Alfred Austin

Alfred Austin (May 30, 1835 - June 2, 1913) was an English poet who was appointed poet and laureate in 1896 after a break after Tennyson's death, when other candidates aroused controversy or refused honor. It was alleged that he was rewarded for supporting the Conservative leader, Lord Salisbury, in the general election of 1895. Austin's poems are hardly remembered today; his most popular work is prose idylls glorifying nature. Alfred Austin was born in Haddley, near Leeds, on May 30, 1835 in a Roman Catholic family. His father, Joseph Austin, was a merchant in Leeds; his mother was the sister of Joseph Locke, a civil engineer and MP for Honiton. Austin was educated at Stonyhurst College (Clitheroe, Lancashire), St Mary's College, Oscott, and the University of London, which he graduated in 1853. He became a lawyer in 1857, but, having inherited a fortune from his uncle, gave up his legal career in literature.