Bernard Freeman Trotter

Bernard Freeman Trotter (June 16, 1890 - May 7, 1917), was a Canadian poet who died young in World War I.

Life
Bernard Trotter was born in Toronto on June 16, 1890. He attended the Horton Academy in Wolfville and completed his high school work at Woodstock College. In the fall of 1907 he went to California to improve his health, accompanied by his older brother, Reginald. He worked at a lemon ranch and then later privately for two years

He enrolled in McMaster University in Toronto in 1910. He was active in student life, serving for a year as editor of the McMaster Monthly, the journal in which some of his poems first appeared; a poem was accepted for publication in Harper's Magazine in 1914.

In the late summer and fall of 1912 he helped design and build "Valhalla", the Trotter summer place on Lake Cecebe. Trotter obtained his B.A. from McMaster in 1915 and began graduate work at the University of Toronto before leaving for England in March 1916. Ill health had prevented him from being accepted for military service in the Canadian army; determined to serve, Trotter won a commission in the British army. After training, he crossed to France with his Leicestershire Regiment in December 1916.

On May 7, 1917, he was killed by a shell just as he and his men were completing their final transport convoy of the night. Trotter was buried the next day in the Military Cemetery at Mazingarbe. He was 26 years old.

Writing
His themes were often chosen from nature; they evoke the Nova Scotia of his boyhood, California and Northern Ontario.

Recognition
His father, the Baptist minister and McMaster Professor Thomas Trotter, collected his poems and they were published in 1917 by McClelland and Stewart as A Canadian Twilight and Other Poems of War and Peace.