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Tudor Castle (1883–1916)

Tudor Ralph Castle was born in London on December 28, 1882; he met and became friends with Royall Tyler at Harrow School. Castle wrote poetry, and was thus nicknamed "The Poet" or "The Bard" by Tyler. He matriculated with a bachelors of arts degree from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1904. He visited Ravenna and Venice with Royall Tyler in the spring of 1905, then lived with him in Paris in 1906 and (like him) went to Germany to learn the language in 1907. He worked at Toynbee Hall, the settlement house in London, in 1910. In 1911, he went to Australia to work on a government survey, returning to England in 1912, where he became a land agent in Surrey. Castle authored two books of poems, The Gentle Shepherd and Other Poems and New Poems. His poems were also published in the early volumes of The Englishwoman, when the monthly journal was edited by Elisina Tyler. In 1912, he married Muriel Howard, the sister of Lyulph Howard, mutual friend of Royall Tyler. At the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Castle (a second lieutenant) enlisted in the Universities and Public Schools Battalion and, in February 1915, obtained a commission in the Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment. He went to France in July 1916 to take part in the attack on Guillemont. He was killed on August 31, 1916, by a gas shell during a heavy bombardment in the Battle of Delville Wood.