A poem by Walter E. Spradbery which his family did not know existed has been found a century after it was written

Described as "a revelation", the work is by renowned designer Walter E. Spradbery, who was raised in Walthamstow and and was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for saving wounded comrades under gunfire in the First World War.

The new poem, called the Ballad of Barnham Common, was discovered by curators mounting an exhibition of his work at Epping Forest District Museum.

Museum curator Tony O’Connor said he was contacted by an old family friend of Spradbery who had found the poem among his letters.

He added: “From a historian’s point of view he was an important artist, but the revelation of this poem, which is another form of art shows the creativity of the man.

"It's really come out of the blue, especially for the Spradbery family, who didn't know it existed."

Spradbery's family moved him to Walthamstow when he was a child, where he was enrolled in St Saviour's Church School.

His education continued at the Walthamstow Technical School before joining the William Morris Standard School where an eagle-eyed tutor spotted his raw artistic talent and ancouraged him to apply for a scolarship to the Walthamstow School of Art.

He excelled at graphic design and which eventually earned him fame through his poster designs for the London Underground in the early 1900's.

Strongly anti-war, Spradbery decided to sign up to the Royal Ambulance Corps on the outbreak of war, believng it was better to try to save lives than take them.

He witnessed some the war’s most bloody battles and sketched the scenes around him.

Much of his work still hangs in the Imperial War Museum, but the new discovery shows he was also a talented poet.

The Great War Exhibition is now on at the District museum in Sun Street, Waltham Abbey. Call 01992 716 882 for details.

Extract from Ballad of Barnham Common

The flowers that grow on Barnham’s plain

Are Beautiful to see;

The bugloss and the speedwell’s blue,

Fair as a summer’s sea… …

...And scarlet is the Pimpernel

And bright the Poppy’s red But brighter still is the blood we spill Ere we ourselves are dead:

No flower so rich, in the deep dug ditch,

As the blood our guns may shed…

…The barren stench of Flander’s plains

Is desolate and bare,

And the shriek of shell, and stench and smell

Float on the morning air…

…But the rivers which flow in Flanders Are rivers of blood methinks

And will, one day, colour the roses

Whose roots from that soil drink,

And a thousand flowers will blossom Where a corpse now rots and stinks