John Freeman (1880-1929), Poet

Sitter in 2 portraits
Started working at an insurance company at thirteen and began to write poetry at eighteen. He published his first volume of poetry, Twenty Poems, in 1909 and Fifty Poems in 1911, but his reputation was made with Stone Trees in 1916. He kept his business and literary careers strictly separate and few of the writers with whom he corresponded were aware of his work at the insurance company. He was part of a circle of Georgian poets, including Walter de la Mare and Alice Meynell. Freeman published ten books of poetry including Memories of Childhood (1919), Poems New and Old (1920), which won the Hawthornden prize, Music (1921), and The Grove (1924).