List of Poet Laureates

Here is the list of British Poets Laureate. Analogous posts exist in other countries, such as the USA. (It may be worth noting that 'poet' normally included 'writer of plays' in the 17th and 18th centuries, following Aristotle's Poetics, and that most of the early Laureates not only wrote plays, but often adapted ('improved') plays by Shakespeare as part of their oeuvre.)

Name of Laureate and years of birth and death	year of appointment	year of death or resignation	Notes
John Dryden (1631-1700)	1668	1689	Distinguished Augustan poet, critic and playwright. Author of: Absalom and Achitophel; critical essay Of Dramatick Poesie; All For Love, etc Resigned because of conversion to Catholicism
Thomas Shadwell (c.1640-1692)	1689	1692	playwright
Nahum Tate (c.1652-1715)	1692	1715	playwright and 'modernizer' of Shakespeare, as well as poet
Nicholas Rowe (1674-1718)	1715	1718	poet, playwright; 1st modern (~scholarly) editor of Shakespeare's plays
Laurence Eusden (1688-1730)	1718	1730	One of the least distinguished of all Poets Laureate
Colley Cibber (1671-1757)	1730	1757	Actor, Manager and playwright. Quarrel with Pope continued in his Autobiography: An Apology for the Life of Mr Colley Cibber (1740)
William Whitehead (bap. 1715, d. 1785)	1757	1785	Playwright and (neo-classical) poet
Thomas Warton (1728-1790)	1785	1790	Poet, and author of 3-vol. History of English poetry
Henry James Pye (1745-1813)	1790	1813	Undistinguished as a Poet, or 'rhymer for life'; keen shot
Robert Southey (1774-1843)	1813	1843	Early a radical; Lake poet, friend of Coleridge; lived near Wordsworth. Later a conservative, and butt of Byron.
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)	1843	1850	Distinguished Romantic 'Lake' poet. Wrote Lyrical Ballads (1798) with Coleridge Poems in Two Volumes (1807), The Prelude (1850; posthumous), introduction to The Excursion (1814), middle part of The Recluse (unfinished). Early revolutionary, died conservative.
Alfred Tennyson, first Baron Tennyson (1809-1892)	1850	1892	Queen Victoria's personal choice, and favourite, partly because of In Memoriam (1850), mourning his friend Hallam, which consoled the Queen after the death of Prince Albert. Prolific poet and intellectual.
Alfred Austin (1835-1913)	1896	1913	'The Poetaster Laureate'
Robert Seymour Bridges (1844-1930)	1913	1930	Patron and champion of G.M.Hopkins, whose poems he published posthumously. Wrote Testament of Beauty (1929)
John Edward Masefield (1878-1967)	1930	1967	Seaman, poet and novelist. Wrote Dauber (1913), Reynard the Fox (1913) (poems), sea stories and children's books like The Box of Delights (1935)
Cecil Day-Lewis (1904-1972)	1968	1972	Poet and novelist (pen-name Nicholas Blake). One of the 'Auden group' of left-wing activist poets.
Sir John Betjeman (1906-1984)	1972	1984	Great conservationist and champion of Victorian architecture, as well as poet and socialite.
Edward James [Ted] Hughes (1930-1998)	1984	1998	Poet and writer. Married Sylvia Plath. Wrote much on cruelty and nature.
Andrew Motion (b. 1952)	1999	resigned 2009	First laureate to relinquish post voluntarily
Carol Ann Duffy (b. 1955)	2009	at present (2012) remains in post	Poet, playwright and academic. First female, first Scot and first gay Laureate

Much of the information on this page has been taken from ODNB.