lfred Edward Housman had two careers and excelled in both. He was a popular poet (still is) and one of his country's greatest Latinists. He was born in 1859 in Worcestershire with the Clee Hills of Shropshire on the western horizon. He was the oldest, and therefore the leader, of seven children (one sister said he taught her, in a game of moons and planets, all the astronomy she ever knew).There were always gardens, with streams and woods nearby.