Charles Stanley Causley (1917 - 2003)

Born 24 Aug 1917 in Launceston, Cornwall, England, United Kingdom

Ancestors

Died 4 Nov 2003 at age 86 in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Sally Douglas [send private message]

Biography

Charles Causley is Notable.

Charles Causley was born in Cornwall, England.

Charles Causley was a Cornish poet, teacher, and writer. His work often 'explores contemporary experience in familiar, traditional forms' ^[1], and is noted for its associations with Cornish folklore and history, and the Christian faith. His friend Ted Hughes said that he was 'a poet for whom the title [Poet Laureate] might have been invented afresh',^[2] but, probably because of his traditionalism, he was never offered the post.

They are waiting for me somewhere beyond Eden Rock:

My father, twenty five, in the same suit

Of Genuine Irish Tweed, his terrier Jack

Still trembling at his feet.

(from 'Eden Rock') ^[3]

Charles Stanley Causley was born in Launceston, Cornwall, on 24 August 1917.^[4] His mother was Laura Jane (Bartlett) Causley and his father was Charles Samuel Causley.^[5] The couple had married in 1915. ^[6][7] Before marriage, Charles Senior had been a groom and gardener for the Rodwell family in Teignmouth,^[8] while Laura had been a cook for the Fraser family, also in Teignmouth.^[9]

During the Great War, Charles senior had been a driver in the Army Service Corps on the western front,^[1] and although he survived the war, he died in 1925 from a long-standing lung condition originating from when he was on active service in the trenches.^{[10] [11]} Charles, the only child, was 7 at the time of his father's death; his widowed mother was 37.

Charles was educated at school in Launceston, but left at the age of 16 to become a clerk. He continued to live with his mother and in 1939 he was recorded as living with her at 23 Tredydan Road, Launceston, and working as a 'general clerk, public utility undertaking - electrical supply. ^[12]

In the autumn of 1939 Charles enlisted in the Royal Navy. He initially worked as a coder, eventually rising the acting petty officer. ^[1] He later wrote:

I think I became a working poet the day I joined the destroyer Eclipse at Scapa Flow in August, 1940 … I knew that at last I had found my first subject, as well as a form. Living and working on the lower-deck meant that if I was to write anything at all, then it would have to be in the kind of shorthand of experience (to use a horrible phrase) poetry happens to be.^[13]

After the war Charles trained as a teacher in Peterborough, and then returned to Launceston, where he taught in the primary school for the next 30 years. He retired in 1976.

All this while he had been writing. He wrote poems for both adults and children, and plays; and also edited several poetry anthologies. His experiences while teaching underpin one of his best-known poems, 'Timothy Winters':

His belly is white, his neck is dark,

And his hair is an exclamation-mark.

His clothes are enough to scare a crow

And through his britches the blue winds blow.

(extract from 'Timothy Winters') ^[14]

Charles is recorded on the Poetry Archive website reading this poem, and he ends the recording by saying

'People always ask me whether this was a real boy. My God, he certainly was. Poor old boy. I don't know where he is now. I was thunderstruck when people thought I'd made it up! He was a real bloke. Poor little devil.'^[15]

Charles never had children of his own. However, in a letter to the writer Susan Hill, he expressed his regret at this, and the melancholy he felt about it when seeing the children of his closest friend Ted Hughes. 'I used to look at them in their cots' he wrote to Hill, 'and think, 'and all I've got to show for it are a few old poems'.'^[16]

Despite never being offered the Laureateship, Charles did achieve significant recognition for his work. In 1958 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and in 1986 he was awarded a CBE. He was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (1967), a Cholmondeley Award (1971), an Honorary Doctorate from Exeter University (1977), and the Heywood Hill Literary Prize (2000). When he was 83 he was made a Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature. ^[2]

Charles passed away on November 4 2003, aged 86. He is buried in St Thomas the Apostle Churchyard, Launceston, next to the grave of his mother, and only 100 yards from where he was born.^{[17] [18]}

They beckon to me from the other bank.

I hear them call, ‘See where the stream-path is!

Crossing is not as hard as you might think.’

I had not thought that it would be like this.

(closing lines of 'Eden Rock') ^[3]

The former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion has said that if he could write a line as perfect as the one that closes 'Eden Rock', he would die a happy man.^[2]

Bibliography

For Adults

• Hands to Dance (1951)
• Farewell, Aggie Weston (1951)
• Survivor's Leave (1953)
• Union Street (1957)
• Johnny Alleluia (1961)
• Underneath the Water (1968)
• Secret Destinations (1984)
• Twenty-One Poems (1986)
• A Field of Vision (1988)
• Collected Poems 1951-1997 (1997)
• Collected Poems, 1951-2000 (2000)

For Children

• Figure of 8 (1969)
• Figgie Hobbin: Poems for Children (for children, 1970)
• 'Quack!' Said the Billy-Goat (c. 1970)
• The Tail of the Trinosaur (for children, 1973)
• As I Went Down Zig Zag (1974)
• Dick Whittington (1976)
• The Animals' Carol (1978)
• Early in the Morning: A Collection of New Poems with music by Anthony Castro and illustrations by Michael Foreman
• Jack the Treacle Eater (Macmillan, 1987), illustrated by Charles Keeping
• The Young Man of Cury and Other Poems (1991)
• All Day Saturday, and Other Poems (1994)
• Collected Poems for Children (1996) illustrated by John Lawrence
• The Merrymaid of Zennor (1999)
• I Had a Little Cat (2009)
• Timothy Winters
• Ballad of the bread man

