Roland Leighton

Roland Aubrey Leighton (27 March 1895 – 23 December 1915) was a British poet and soldier, made posthumously famous by his fiancée Vera Brittain's memoir, Testament of Youth.

His parents, Robert Leighton and Marie Connor, were both writers. Marie was the more commercially successful and wrote adventure books (the best known being Convict 99) and also stories that were serialised in the Daily Mail. Her husband was the first literary editor of the Daily Mail and wrote adventure books for boys. Roland was brought up initially at "Vallombrosa" 40 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, North London, and later at "Heather Cliff" a large Edwardian house above the beach at Lowestoft. Leighton was a prizewinning Classical scholar at Uppingham School (a pupil remembered Leighton using a wheelbarrow to recover his haul from the 1914 school prize-giving) - his hope was to one day become the editor of a national newspaper. At the school, Leighton did not have a wide circle of friends as he was regarded as being rather cold and conceited by his peers. He did however become a close friend of Vera Brittain's brother, Edward and Victor Richardson; Mrs Leighton called the friends "the three musketeers". At Uppingham he was acting cadet officer in the Junior Division, Officers Training Corps. Leighton developed an interest in reading poetry, and writing his own verse whilst at Uppingham. He subsequently used the medium of poetry to express his burgeoning love for Vera Brittain, Edward's sister, whom he first met when visiting Edward at his home in Buxton in 1914. She subsequently became his fiancée in August 1915. The pair only saw each other fleetingly during Leighton's brief periods of leave from the front before his death in late December 1915.

On leaving Uppingham, he applied to Oxford University and was awarded the Classical Postmastership at Merton College, Oxford. However, when the Great War broke out he sought a place in the Royal Navy, but was turned down due to short-sightedness. However, after he procured a "general fitness" certificate from a local GP which did not make reference to his myopia, he received a commission in the Norfolk Regiment on 21 October 1914, and was promoted a lieutenant with the Worcestershire Regiment on 26 March 1915.

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