William Henry Davies (1871 - 1940)

RA Collection: People and Organisations

Poet and writer William Henry Davies was born in Newport, Wales. He attended school until age 14 and then apprenticed with a picture framer while attending night school. At age 22, with a small inheritance, he travelled to New York and spent the following six years train hopping across the United States and Canada, supporting himself through casual work. After a train hopping injury in March 1899 necessitated the amputation of his right leg below the knee, Davies returned to Wales and then settled in London, where he devoted his time to writing poetry.

His poems, grounded in realism, often engage with themes of hardship, the natural world, and city life. His 20 collections of poetry include The Soul’s Destroyer and Other Poems (1905), Nature Poems and Others (1908), Foliage (1913), and The Bird of Paradise and Other Poems (1914). He wrote two memoirs, The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp (1908) and Young Emma (written in 1924, published in 1980) and four novels, which include The True Traveller (1912) and The Adventures of Johnny Walker, Tramp (1926).