Trevor Blakemore

Trevor Ramsey Villiers Blakemore (13 October 1879 – 8 July 1953) was an English poet and author.

Early life

Gonville & Caius College

Born in Chislehurst, Kent, Blakemore was the son of Ramsey Blakemore, a merchant, of St Leonards-on-Sea,^[1] and Anna Maria Elizabeth Baynes, who had married at Wimbledon in 1867.^[2] He had an older sister, Ethel Agnes Annette, born about 1872.^[3] His father died in 1891.

He was educated at Hurst Court School, Hastings, Wellington College, and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he was admitted on 1 October 1897 and graduated BA in 1900.^[1][3]

Career

Apart from his work as a poet, Blakemore was the author of a biography of the painter Herbert Schmalz, published in 1911.^[4]

In the 1920s, Blakemore spent part of his life on Sark in the Channel Islands, and much of his poetry was inspired by the island.^[5][6]

In the 1930s, Blakemore was a member of the selection committee of the Right Book Club, with Anthony Ludovici, Norman Thwaites, Collinson Owen, and W. A. Foyle.^[7][8]

In 1955, after Blakemore’s death, Poems by Trevor Blakemore was published by Neville Spearman, edited by Robert Gittings and Ann Blakemore, with a foreword by Sir Compton Mackenzie.^[6]

Personal life

In 1911, Blakemore was living in Devonshire Terrace, Lancaster Gate, London W2, with his widowed mother, an older sister, and three servants.^[3] His mother died in 1928, and his sister in 1947.^[9]

In 1947, Blakemore married Ann Florence May Driver,^[10] whom he had known since 1932.^[11] At the time of his death, in 1953, they were living at 4, Devonshire Terrace, where he died. He left a personal estate valued at £62,728,^[12] equivalent to £2,169,293 in 2023.

In his introduction to Poems by Trevor Blakemore , Compton Mackenzie said:

Trevor Blakemore had as great a capacity for enjoying himself as any man I have met. Good wine, good food, good company, good books, a fine day in Spring, a Summer swim – all simple enough pleasures, but for him every one was the peak attainable by man. Enthusiasm can be tiresome; the enthusiasm of Trevor Blakemore was infectious. He bubbled like champagne.^[6]

In the 1958 New Year Honours, Blakemore's widow was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire for services to the musical education of children.^[13]

Publications

• Trevor Blakemore, The art of Herbert Schmalz : with monographs on certain pictures by various writers, and 64 illustrations (London: George Allen, 1911)^[4]
• Trevor Blakemore, Poems And Ballads (London: Elkin Mathews, 1912)
• Trevor Blakemore, The Flagship and Other Poems (London: Erskine MacDonald, 1915)
• Trevor Blakemore, China Clay, illustrated by Molly MacArthur (W. Heffer & Sons, 1922)
• Trevor Blakemore, Moonset and Other Poems (London: Elkin Mathews, 1924)
• Trevor Blakemore, Elementals (London: W. & G. Foyle, 1935)
• William Alwyn, 3 Songs to Words by Trevor Blakemore (1940)
• The Ballades of Trevor Blakemore (1955)
• Poems by Trevor Blakemore, with foreword by Compton Mackenzie (London: Neville Spearman, 1955)