Robert W. Service
| Robert Service | |
|---|---|
Robert W. Service, c. 1905
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| Born |
January 16, 1874 Preston, Lancashire, England |
| Died | September 11, 1958 (aged 84) Lancieux, Côtes-d'Armor, France |
| Resting place | Lancieux, Côtes-d'Armor, France |
| Occupation | writer, poet, Canadian Great North adventurer |
| Alma mater | Hillhead High School in Glasgow, University of Glasgow and McGill University |
| Genre | Poetry, Novel |
| Notable works | Songs of a Sourdough, Rhymes of a Red Cross Man, The Trail of '98 |
| Spouse | Germaine Bourgoin |
| Children | Iris Service |
| Relatives | Charlotte Service-Longépé |
Robert William Service (January 16, 1874 – September 11, 1958) was a British-Canadian poet and writer who has often been called "the Bard of the Yukon". He is best known for his poems "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" and "The Cremation of Sam McGee", from his first book, Songs of a Sourdough (1907; also published as The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses). His vivid descriptions of the Yukon and its people made it seem that he was a veteran of the Klondike gold rush, instead of the late-arriving bank clerk he actually was. Although his work remains popular, Service's poems were initially received as being crudely comical works.
Service was born in Preston, Lancashire, England, the third of ten children. His father, also Robert Service, was a banker from Kilwinning, Scotland, who had been transferred to England.
When he was five, Service was sent to live in Kilwinning with his three maiden aunts and his paternal grandfather, the town's postmaster. There he is said to have composed his first verse, a grace, on his sixth birthday:
At nine, Service re-joined his parents who had moved to Glasgow. He attended Glasgow's Hillhead High School.
After leaving school, Service joined the Commercial Bank of Scotland which would later become the Royal Bank of Scotland. He was writing at this time and reportedly already "selling his verses". He was also reading poetry: Browning, Keats, Tennyson, and Thackeray.
When he was 21, Service travelled to Vancouver Island, British Columbia, with his Buffalo Bill outfit and dreams of becoming a cowboy. He drifted around western North America, "wandering from California to British Columbia," taking and quitting a series of jobs: "Starving in Mexico, residing in a California bordello, farming on Vancouver Island and pursuing unrequited love in Vancouver." This sometimes required him to leech off his parents' Scottish neighbours and friends who had previously emigrated to Canada.
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