Marlborough & Other Poems

Charles Hamilton Sorley was born on May 19th, 1895 in Aberdeen. His family moved to Cambridge when Sorley was five and his education later continued at Marlborough College (1908-13) where he was an excellent debater.

From here he won a scholarship to Oxford but decided to spend a year in Germany beforehand. It was a fateful decision. War clouds had gathered over Europe and when war was declared Sorley was interned, for one night, and then instructed to leave Germany.

Sorley returned to England and immediately signed up to serve as a 2nd Lieutenant with the Suffolk Regiment. He arrived in France in May, 1915 and, by the same August, had been promoted to Captain.

On October 13th 1915, at the Battle of Loos, Charles Hamilton Sorley was killed by a sniper’s bullet to the head.