ledbury Community Hub ran a 'Sea Fever' themed activity with origami boats, tasty treats and a model ship. Visitors could read Masefield’s most famous poem, then write about what the sea means to them on a strip of fabric. These thoughts were then shared by tying the fabric to the ropes of the ship, creating a colourful display of ideas.   

We were also joined by Herefordshire Wildlife Trust, who had activities based on John Masefield's magical children's books, the Midnight Folk and the Box of Delights. We made cat and fox masks based on Kay's animal friends in the Midnight Folk, our very own box of delights, and mixed up mysterious potions using natural materials. Many thanks to Ledbury Community Hub and Herefordshire Wildlife Trust for their fabulous events!

On the second day of the Great Big Green Week, Masefield Matters hosted a walk from Ledbury to Eastnor to explore the countryside that featured so heavily in John Masefield’s work. The walk was led by Carl Flint of Malvern Walks and local poet Lesley Ingram. Along the trail through the countryside, Lesley read extracts from poems written by Masefield about Herefordshire.

It was great to see so many people getting involved in our Great Big Green Week events and learning about Masefield’s connection to the local landscape.

Masefield Matters, 5th June 2025

The Ledbury of Masefield’s early life is still clearly visible when walking around the town. The river, rural farmhouses and the main streets of the Victorian town are all in many ways very similar, with familiar landmarks referenced in his works. The Market House, St Katherines Hall, the station and the church are markers dating back over a hundred years, and feature in several of Masefield’s works, either by name or by description.  

One of the most significant changes in the landscape of Ledbury since Masefield’s time is the area that is now the Ledbury Town Trail. When John Masefield was born in the 1870s, this path to the west of the Homend was a section of the Herefordshire and Worcestershire Canal. In the 1880s, this part of the canal was filled in and the railway line to Newent was built in its place. The canal is featured as the setting of parts of the Box of Delights, which is broadly inspired by Masefield’s childhood, as well as the Everlasting Mercy. By the time of the Widow in the Bye Street, the railway line has arrived, bringing new employment to the character in this poem.

Check back next week for part 3

Masefield Matters, 21st May 2025

John Masefield was born in Ledbury in 1878 and baptised in nearby Preston Church. His early childhood was spent at the Knapp (a large house that is now north of the Tesco Superstore) with his father George, a solicitor, his mother Caroline, and his five siblings. The children were orphaned after the death of their mother, paternal grandparents and father within a few short years. 

The Masefield siblings remained in Ledbury, now living in the Priory on Worcester Road with their aunt and uncle. John Masefield lived in the town until he was sent to the Merchant Navy training ship HMS Conway by his aunt as a young teen. From the age of thirteen, Masefield did not return to live in Ledbury for any significant length of time, but visited Ledbury and Herefordshire frequently as an adult, with much of his family still living nearby.

 From his writing, it is clear that Masefield remembered the town fondly throughout his life, and Ledbury featured prominently in much of his poetry and children’s works.

Check back next week for part 2