Dyneley Hussey

Dyneley Hussey, born in 1893 in India into an army family, was of the generation and age and class to take part in the First World War as a junior officer – he was a lieutenant on the Western Front. We are so used to the poetry of Owen, Sassoon, Rosenberg and so on, that it is hard to read the kind of sacrificial poetry written by men like Hussey, who was only 22 when his collection Fleur De Lys was published in 1915. There is an anthology (‘The Muse In Arms’) published in 1917 that includes several of his poems (and some by another WR contributor, Edward Shanks), and it can be found here for free download. After the war and a spell at the Admiralty, Hussey became an art and (predominantly) music critic, specialising in opera, and in Verdi especially. When The Week-end Review folded, he found work at The Spectator, and (after a second spell at the Admiralty in World War II), worked for The Third Programme, and became the music critic of The Listener, a post he held until 1960. He died in 1972.