William Ernest Henley

In an era laden with advancement and opportunity, William Ernest Henley took his opportunities unlike the majority of his contemporaries. During [Victorian England]?, when many new inventions emerged and British power and influence extended throughout the world. British men lived in comfort, aloof to the characteristic roughness of that period's human existence because of Englands prosperity. Henley proved to be the exception to this trend. He endured much hardship and suffering which began in his youth and prolonged throughout his life.

William Ernest Henley was born in Gloucester?, England on August 23, 1849. The first of an impoverished bookseller's six children, his father did manage to send him to the Crypt Grammar School. The Crypt forced him to leave for medical reasons (although some believe that it may have had to do with finances as well). At age 12 a doctor diagnosed him with TubercularArthritis? and an amputation of his left leg below his knee occurred by the time he reached sixteen years of age. This was only the beginning of Henley's medical struggle.

Not only did his financial situation perhaps prevent him from acquiring a continuous education, it also hindered any pursuit of his inborn musical talent. Finances became a serious problem when his father died in 1867 and Henley was forced to leave school permanently. He remained a dutiful son and brother by maintaining the household for his widowed mother. In 1869, he became very frustrated with Gloucester? and migrated to London to seek employment.

He obtained work as a freelance journalist in London. But, in 1872 he grew quite ill, in fact too ill to continue residing in London, and relocated to the Marget Royal and Sea Bathing Infirmary. Without much success at Margate, he then went to Edinburgh where he wrote his [In Hospital]? collection of poetry.

It was also in Edinburgh that he fell in love with Anna Boyle, whom he eventually married. Anna was the sister of one of his roommates, Captain Boyle. In January of 1875, [Leslie Stephens]? brought [Robert Louis Stevenson]? to visit Henley in the hospital. A close friendship transpired from this initial meeting. Later in 1875, he was discharged from the hospital and returned to London where he was employed as the magazine editor of the London. In 1878, Henley and Anna Boyle got married and in 1888 they had their only child, Margaret. It was only five years later that they lost Margaret to a fatal case of CerebralMeningitis?.

In 1889, Henley was named the editor of the Scots Observer and it was also in 1889 there was a huge controversy over the review of Oscar Wildes The Picture of Dorian Gray. Through the Scots Observer, he also befriended Rudyard Kipling.

In 1894, William Ernest Henley surrendered his editorship of the National Observer (formerly the Scots Observer), and he and his wife, Anna, continued to move around England while he still pursued his editing career. For this he was awarded the Civil List Pension. In 1902 he fell from a railway carriage which caused the dormant tuberculosis germ in his system to resurface. In July 1903, he died in peace with his wife by his side.