Charles Sorley

• Birth Name — Charles Hamilton Sorley • Born — 19 May 1895 • Birthplace — Aberdeen, Scotland • Died — 13 October 1915 • Place of death — Hulluch, Lens, France • Death Cause — Killed in action • Occupation — Soldier, Poet, Student • Education — Marlborough College • Period — Early 20th century • Genre — Poetry • Notable Works — Marlborough and Other Poems

Born in Powis House Aberdeen, Scotland, he was the son of philosopher and University Professor William Ritchie Sorley. He was educated at King's College School, Cambridge, and then, like Siegfried Sassoon, at Marlborough College (1908–13). At Marlborough College Sorley's favourite pursuit was cross-country running in the rain, a theme evident in many of his pre-war poems, including Rain and The Song of the Ungirt Runners. In keeping with his strict Protestant upbringing, Sorley had strong views on right and wrong, and on two occasions volunteered to be punished for breaking school rules. Before taking up a scholarship to study at University College, Oxford, Sorley spent a little more than six months in Germany from January to July 1914, three months of which were at Schwerin studying the language and local culture. Then he enrolled at the University of Jena, and studied there up to the outbreak of World War I. After Germany declared war on Russia, Sorley was detained for an afternoon in Trier, but was released on the same day and told to leave the country. He returned to England and immediately volunteered for military service in the British Army. He joined the Suffolk Regiment as a second lieutenant and was posted to the 7th (Service) Battalion, a Kitchener's Army unit serving as part of the 35th Brigade of the 12th (Eastern) Division. He arrived on the Western Front in Boulogne, France on 30 May 1915 as a lieutenant, and served near Ploegsteert. He was promoted to captain in August 1915. Sorley was killed in action near Hulluch, having been shot in the head by a sniper during the final offensive of the Battle of Loos on 13 October 1915. Having no known grave at war's end, he is commemorated on the CWGC Loos Memorial. Sorley's last poem was recovered from his kit after his death, and includes some of his most famous lines: • When you see millions of the mouthless dead • Across your dreams in pale battalions go

• Marlborough and Other Poems. Cambridge University Press, 1916. * • Wilson, Jean Moorcroft (Ed). The Collected Poems of Charles Hamilton Sorley. London: Cecil Woolf, 1985.. • Wilson, Jean Moorcroft (Ed). The Collected Letters of Charles Hamilton Sorley. London: Cecil Woolf, 1990. • Spear, Hilda D. (Ed). The Poems and Selected Letters of Charles Hamilton Sorley. Dundee: Blackness Press, 1978.