Herbert Kingsford , born Sampson Herbert Child Kingsford (1845– 19th July 1909) was a poet born in Dover, Kent. He had two sisters called Edith and Ada and a brother called Ernest.[1] During his life he wrote well over 70 poems,[2] and one, 'England January 1980', which has similarities to the book 1984 by George Orwell and talks about how by 1980 there will be strikes, very little food that is grown in England and how foreign workmen would take over from English. 'Some English wheat and apples sweet, he thought, there'd surely be, But he found these simple articles came also o'er the sea.'
He married his wife Anne on July 5, 1877, many of his poems being about her or including references to their love, and after his wife's death on the 18th December 1900 his poems take a clear turn towards darker and more depressing subjects. This however, was just the end of a line of losses as Kingsford had lost his sister, Ada, just over seven years earlier, and his brother had died only a year and a half after Ada exactly six years before his wife.