Petersfield Museum is to host the first Edward Thomas Literary Festival in October to celebrate the Steep writer considered to be one of England’s most important poets.

But who was Edward Thomas? I have to admit despite his accolade as the ‘father of us all’ by former Poet Laureate Ted Hughes, and the high esteem he is held in by critics and authors including Walter de la Mare, Aldous Huxley and Edna Longley, I had never heard of him until I began working at Petersfield Museum.

I do not seem alone in this ignorance, as many friends and family I mention him to have also not heard of this influential poet.

So, I thought I would take this opportunity to share a little bit more about who Edward Thomas was.

(Philip) Edward Thomas was born in Lambeth in 1878 to Welsh parents.

Edward’s father worked for the Board of Trade and was temperamentally opposite to his son; they disagreed on nearly everything, including Edward’s desire for a literary career.

While attending St Paul’s School Edward met the successful literary journalist James Ashcroft Noble.

He encouraged Thomas in his literary ambitions and was instrumental in getting his first book, The Woodland Life, published.

While still a student at Lincoln College, Oxford, Edward married James Noble’s daughter Helen in 1899, a marriage opposed by Helen’s mother.

With his father opposed to his literary career and his wife’s mother opposed to their marriage, the couple lived precariously in rural southern England.

They eventually moved to Steep, where they rented several properties from 1906.

Between 1900 and 1910 they had three children, and with a growing family Edward began accepting writing and reviewing work from London publishers.

His work included essays, natural history, criticism, biographies, reviews, fiction, introductions and topographical descriptions.

Although this work was literary in nature, Edward did not enjoy it and described himself as a ‘hack writer,’ and a ‘hurried and harried prose man.’

His loathing of this work fed into his poor mental state and left him deeply depressed for weeks at a time.

In 1911 he suffered such a bad breakdown he contemplated suicide, taking his pistol into the woods with no intention of returning.

Edward tried many ways to overcome his depression, but had most success by finding solace in nature, taking long walks, sometimes covering 30 miles a day.

It was not until he forged a friendship with the American poet Robert Frost that he gained the encouragement and confidence to write poetry.

He began in 1914, and between 1914 and 1917 he compiled more than 140 poems. The first six of these were published under the pseudonym Edward Eastaway in 1916.

They were the only poems he would live to see published.

After reading Robert Frost’s poem, The Road not Taken, and after much deliberation and hesitation, Edward enlisted in the army in 1915 to protect the very earth that he loved.

He was killed at the Battle of Arras in France on Easter Monday in 1917, while his first edition of poems was being prepared for print.

You can find out more about his life, work, and influence during the Edward Thomas Literary Festival this October.

For more information visit the website at www.petersfieldmuseum.co.uk