Francis Willoughby Tancred (21 February 1874 - 25 November 1925) was an English poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

 associated with the Poets' Club

Poets' Club

The Poets' Club was a group devoted to the discussion of poetry. It met in London in the early years of the twentieth century. It was founded by Henry Simpson, a banker. T. E. Hulme helped set up the group in 1908, and was its first secretary....

, a group of writers, established by T. E. Hulme

T. E. Hulme

Thomas Ernest Hulme was an English critic and poet who, through his writings on art, literature and politics, had a notable influence upon modernism.-Early life:...

, who were the forerunners of the Imagist

Imagism

Imagism was a movement in early 20th-century Anglo-American poetry that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. The Imagists rejected the sentiment and discursiveness typical of much Romantic and Victorian poetry. This was in contrast to their contemporaries, the Georgian poets,...

 movement. They carried out practical studies on Chinese poetry

Chinese poetry

Chinese poetry is poetry written, spoken, or chanted in the Chinese language, which includes various versions of Chinese language, including Classical Chinese, Standard Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, Yue Chinese, as well as many other historical and vernacular varieties of the Chinese language...

 and haiku

Haiku

' , plural haiku, is a very short form of Japanese poetry typically characterised by three qualities:* The essence of haiku is "cutting"...

. Tancred's own influence on the genre has been relatively minor. He is one of the poets referred to in Ezra Pound's

Ezra Pound

Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...

 Cantos, LXXXII.

Tancred was born in New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

, the fifth child and second son of Thomas Selby Tancred, 8th Baronet

Lawson-Tancred Baronetcy

The Tancred, later Lawson-Tancred Baronetcy, of Boroughbridge in the County of York, is a title in the Baronetage of England. It was created on 17 November 1662 for Thomas Tancred. He was a descendant of Richard Tankard, who shortly after the Norman Conquest owned lands at Boroughbridge in...

 (1840–1910), a mining and railway engineer who was a contractor for the Forth Railway Bridge and the Pretoria

Pretoria

Pretoria is a city located in the northern part of Gauteng Province, South Africa. It is one of the country's three capital cities, serving as the executive and de facto national capital; the others are Cape Town, the legislative capital, and Bloemfontein, the judicial capital.Pretoria is...

-Delagoa Bay railway. His grandfather, Sir Thomas Tancred, 7th Baronet, and great-uncle, Henry Tancred, migrated to New Zealand in 1850.

Tancred was a member of the London Stock Exchange

London Stock Exchange

The London Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located in the City of London within the United Kingdom. , the Exchange had a market capitalisation of US$3.7495 trillion, making it the fourth-largest stock exchange in the world by this measurement...

. His Poems were published in 1907. He died in Hackney

London Borough of Hackney

The London Borough of Hackney is a London borough of North/North East London, and forms part of inner London. The local authority is Hackney London Borough Council....

.