Laurence Binyon was born in Lancaster in 1869 to a Church of England clergyman. He displayed early talent as a writer, winning the esteemed Newdigate Prize for poetry at Oxford's Trinity College in 1891—an award previously claimed by notable figures like John Ruskin and Oscar Wilde. However, that recognition was merely a footnote in a long and quietly impressive career.
After graduating from Oxford, Binyon joined the British Museum in 1893 and remained there for forty years, eventually becoming a prominent authority on Asian art in the English-speaking world. His scholarly contributions to Japanese and Chinese painting were truly groundbreaking, helping to shape Western perceptions and appreciation of East Asian visual culture. His career unfolded alongside his poetry; he was always both a diligent scholar and an active poet.
“In 1904, he married Cicely Margaret Powell, a historian, and the couple had three daughters.”
One of them, Nicolete Gray, became a renowned artist and lettering historian, reflecting the creative environment Binyon fostered at home.
When the First World War began, Binyon was in his mid-forties—too old to enlist—but the war deeply affected him. He volunteered as a medical orderly on the Western Front, witnessing the horrific scale of the conflict firsthand. From this experience, he penned "For the Fallen" in September 1914, just weeks after the war started. The poem's fourth stanza—"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old"—has become one of the most quoted lines in English. It is recited at Remembrance Day ceremonies throughout the Commonwealth each year, a tradition that has endured for over a century.
