Kenneth Cyril Bruce Allott (29 August 1912 – 23 May 1973)[1] was an Anglo-Irish poet and academic, and authority on Matthew Arnold.
[3] Born in Glamorgan, where his father, a doctor, was serving as a locum, Allott was raised at Nenthead, Cumbria, and later experienced the break-up of his parents' marriage, followed by the death of his mother.
After she died he and his brother Guy were adopted by their Irish aunts on Tyneside, and from the age of 14 attended St Cuthbert's Roman Catholic Grammar School in Newcastle on Tyne.
Despite the fact that the VI Form then taught only science for Higher School Certificate, he studied English and Latin on his own at the back of the class.
Subsequently, Allott began working as a reviewer for the Morning Post and with Geoffrey Grigson on New Verse, to which he was a regular contributor.
[4] He held positions at Liverpool University from 1948 until his death in 1973, at which time he was the Andrew Cecil Bradley Professor of Modern English Literature.