Thomas Osbert Mordaunt

Thomas Osbert Mordaunt (1730–1809) was a British officer and poet, known for "The Call".

Mordaunt was the son of Charles Mordaunt, also a soldier. His grandfather, Brigadier-General Lewis Mordaunt, was the younger brother of Charles Mordaunt, 3rd Earl of Peterborough, sometime First Lord of the Treasury.^[1][2] He was commissioned ensign and lieutenant in the 2nd Regiment of Foot Guards on 27 January 1753, and promoted captain-lieutenant in the 10th Regiment of Dragoons on 25 December 1755.^[3] He is recorded as having ultimately achieved the rank of major general.^[2]

Mordaunt is best remembered for his oft-quoted poem "The Call", written during the Seven Years' War of 1756–1763:

"Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife!

Throughout the sensual world proclaim,

One crowded hour of glorious life

Is worth an age without a name."

For many years, the poem was incorrectly attributed to Mordaunt's contemporary, Sir Walter Scott. Scott had merely quoted a stanza of the poem at the beginning of Chapter 34 (Chapter XIII of Volume II) of his novel Old Mortality.^[4]

One Crowded Hour, Tim Bowden's biography of Australian combat cameraman Neil Davis, takes its title from a phrase used in "The Call". Arthur Conan Doyle's short story, One Crowded Hour,^[5] makes ironic use of the same phrase.

References

1. The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom: Moels to Nuneham, G. E. Cokayne, The St Catherine Press, 1936, pg 203
2. "Mordaunt Family History and Genealogy Resource". Retrieved 1 December 2017.
3. Mackinnon, Daniel (1833). Origin and Services of the Coldstream Guards. Vol. II. London: Richard Bentley. pp. 486–487.
4. "The Project Gutenberg eBook of Old Mortality, by Sir Walter Scott". www.gutenberg.org. Retrieved 10 September 2021.
5. "One Crowded Hour, by Arthur Conan Doyle". Retrieved 17 October 2021.

External links

• Expanded biography at Mordaunt Family History website
• Full text of "The Call"