Digby Mackworth Dolben in Finedon, Northamptonshire

'IN MEMORIAM
DIGBY AUGUSTUS STEWART
DIED JUNE 28, 1867, AGED 19.
HERBERT ENGLISH
DIED NOVEMBER 19, 1870, AGED 28
SONS OF
WILLIAM H. I. MACKWORTH DOLBEN
AND FRANCES, HIS WIFE.'

Digby Mackworth Dolben was born in Guernsey and brought up at Finedon Hall, Northamptonshire. One of his teachers at Eton was William Johnson (later Cory), whose homoerotic Ionica poems (1858) were an inspiration to Dolben's own. He was attracted to Martin Le Marchant Gosselin, to whom he wrote love poems. In 1865 Dolben's cousin Robert Bridges (Poet Laureate from 1913 to 1930) introduced him to Gerard Manley Hopkins, who was considerably emotionally impressed by him.

Dolben drowned in the Welland at the age of nineteen before he could go to Oxford University. Bridges ensured that his poetry was remembered. Below is a link to his poetry.

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The Poems of Digby Mackworth Dolben, edited with a memoir by Robert Bridges