Wilfred Owen is one of the most famous, enduring war poets of the First World War.

Wilfred was born on 18 March 1893 in Oswestry, Shropshire, England, and was raised in Merseyside and Shropshire.

It’s believed Wilfred caught the poetry bug on a family holiday in Cheshire as a youngster in 1904. Certainly, he was interested in writing, rhyme, and verse from a young age.

Between 1913 and 1915, Wilfred was teaching in France. Here, he worked on rhyming patterns, a hallmark of his poetry, although it was his First World War service that where Owen truly found his voice.

Wilfred enlisted in the British Army in 1915, joining the Artist’s Rifles: a unit featuring many contemporary poets, painters, authors, and artists of all sorts. After several months of training, he was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Manchester Regiment in 1916.

Lieutenant Owen first saw active service at Serre and St. Quentin between January and April 1917. While there, Wilfred suffered several traumatic experiences that would come to greatly influence his worldview and work.

At one point, he suffered a concussion when he fell into a shell hole. Another incident saw Wilfred knocked unconscious by a trench mortar blast, leaving him unconscious for several days on an embankment amidst the remains of a fellow officer.

Upon his discovery, Wilfred was invalidated back home. He was diagnosed as suffering shell shock and sent to the Craiglockhart War Hospital for treatment. Craiglockhart was a revolutionary established, aimed at treating soldier’s psychological wounds, rather than the physical.

While at Craiglockhart, Wilfred met another of the First World War’s leading poets Sigfried Sassoon.

Sassoon, as well as several other members of Edinburgh’s literary circle, encouraged Wilfred to develop his writing and truly find his own literary voice. 

During the war, Wilfred wrote some of the most widely-read war poems including Dulce Et Decorum Est, Strange Meeting, and Anthem for Doomed Youth. Wilfred’s poetry deals primarily with the brutal, dehumanising nature of warfare, as well as the futility of war.

Wilfred was discharged from Craiglockhart in early 1918 and deemed fit for light military service. However, he was soon back on the frontlines.

In October 1918, Wilfred was awarded the Military Cross for gallant leadership at Jancourt. The London Gazette gives the following details:

“For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty in the attack on the Fonsomme Line on October 1st/2nd, 1918. On the company commander becoming a casualty, he [Owen] assumed command and showed fine leadership and resisted a heavy counter-attack. 

“He personally manipulated a captured enemy machine gun from an isolated position and inflicted considerable losses on the enemy. Throughout he behaved most gallantly”

On 4 November, Wilfred was killed in action crossing the Sambre-Oise Canal.

Almost exactly one week later, as the bells of Shropshire announced the Allied victory, Wilfred’s mother received the telegram informing her of her son’s sad death.

Today, Wilfred Owen is buried at Ors Communal Cemetery in Northern France.