Vernon Watkins
| Vernon Watkins | |
|---|---|
| Born |
27 June 1906 Maesteg, South Wales, UK. |
| Died | 8 October 1967 (aged 61) Seattle, USA. |
| Spouse | Gwendoline Mary Davies |
Vernon Phillips Watkins (27 June 1906 – 8 October 1967) was a British poet, translator and painter. He was a close friend of Dylan Thomas, who described him as "the most profound and greatly accomplished Welshman writing poems in English".
Vernon Watkins was born in Maesteg in Glamorgan, and brought up mainly in Swansea. His birth coincided with slight earth tremors; another baby born that night was christened John Earthquake Jones. Watkins' mother was Sarah ("Sally") daughter of Esther Thomas and James Phillips of Sarnau, Meidrim. Her father, a Congregationalist, was reputed to know most of the Welsh bible by heart. Sarah had a love of poetry and literature, her headmistress arranged for her to spend two years as a pupil-teacher in Germany. Sarah married William Watkins in 1902, and they had three children: Vernon, Marjorie and Dorothy. William was a manager for Lloyds Bank in Wind Street, Swansea, and the family lived at "Redcliffe", a large Victorian house about four miles from Swansea, at Caswell Bay.
Watkins read fluently by the age of four, and at five announced that he would be a poet, although he did not wish to be published until after his death. He wrote poetry and read widely from eight or nine years of age and was especially fond of the works of Keats and Shelley. He received his later education at a preparatory school in Sussex, Repton School in Derbyshire, and Magdalene College, Cambridge.
In his early years at Repton, Watkins' quiet, gentle character provoked regular bullying from older boys, though in his last years he attained more popularity as he was able to show capacity in tennis and cricket. After he died, in 1968, the school wrote that he was "perhaps the best poet Repton has had".[7] His headmaster at Repton was Geoffrey Fisher, who became Archbishop of Canterbury. Despite his parents being Nonconformists, Watkins' school experiences influenced him to join the Church of England. He read modern languages at Cambridge, but left before completing his degree.
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