(Francis James) Ronald Bottrall OBE, (2 September 1906, Camborne, Cornwall – 25 June 1989) was a Cornish poet. He was praised highly by F.R. Leavis, Anthony Burgess and Martin Seymour-Smith, and deprecated by Ian Hamilton and Martin Amis. Bottrall was educated at Redruth Grammar School and at Pembroke College, Cambridge. Career Lector in English, University of Helsingfors, Finland, 1929–31 Commonwealth fund fellowship, Princeton University, USA, 1931–33 Johore Professor of English Language and Literature, Raffles College, Singapore, 1933–37 Assistant Director, British Institute, Florence, Italy, 1937–38 Secretary, SOAS, 1939–45 Air Ministry: Temporary Administrative Officer, 1940; Priority Officer, 1941 British Council Representative: in Sweden, 1941; in Italy, 1945; in Brazil, 1954; in Greece, 1957; in Japan (and Cultural Counsellor, HM Embassy, Tokyo), 1959 Controller of Education, British Council, 1950–54 Chief, Fellowships and Training Branch, Food and Agriculture Organization, 1963–65. Honours and awards OBE, 1949. Coronation Medal, 1953 Syracuse International Poetry Prize, 1954 Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, 1955 Knight of St. John, 1972 Grande Ufficiale dell'Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana, 1973 Knight Commander, Order of St. John of Jerusalem, Malta, 1977 Personal life He was the father of Anthony Bottrall, the diplomat, expert in developmental agriculture and politician. Publications Poetry The Loosening and other Poems, 1931 Festivals of Fire, 1934 The Turning Path, 1939 Farewell and Welcome, 1945 Selected Poems, 1946 The Palisades of Fear, 1949 Adam Unparadised, 1954 Collected Poems, 1961 Day and Night, 1974 Poems 1955–73, 1974 Reflections on the Nile, 1980 Against a Setting Sun, 1983 Other (with Gunnar Ekelöf) T.S. Eliot: Dikter i Urval, 1942 (with Margaret Bottrall) The Zephyr Book of English Verse, 1945 (with Margaret Bottrall) Collected English Verse, 1946 Rome (Art Centres of the World), 1968. References 1906 births 1989 deaths Harkness Fellows Officers of the Order of the British Empire Alumni of Pembroke College, Cambridge Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature People educated at Redruth Grammar School 20th-century English poets People from Camborne Poets from Cornwall