Davies, William Henry (1871–1940)

Welsh poet. He produced 20 books of verse, first becoming known for The Autobiography of a Super-tramp (1908). The contrast between his life as a tramp and pedlar and his work is striking, and his lyrics are comparable to the most delicate of Elizabethan verse. A collection of his poems was published in 1943.

Born in Newport, Monmouth, Davies went to the USA at the age of 22, and worked at fruit picking and as a cattle ranger. Returning to Britain, he started to write, living by peddling laces and pins and singing in the streets. His first book of verse, The Soul's Destroyer (1905), was sent to various literary people, who befriended him. The playwright George Bernard Shaw helped him to become known and the poet Edward Thomas lent him a cottage in Sevenoaks, Kent.