Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen was born on the 18th March 1893 at Plas Wilmot, Western Lane, Oswestry, Shropshire, the eldest of Thomas and (Harriett) Susan Owen (née Shaw)'s four children. At the time of Owen's birth, his parents lived in a comfortable house owned by his mother's family. His maternal grandfather Edward Shaw was a former Mayor of the town and whilst his family seemed outwardly wealthy, things were far from ideal and when in 1897 Edward Shaw, died the family were on the verge of bankruptcy. Plas Wilmot and its contents were sold and the family moved to lodgings in the back streets of Birkenhead where Wilfred's father, Thomas was temporarily employed as a railwayman. Later that year Thomas was​ transferred to Shrewsbury where the family lived with Thomas's parents in Canon Street before transferring back to Birkenhead in 1898 when Thomas was appointed stationmaster at Woodside station. Whilst in Birkenhead Wilfred was educated at the Birkenhead Institute. In 1907 the family moved back to Shrewsbury where Wilfred's education continued at Shrewsbury Technical School (later known as the Wakeman School).

Owen's last two years of formal education saw him as a pupil-teacher at the Wyle Cop school in Shrewsbury. In 1911 he passed the matriculation exam for the University of London, but not with the first-class honours needed for a scholarship, which in his family's circumstances was the only way he could have afforded to attend.​​ The next part of his life was geared to preparing to retake his university entrance exams. Owen had been brought up according to his mother's strong religious beliefs and had been considering becoming a priest, so in return for free lodging, and some tuition for the entrance exam Owen worked as lay assistant to the Vicar of Dunsden near Reading, living in the vicarage from September 1911 to February 1913. During this time he attended classes at University College, Reading (now the University of Reading), in botany and later, at the urging of the head of the English Department, took free lessons in Old English.
Owen had discovered his poetic vocation in about 1904 during a holiday spent in Cheshire. He was raised as an Anglican of the evangelical type, and in his youth was a devout believer, in part thanks to his strong relationship with his mother, which lasted throughout his life. His early influences included the Bible and the Romantic poets, particularly Wordsworth and John Keats. Owen was certainly writing poems while in Dunsden, but the experience seemed to turn him away from the church becoming disillusioned both in its ceremony and its failure to provide aid for those in need and he questioned the contradiction between religion and science. In February 1913 he returned to Shrewsbury - and soon had something of a breakdown.
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He stayed in Shrewsbury for several months, failing his university scholarship again, and finally leaving England in 1913 work as a private tutor teaching English and French at the Berlitz School of Languages in Bordeaux, France, and later with a family. There he met the older French poet Laurent Tailhade. He stayed there for two years, and even though WWI began in September 1914, Owen did not rush to enlist. He did consider joining the French army – but eventually returned to England and on 21st October 1915 he enlisted in the Artists Rifles. For the next seven months, he undertook basic training followed by Officer training at various camps including a brief period at Park Hall camp, Oswestry .
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On 4 June 1916, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant (on probation) in the Manchester Regiment. Initially Owen held his troops in contempt for their loutish behaviour, and in a letter to his mother described his company as "expressionless lumps" However, his imaginative existence was to be changed dramatically by a number of traumatic experiences when, eventually, in January 1917, it was Owen's turn to go to the frontline at Serre as a second lieutenant and platoon leader in the Manchester Regiment.​​​​​​
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The capture of Serre 1917
Almost immediately he found himself in the thick of the action. He was ordered to occupy two captured German dugouts with his men. They held their position - a muddy hole deep in stinking water - for 50 hours while the enemy constantly shelled them. One of his men was blinded in an explosion, and this incident became the basis for his poem, The Sentry. Owen continued fighting on the front line with his Manchester Regiment suffering concussion when he fell into a cellar, which saw him briefly receive hospital before returning a few weeks later to take part in fierce fighting at St Quentin. In April, as he slept during an artillery barrage, a shell exploded a few yards from him, leaving him unhurt but killing some of his closest friends. As the fighting raged on Owen was caught in the blast of a trench mortar shell and spent several days unconscious on an embankment lying amongst the remains of one of his fellow officers.
Soon afterward, Owen was diagnosed with neurasthenia or shell shock and sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh for treatment. His doctor encouraged him to write his poems, and it was while recuperating at Craiglockhart that he met fellow poet Siegfried Sassoon, an encounter that was to transform Owen's life. Sassoon was an already established war poet, whose work he admired.​ Encouraged by Sassoon and his doctor, he produced his best work at the hospital, fired on by the writing and attitudes of the jingoistic people who had never been to war, yet chose to glorify it.​​
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Whilst at Craiglockhart he made friends in Edinburgh's artistic and literary circles, and did some teaching at the Tynecastle High School, in a poor area of the city. In November he was discharged from Craiglockhart, judged fit for light regimental duties. He spent a contented and fruitful winter in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, and in March 1918 was posted to the Northern Command Depot at Ripon. While in Ripon he composed or revised a number of poems, including "Futility" and "Strange Meeting". His 25th birthday was spent quietly at Ripon Cathedral, which is dedicated to his namesake, St. Wilfrid of Hexham.
Owen returned in July 1918, to active service in France, although he might have stayed on home-duty indefinitely. His decision to return was probably the result of Sassoon's being sent back to England, after being shot in the head in an apparent "friendly fire" incident, and put on sick-leave for the remaining duration of the war. Owen saw it as his duty to add his voice to that of Sassoon, that the horrific realities of the war might continue to be told. Sassoon was violently opposed to the idea of Owen returning to the trenches, threatening to "stab him in the leg" if he tried it. Aware of his attitude, Owen did not inform him of his action until he was once again in France.
At the very end of August 1918, Owen returned to the front line after more than a year away, On 1 October 1918, Owen led units of the Second Manchester's in the breaking of the Hindenburg Line near the village of Joncourt. It was during this action he was awarded the Military Cross in recognition of his courage and leadership. This was not gazetted until February 1919 with the citation reading-
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"2nd Lt, Wilfred Edward Salter Owen, 5th Bn. Manch. R., T.F., attd. 2nd Bn. 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 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"
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On November 4th 1918, just one week before the signing of the Armistice to end the conflict, Wilfred Owen was killed in action during the crossing of the Sambre–Oise Canal. The day after his death he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant and one week later on Armistice Day as the church bells in Shrewsbury were ringing out in celebration of the end of the war his mother received the telegram informing her of his death. Wilfred owen is buried in Ors Communal Cemetery, Ors, in Northern France. The inscription on his gravestone, chosen by his mother Susan, is a quotation from his poetry: "SHALL LIFE RENEW THESE BODIES? OF A TRUTH ALL DEATH WILL HE ANNUL" W.O.​​​​​

ANTHEM FOR DOOMED YOUTH
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing down of blinds.
Owen's grave in Ors, Northern France
Only five of Owen's poems were published before his death, one in fragmentary form. His best known poems include "Anthem for Doomed Youth", "Futility", "Dulce Et Decorum Est", "The Parable of the Old Men and the Young" and "Strange Meeting". However, most of them were published posthumously: Poems (1920), The Poems of Wilfred Owen (1931), The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen (1963), The Complete Poems and Fragments (1983); fundamental in this last collection is the poem Soldier's Dream, that deals with Owen's conception of war.