Alfred Perceval Graves

Alfred Perceval Graves (22 July 1846 – 27 December 1931), was an Anglo-Irish poet, songwriter and folklorist. He was the father of British poet and critic Robert Graves.

Early life

Graves was born in Dublin and was the son of Charles Graves, the Anglican Bishop of Limerick, Ardfert and Aghadoe, and his wife Selina, the daughter of John Cheyne (1777–1836), the Physician-General to the British Forces in Ireland. His sister was Ida Margaret Graves Poore. His paternal grandmother Helena was a Perceval, and the granddaughter of an Earl of Egmont. His grandfather, John Crosbie Graves, was a first cousin of "Ireland's most celebrated surgeon", Robert James Graves.

Alfred was educated both in England, at Windermere College, Westmorland, and in Ireland, at Trinity College Dublin. As an undergraduate he contributed to the literary magazine Kottabos, starting in 1869.

His first poem appeared in the Dublin University Magazine in 1863. He graduated BA, later promoted to Master of Arts. In 1869, he entered the Civil Service as clerk in the British Home Office, where he remained until he became an Inspector of Schools in 1874.

Author

Graves was a contributor of prose and verse to The Spectator, Athenaeum, John Bull, and Punch.

For a time he lived at Red Branch House on... Road, Wimbledon, London.

He took a leading part in the late 19th-century renewal of Irish literature. He was for several years president of the Irish Literary Society, and he was the author of the comic song Father O'Flynn and many other songs and ballads. In collaboration with Charles Villiers Stanford, he published Songs of Old Ireland (1882) and Irish Songs and Ballads (1893), the airs of which are taken from the Petrie manuscripts; the airs of his Irish Folk-Songs (1897) were arranged by Charles Wood with whom he also collaborated on Songs of Erin (1901). Composer Mary Augusta Wakefield also set at least one of his poems to music.