Known as 'The Hammerman Poet' and 'The Wiltshire Poet' Alfred Williams was born in 1877 in South Marston, near Swindon. Family poverty forced him to begin working for a farmer at the age of eight. While still a teenager he joined two of his elder brothers at the GWR works at Swindon. Throughout his life he was a prolific writer of both prose and poetry and his thirst for knowledge was immense -he even taught himself Sanskrit. The shock of receiving news of his beloved wife, Mary's, terminal illness proved fatal to him and he died just before her in 1930.
