Ralph Nixon Currey (14 December 1907 – 18 November 2001) was a South African born poet, who wrote in English.

Life

He was born in

Mafeking Mahikeng (Tswana for "Place of Rocks"), formerly known as Mafikeng and alternatively known as Mafeking (, ), is the capital city of the North West province of South Africa. Close to South Africa's border with Botswana, Mafikeng is northeast o ...

, South Africa, the son of John Currey (1871–1959) and his wife Edith Vinnicombe (1881–1959). His father was an English Methodist minister who had come out with the British troops at the end of the

Second Anglo-Boer War The Second Boer War (, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, Transvaal War, Anglo–Boer War, or South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer republics (the South African Republic an ...

. He attended

Kingswood School Kingswood School is a private day and boarding school in Bath, Somerset, England. The school is coeducational and educates over 1,000 pupils aged 9 months to 18 years. It was founded by John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, in 1748, and is the ...

, Bath and

Wadham College, Oxford Wadham College ( ) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is located in the centre of Oxford, at the intersection of Broad Street, Oxford, Broad Street and Parks Road ...

. Currey married Stella Martin in 1932. He taught at

Colchester Royal Grammar School Colchester Royal Grammar School (CRGS) is a state-funded grammar school in Colchester, Essex. It was founded in 1128 and was later granted two royal charters - by Henry VIII in 1539 and by Elizabeth I in 1584.Trevor J. Hearn, ''Vitae Corona F ...

from 1934 to 1973. Currey was called up in 1941 to the Royal Corps of Signals before transferring to the Royal Artillery where he received his commission. In 1945

T. S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist and playwright.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biography''. New York: Oxford University ...

wrote to him about his work ''This Other Planet'', telling him that he thought it was "the best war poetry in the correct sense of the term that I have seen in these past years". Currey died at home in Colchester, England.

Works

* ''Tiresias'', Oxford University, 1940 * ''Heavy Guns'', New English Weekly, 1942 * ''The Poetry Magazine'' July 1944 * ''This Other Planet'', 1945 * ''Poems from India'' (Bombay, 1945) (London, 1946) * ''Indian Landscape'', Routledge, 1947 * ''Formal Spring'', OUP, 1950 * ''Poets of the 1939-1945 War'', British Council, 1951 (Longmans, 1967) * ''Letters of a Natal sheriff: Thomas Phipson'', 1969 * The Africa We Knew, David Philip, 1973 * ''Vinnicombe's Trek'', 1989 * ''Collected Poems'', James Currey publishers, 2001

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Currey, R.N. 1907 births 2001 deaths People from Mahikeng Royal Corps of Signals soldiers Royal Artillery officers English male poets South African writers 20th-century English poets 20th-century English male writers British Army personnel of World War II People educated at Kingswood School, Bath