John Edward Masefield OM was an English poet and writer, and Poet Laureate from 1930 until 1967.
Educated at King's School, Warwick, Masefield was apprenticed aboard a windjammer that sailed around Cape Horn. He left the sea after that voyage and spent several years living precariously in the United States. His work there in a carpet factory is described in his autobiography, In the Mill (1941). He returned to England, worked for a time as a journalist for the Manchester Guardian, and settled in London. After he succeeded Robert Bridges as poet laureate in 1930, his poetry became more austere.
