(Francis James) Ronald Bottrall

OBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

, (2 September 1906,

Camborne Camborne (from Cornish language, Cornish ''Cambron'', "crooked hill") is a town in Cornwall, England. The population at the 2011 Census was 20,845. The northern edge of the parish includes a section of the South West Coast Path, Hell's Mouth, C ...

Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...

– 25 June 1989) was a Cornish poet. He was praised highly by F.R. Leavis,

Anthony Burgess John Anthony Burgess Wilson, (; 25 February 1917 – 22 November 1993) who published under the name Anthony Burgess, was an English writer and composer. Although Burgess was primarily a comic writer, his Utopian and dystopian fiction, dy ...

and

Martin Seymour-Smith Martin Roger Seymour-Smith (24 April 1928 – 1 July 1998) was a British poet, literary critic, and biographer. Biography Seymour-Smith was born in London and educated at Highgate School and St Edmund Hall, Oxford, where he was editor of ''Isis ...

, and deprecated by Ian Hamilton and

Martin Amis Sir Martin Louis Amis (25 August 1949 – 19 May 2023) was an English novelist, essayist, memoirist, screenwriter and critic. He is best known for his novels ''Money'' (1984) and '' London Fields'' (1989). He received the James Tait Black Mem ...

. Bottrall was educated at Redruth Grammar School and at

Pembroke College, Cambridge Pembroke College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college is the third-oldest college of the university and has over 700 students and fellows. It is one of the university's larger colleges, with buildings from ...

Career

* Lector in English, University of

Helsinki Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

, 1929–31 * Commonwealth fund fellowship,

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

, USA, 1931–3

* Johore Professor of English Language and Literature,

Raffles College The National University of Singapore (NUS) is a national public research university in Singapore. It was officially established in 1980 by the merging of the University of Singapore and Nanyang University. The university offers degree program ...

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

, 1933–37 * Assistant Director, British Institute,

Florence, Italy Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence was a centre of medieval European t ...

, 1937–38 * Secretary,

SOAS The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS University of London; ) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury area ...

, 1939–45 * Air Ministry: Temporary Administrative Officer, 1940; Priority Officer, 1941 *

British Council The British Council is a British organisation specialising in international cultural and educational opportunities. It works in over 100 countries: promoting a wider knowledge of the United Kingdom and the English language (and the Welsh lang ...

Representative: in

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

, 1941; in

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

, 1945; in

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

, 1954; in

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

, 1957; in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

(and Cultural Counsellor, HM Embassy, Tokyo), 1959 * Controller of Education, British Council, 1950–54 * Chief, Fellowships and Training Branch,

Food and Agriculture Organization The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; . (FAO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger and improve nutrition and food security. Its Latin motto, , translates ...

, 1963–65.

Honours and awards

, 1949. * Coronation Medal, 1953 * Syracuse International Poetry Prize, 1954 * Fellow of the

Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820 by King George IV to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the RSL has about 800 Fellows, elect ...

, 1955 * Knight of St. John, 1972 * Grande Ufficiale dell'Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana, 1973 * Knight Commander, Order of St. John of Jerusalem,

Malta Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two ...

, 1977

Personal life

He was the father of Anthony Bottrall, the diplomat, expert in developmental agriculture and politician.

Publications

Poetry

* ''The Loosening and other Poems'', 1931 * ''Festivals of Fire'', 1934 * ''The Turning Path'', 1939 * ''Farewell and Welcome'', 1945 * ''Selected Poems'', 1946 * ''The Palisades of Fear'', 1949 * ''Adam Unparadised'', 1954 * ''Collected Poems'', 1961 * ''Day and Night'', 1974 * ''Poems 1955–73'', 1974 * ''Reflections on the Nile'', 1980 * ''Against a Setting Sun'', 1983

Other

* (with Gunnar Ekelöf) ''T.S. Eliot: Dikter i Urval'', 1942 * (with Margaret Bottrall) ''The Zephyr Book of English Verse'', 1945 * (with Margaret Bottrall) ''Collected English Verse'', 1946 * ''Rome (Art Centres of the World)'', 1968.

References

1906 births 1989 deaths Harkness Fellows Officers of the Order of the British Empire Alumni of Pembroke College, Cambridge Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature People educated at Redruth Grammar School 20th-century English poets People from Camborne Poets from Cornwall {{Cornwall-stub