Events are being held in Shrewsbury this week to commemorate Wilfred Owen's birthday, including a talk by writer Jane Potter in St Alkmund's Church on March 19th at 1pm about her new edition of Owen's letters. Helen McPhail, author of Wilfred Owen's Shrewsbury, paints a picture of Shrewsbury pre-1914 when the Owens lived in a quiet house on Monkmoor Road.
Young Wilfred Owen was lucky. His parents moved to Shrewsbury in 1907, when he was 14, and he missed his school-friends at Birkenhead Institute – but the city was big, industrial and dirty, life was a real struggle for his mother, Susan. His father, Tom, was making his way as a railway clerk, and money was tight – they had four children and had to move several times to cheaper accommodation.
Susan’s parents were dead, but Tom’s parents lived in Hawthorn Villas, in Underdale Road, and when the young family moved from Birkenhead to Shrewsbury in 1907 they rented a tall thin house in the same road – part of a block on the corner of Tankerville Road. In the winter of 1909-10 they moved into a new house, also rented: semi-detached, in Monkmoor Road, with bay windows, a garden behind and a neat privet hedge in front. It now has a plaque over the front door, stating that it was the home of Wilfred Owen.
In those pre-First World War years, the ground across the road was open, stretching across to the river with Uffington on the other side. A racecourse occupied part of it, and ponies wandered and grazed around the area; it was a fine place for children to explore, and Wilfred with his brother Harold could roam along the river-bank, behind the house and across Underdale Road, or in front, across the open land and racecourse.
Beyond that, a ferry took passengers over to Uffington, where the family would go on Sundays to attend church services there, as recounted by Harold in his memoir, Journey from Obscurity, written in his old age. The two boys, Wilfred and Harold, could go out together; Mary, the only daughter who came between the two boys in age, and their much younger brother Colin, were not part of these expeditions – it was a time when girls would not generally go out on their own, and Susan preferred to have Mary close at hand. Many young girls would go straight into private domestic service when they left school – others might work in a shop or factory.
Aged 14 when they arrived in Shrewsbury, Wilfred was neat, good-looking, well-mannered, and intensely keen to learn, and to write poetry. In most families he would have left school by that age, and would be working, contributing to his family’s finances, or engaged in some form of apprenticeship. This was not at all what Wilfred wanted: supported by his mother, who could see and appreciate his literary instincts and ambitions, he was allowed by his father to become a ‘Pupil Teacher’ at Shrewsbury Technical School (now the site of the English Bridge campus of the Sixth Form College). Here he found friendship – girls and boys – and made the very best of the teachers.
Looking back at that pre-1914 period, Shrewsbury is still very recognisable – but was also very different in many ways. As in all towns, the air and the ground were dirty from domestic coal fires, workshops, steam-powered engines and machines, livestock being driven to the market close to the Welsh Bridge, the tannery next to it, breweries, market stalls, the large railway station and yards full of coal and other goods in transit …
The Owens were thankful for a quiet house, although Wilfred and his siblings were warned against several of the streets between them and the river; also along the riverside, in what is now Longden Coleham where heavy industry was still evident. Barges coming up-river would unload near the English or the Welsh Bridges and goods were transported around the town in horse-drawn carts or handcarts.
Cleanliness was very highly prized – in household matters, in clothes and generally in thought and manners. The churches were full on Sundays and regular attendance at services was normal for most households.
Pictured: “Wilfred Owen with 5th (Res) Manchesters”/ The First World War Poetry Digital Archive, University of Oxford (www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit) ©
The Wilfred Owen Association: Celebrating Wilfred Owen's Birthday
March 17th - A presentation about Wilfred Owen's Life and Work will take place in Holy Trinity Church, Uffington, the Owen family's favourite church, near Shrewsbury, on Sunday at 2pm.
March 18th - An online lecture takes place on Owen's birthday, from 7.30-9pm, with another chance to hear author Jane Potter discuss her new edition of Owen's Selected Letters (OUP, 2023).
March 18th - Wilfred Owen's birthday walk will be led by Thomas JP Muldoon the WOA secretary, starting from Shrewsbury Railway Station and following the riverside path to the suburb of Cherry Orchard to see the four houses where the Owen family once lived. The walk continues to Shrewsbury Abbey to visit the 'Symmetry' memorial to the poet.
March 19th - Jane Potter, Chair of the Wilfred Owen Association, will speak about her new edition of Owen's letters in a lunchtime talk at St Alkmund's Church, Shrewsbury at 1pm. Free admission.
For details and bookings for all these events please visit www.wilfredowen.org.uk/events
