A copy of Poetry of Byron was found by a man in Carmarthenshire, South Wales, and subsequently returned to St Bees School near Whitehaven, Cumbria, where it was loaned to a schoolboy, according to The Guardian.
Inside a book by British poet George Gordon Byron (1788-1824) in a blue cloth binding bears the name Leonard Ewbank and the date 25 September 1911. Ewbank, born in 1893, was a pupil at St Bees School from 1902 to 1911 before going on to study at King’s College, Oxford.
Records show that Ewbank enlisted in the 15th Border Regiment in 1915 to fight in the First World War. He was killed in action on 23 February 1916 by a bullet to the head and is buried in Railway Dugouts Cemetery in Ypres, Belgium, a cemetery where 2,463 soldiers are buried. He is commemorated on the school’s roll of honour as “an Englishman, brave, honest and loyal.”
The school was “honoured” to have the book returned, said the headteacher, Andrew Keep. “It’s incredible to think that a piece of St Bees’ history has found its way back to us after all these years,” according to him.
The book, featuring the work of Lord Byron, the Romantic poet, is not the first book to be returned to the library after spending a lifetime elsewhere, but it could be one of the most eagerly awaited library books of all time.
