Female Poets of The First World War: Rose E. Sharland, nee Teague (1882 – 1956)

Monday 24 May 2021

Rose E. Sharland, nee Teague (1882 – 1956) – British poet, writer and journalist

With thanks to Canadian genealogist Annette Fulford for finding Rose for us and helping with my research into Rose's life and times.

Annette’s main field of research is First World War Brides, soldiers' dependents 1914-1921 and Canadian Immigration

Rose Emily Teague was born in Upton-on-Severn, Worcestershire, UK on 11th September 1882. Her parents were Charles Teague, a builder, and his wife Fanny, nee Lees. Rose had a brother – Arthur Teague, b. 1871 – and a sister, Lilian Mary Teague, b. 1885.

I have not been able to find out much about Rose, other than that she became a poet, writer and journalist. In September 1906, she married Robert William Harold Sharland, a civil servant, and they went to live in Bristol. Rose’s husband died on 15th February 1922. The 1939 Census shows her still living in Bristol, a widow with the occupation of journalist.

Rose died in Bristol in March 1956, leaving her assets to her sister, Lilian Mary Machin, nee Teague.

Rose had poems published in various newspapers and periodicals - The Daily Citizen, Daily Herald, Socialist Review, Clarion, Labour Leader, Justice, Bristol Observer and Malvern Gazette. Rose wrote an interesting article entitled “War and Romance” which was published in “The Folkestone, Hyde, Sandgate and Cheriton Herald”, on Saturday, 13th May 1916.

She also apparently wrote lyrics for songs or hymns, one of them being entitled the “May-Day Song Socialist Anthem”, which was set to music by J. Percival Jones (1908)

Rose E. Sharland had several collections of poetry published, the WW1 collection being “Maple Leaf Men : and other War Gleanings” by Rose E Sharland (J. W. Arrowsmith, Bristol, 1916).

“The Destroyer”

ALL the sea lies spun in opal, pink and purple, blue and gold,

Silver flashing in the sunshine, green within the crested fold.

Little clouds chase one another on a sky of rarest blue,

Amethystine in the water shado\v-ghosts are skimming through,

Peaceful red sails dip and curtsey bowing to the freshening breeze,

There the stalwart fishers gather harvesting the wealth of seas.

Then across the water gliding,

Like black Death the ocean riding,

Low and seething through the waters with a boiling trail in tow,

The Destroyer comes, defending

With a vigil stern, unending,

All the fair green-girdled country that her children cherish so.

Black from stem to stern she hastens, and her white long tail of foam,

Cleaves the sapphire of the waters circling round the shores of home,

Black her guns, no flashing metals dancing in the summer sun,

All is shrouded and in silence : desperate work is to be done.

Dark forms on the decks assemble, men who form the living shield

Twixt old England, home and beauty, and the foe on Flanders field.

That is why those ships are gliding

Like black Death the waters riding

Through the dancing seas of England, never resting, never still ;

Watching, waiting, tiring never,

Splendid in their firm endeavour

To protect the land they worship from all envy, hate and ill.

From: “Maple Leaf Men : and other War Gleanings” by Rose E Sharland (J. W. Arrowsmith, Bristol, 1916) pp. 41 – 42.

Other publications by Rose E. Sharland include:

Exmoor Lyrics and Other Verses, 1910

Voices of Dawn Over the Hills, 1912

Ballads of Old Bristol, 1914

Inside pages of "Ballads of Old Bristol"

The inside cover page of "Ballads of Old Bristol" has an illustration very reminiscent of an etching by Bristol artist Edward Sharland (1884 - 1967) but I have not been able to find out if there is a connection.