Binyon, (Robert) Laurence (1869–1943)

English poet. His ode ‘For the Fallen’ (1914) is frequently quoted in war memorial services and was set to music by English composer Edward Elgar. Binyon's verse volumes include London Visions (1896); his art criticism includes Painting in the Far East (1908).

Binyon was born in Lancaster and studied at Oxford. In 1893 he joined the staff of the British Museum, and was keeper of Oriental Prints and Drawings 1913–33. Just after World War I he published The Four Years, containing ‘For the Fallen’. In 1924 he compiled The Golden Treasury of Modern Lyrics, and he also added a fifth book to Francis Palgrave's Golden Treasury of Lyrical Poetry. His last volume of verse was The Burning of the Leaves 1944. He also translated Dante's Inferno into English verse 1933, and published several plays.

He compiled official catalogues of the Japanese colour prints and English drawings in the British Museum, and during his 20 years in charge of the Oriental department he made it the most representative in Europe. His books on art include Court Painters of the Grand Mogul (1921), Drawings and Engravings of W Blake (1922), and English Water Colours (1933).