Walter D'Arcy Cresswell

Walter D'Arcy Cresswell (22 January 1896 – 21 February 1960) was a New Zealand poet, journalist and writer.

Life and career Cresswell was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, to Hannah (née Reese) and Walter Joseph Cresswell, a solicitor. His elder brother was Douglas Cresswell, later known as a writer. On leaving school (Christ's College, 1910–1912) D'Arcy joined the Christchurch architectural firm of Collins and Harman.

In mid-1914 Cresswell went to London to undertake further studies at the Architectural Association, and in early 1915 enlisted as a private in the British Army and joined the Middlesex Regiment. Cresswell was wounded in France in 1916, and after convalescence joined the Corps of New Zealand Engineers, serving from 1917 until he was demobilized in 1919. Of his second volume of autobiography, Present Without Leave (1939), the reviewer for the Auckland Star said "the book is a notable one, and has some of the essentials of real greatness", and concluded: "Despite its many demerits (and they, like the numerous spelling mistakes, are a part of the author), it may be accounted good by the present generation, and perhaps great by a later one."

Some of his letters were published as The Letters of D'Arcy Cresswell in 1971 by the University of Canterbury.

Cresswell died suddenly at his home in St John's Wood, London, in February 1960, aged 64.

Books Poems, 1921–1927 (1928) The Poet's Progress (1930) Poems, 1924–1931 (1932) Modern Poetry and the Ideal (1934) Eena Deena Dynamo (1936) Lyttelton Harbour: A Poem (1936) Present Without Leave (1939) Twelve Poems (1947) The Forest (1952) The Letters of D'Arcy Cresswell (1971) Dear Lady Ginger: An Exchange of Letters between Lady Ottoline Morrell and D'Arcy Cresswell (1984)