1. Alfred Austin was an English poet who was appointed Poet Laureate in 1896, after an interval following the death of Tennyson, when the other candidates had either caused controversy or refused the honour.
16 Facts About Alfred Austin
1. 2.
Alfred Austin was born in Headingley, near Leeds, on 30 May 1835, to a Roman Catholic family.
3.
Alfred Austin was educated at Stonyhurst College, St Mary's College, Oscott, and University of London, from which he graduated in 1853.
4.
Alfred Austin became a barrister in 1857 but after inheriting a fortune from his uncle gave up his legal career for literature.
5.
Alfred Austin unsuccessfully stood as a Conservative Party candidate for Taunton in 1865, finishing in fourth place, and at Dewsbury in 1880.
6.
Politically conservative, between 1866 and 1896 Alfred Austin edited National Review and wrote leading articles for The Standard.
7.
Alfred Austin was Foreign Affairs Correspondent with the Standard and served as a special correspondent to the Ecumenical Council of the Vatican in 1870; at the Headquarters of the King of Prussia during the Franco-Prussian War, 1870; at the Congress of Berlin, 1878 where he was granted an audience by German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck.
8.
For example, shortly before his appointment was announced, Alfred Austin published a sonnet entitled "A Vindication of England", written in response to a series of sonnets by William Watson, published in the Westminster Gazette, that had accused Salisbury's government of betraying Armenia and abandoning its people to Turkish massacres.
9.
Alfred Austin died of unknown causes at Swinford Old Manor, Hothfield, near Ashford, Kent, England, where he had been ill for some time.
10.
On 14 November 1865 Alfred Austin married Hester Jane Homan-Mulock, tenth child of Thomas Homan-Mulock and Frances Sophia Berry at St Marylebone Parish Church, London.
11.
Alfred Austin died suddenly on 23 September 1929 at her residence in Kensington.
12.
Alfred Austin's nephews included the Polar Explorer Captain George Mulock and British diplomat Sir Howard William Kennard, British Ambassador to Poland at the outbreak of the Second World War.
13.
Alfred Austin has not sought to emulate Tennyson's exquisite elaboration of diction; his lines are seldom jewelled by 'curious felicities.
14.
Alfred Austin has dealt powerfully with the grandeurs of Alpine scenery, but his happiest pictures are of English fields and woods.
15.
Alfred Austin was the subject of a Vanity Fair cartoon by Spy published on 20 February 1896.
16.
Alfred Austin was caricatured as "Sir Austed Alfrin" by L Frank Baum in his 1906 novel John Dough and the Cherub.