Born in 1844, died in 1889. He was educated at
Oxford, entered the
Catholic Church in 1866, began his
novitiate with the
Jesuits in 1868, and was
ordained in 1877. Upon entering the
Jesuit order, he burned most of his existing poetry.
In 1875, a German ship, the Deutschland, sank, carrying five Franciscan nuns with it. This inspired him to write The Wreck of the Deutschland, and he continued writing poetry until his death.