Donald Hankey

Born in Brighton on 27 October 1884, Donald William Alers Hankey was an English soldier and writer whose life moved through several worlds before the war years made him widely known. He was educated at Rugby and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, later worked in South London, and spent time in religious and social work, experiences that shaped the humane, observant voice of his writing.

Hankey is best remembered for the essays collected as A Student in Arms, written out of his service with the British volunteer army during the First World War. What makes those pieces stand out is their steady, thoughtful attention to the character of ordinary men in uniform. He wrote about courage, duty, class, and comradeship without grandstanding, and that plain, honest style helped his work find a large readership.

He was killed in action in France on 12 October 1916, not long before his thirty-second birthday. Because he died so young, his reputation rests on a small body of work, but it has endured as one of the more vivid literary records of the early war and of the inner life of the volunteer soldier.