Francis Charles Webb-Wagg 1925 - 1973

Lifespan

Biography/History/Description

Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Webb_(poet)

Francis Webb was an Australian poet. Born in Adelaide in 1925, he completed his schooling in Sydney before enlisting in the RAAF, serving 1943 - 1945. After demobilisation, he briefly attended Sydney University but withdrew to focus on writing. He spent some time working for the publisher Macmillan in Canada, before moving to England in 1949. In the 1950s, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and spent much of his life in and out of psychiatric institutions in the United Kingdom and Australia.

Despite his poor health, Webb was a prolific poet, publishing six collections, beginning with the 1948 A Drum for Ben Boyd, which won the Grace Leven Prize for Poetry. His last collection, Collected Poems, was published in 1969.
 
 
References: