Humbert Wolfe - Shylock Reasons with Mr Chesterton: Whether ‘tis true or no, it shall be true just long enough to build a bridge to you

Humbert Wolfe CB CBE was born on 5th January 1885 in Milan, Italy from Jewish family roots. Wolfe was brought up in Bradford, West Yorkshire and was a pupil at Bradford Grammar School before attending Wadham College at the University of Oxford.

Beginning at the Board of Trade and then the Ministry of Labour, Wolfe’s career was in the Civil Service, where he achieved positions of high responsibility.

He was also one of the most popular and prolific authors of the 1920’s and 30s across some 40 works, mainly poetry but including other genres. Indeed, Gustav Holst set a number of his verses to song in his 12 Humbert Wolfe Songs, Op. 48 (1929).

In 1931 he became a Fellow of Royal Society of Literature and was one of the favourites to become the next Poet Laureate where he was up against Rudyard Kipling, W.B.Yeats and the eventual occupant-to-be of the post Robert Bridges. Wolfe was also a noted translator including that of Heinrich Heine, Edmond Fleg and Eugene Heltai (Heltai Jeno).

In 1938 Wolfe was appointed Deputy Secretary to the Ministry of Labour and his main responsibility was to equip the country’s labour force for the approaching Second World War. His duties then extended to drawing up a list of writers who could better serve as propagandists rather than soldiers in the British Army.

Although Wolfe was married, he engaged in a decade long affair with the novelist Pamela Frankau which ended only with his death.

Humbert Wolfe CB CBE died on 5th January 1940 at 75 Eccleston Square in London. It was his 55th birthday.