Plays

• Runaway (1936)
• The Conquering Hero (1937)
• Benedict (1938)
• How Pleasant to Know Mrs. Lear: A Victorian Comedy in One Act (1948)
• The Ballad of Aucassin and Nicolette (libretto, 1981)

As Editor

• Peninsula
• Dawn and Dusk
• Rising Early
• Modern Folk Ballads
• The Puffin Book of Magic Verse
• The Puffin Book of Salt-Sea Verse
• The Sun, Dancing: Anthology of Christian Verse

(Bibliography) ^[2]

Sources

Note: Excerpts from poems have been shared under the principles laid out in the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Poetry, funded by The Poetry Foundation.

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2} Mole, John, Entry for Charles Stanley Causley in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Online, online publ. 2007, print 2009. (Free access with most UK library memberships)
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3} Wikipedia contributors, "Charles Causley," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Charles_Causley&oldid=906450194 (accessed July 26, 2019).
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1} Causley, Charles, Collected Poems 1951-1997 (London: Macmillan, 1997), p. 405
4. ↑ "England and Wales Birth Registration Index, 1837-2008," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2FYT-SBK : 1 October 2014), Charles S Causley, 1917; from "England & Wales Births, 1837-2006," database, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : 2012); citing Birth Registration, Launceston, Cornwall, England, citing General Register Office, Southport, England.
5. ↑ General Register Office for England and Wales, Index of Births: CAUSLEY, CHARLES STANLEY Mothers maiden name BARTLETT GRO Reference: 1917 S Quarter in LAUNCESTON, Volume 05C Page 31.
6. ↑ "England and Wales Marriage Registration Index, 1837-2005," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:26DX-JR7 : 22 May 2014), Charles S Causley and null, 1915; from "England & Wales Marriages, 1837-2005," database, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : 2012); citing 1915, quarter 1, vol. 5C, p. 35, Launceston, Cornwall, England, General Register Office, Southport, England.
7. ↑ "England and Wales Marriage Registration Index, 1837-2005," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:26D6-J5G : 13 December 2014), Laura J Bartlett and null, 1915; from "England & Wales Marriages, 1837-2005," database, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : 2012); citing 1915, quarter 1, vol. 5C, p. 35, Launceston, Cornwall, England, General Register Office, Southport, England.
8. ↑ "England and Wales Census, 1911," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XW97-83L : 3 July 2019), Charles Samuel Cansley in household of Jpohn Bramston Rodwell, Teignmouth, Devon, England, United Kingdom; from "1911 England and Wales census," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d.); citing PRO RG 14, The National Archives of the UK, Kew, Surrey.
9. ↑ "England and Wales Census, 1911," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XW97-Z2H : 3 July 2019), Laura Jane Bartlett in household of Matthew Fraser, Teignmouth, Devon, England, United Kingdom; from "1911 England and Wales census," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d.); citing PRO RG 14, The National Archives of the UK, Kew, Surrey.
10. ↑ "England and Wales Death Registration Index 1837-2007," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVH4-XP7V : 4 September 2014), Charles S Causley, 1925; from "England & Wales Deaths, 1837-2006," database, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : 2012); citing Death, Launceston, Cornwall, England, General Register Office, Southport, England.
11. ↑ >General Register Office for England and Wales, Index of Deaths: CAUSLEY, CHARLES SAMUEL, Age 38, GRO Reference: 1925 M Quarter in LAUNCESTON, Volume 05C Page 28.
12. ↑ 1939 Register, ref RG101/6692J/011/10 Letter Code: WAIC Available at Find My Past (£)
13. ↑ C. Causley, ‘Charles Causley writes …’, Poetry Book Society Bulletin, 56 (Spring 1968), p 2, cited in Mole, 2007
14. ↑ Causley, Charles, Collected Poems 1951-1997 (London: Macmillan, 1997), p. 65
15. ↑ Charles Causley, recording of Timothy Winters at The Poetry Archive
16. ↑ Hill, Susan, Joking apart: Susan Hill celebrates the poetry of Charles Causley - Cornishman and friend - who died this month The Guardian, Sat 15 November 2003
17. ↑ "England and Wales Death Registration Index 1837-2007," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVZJ-8JQP : 4 September 2014), Charles Stanley Causley, Nov 2003; from "England & Wales Deaths, 1837-2006," database, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : 2012); citing Death Registration, Launceston, Cornwall, England, General Register Office, Southport, England.
18. ↑ Find A Grave: Memorial #41160290

See Also

• Wikipedia: Charles Causley
• The Charles Causley Trust, a registered charity which 'exists to keep alive the memory of the late Charles Causley and to promote writing in the community and region in which he lived. A central focus of the work of The Charles Causley Trust is the continued development of Charles Causley’s House in Launceston, Cornwall, and its preservation and interpretation for future generations.'
• Charles Causley at Launceston Then! This local history website includes many photographs and newspaper images of the poet.
• Recordings of Charles Causley reading several of his works at The Poetry Archive
• Entry for Charles Stanley Causley in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Online, online publ. 2007, print 2009. (Free access with most UK library memberships)
• The Charles Causley Trust
• Wikidata: Item Q5076146, en:Wikipedia