BINYON, LAURENCE ), English 'poet, art historian and civil servant, born at Lancaster on Aug. 10 1869, was educated at St. Paul's school, London, and Trinity college, Oxford, where he won the Newdigate prize in 1890 for his Per sephone. He entered the department of printed books at the Brit ish Museum in 1893, and was transferred to the department of prints and drawings in 1895. He was eventually placed in charge of the oriental prints and drawings, and became one of the greatest living authorities on the subject. His principal contribu tions to the history of art, outside the great official catalogue of English drawings (4 vols. 1898 seq.), and that of Japanese wood cuts (1917) in the British Museum, are his various books on Chinese, Japanese and Indian art, and on the drawings and engravings of William Blake, dating from 1906 onwards. But before he became known as an art historian, Laurence Binyon was already famous as the author of a series of volumes of verse, and as a pioneer in an effort, in which he has found few followers, to restore blank verse drama to the modern English stage. The first of these to be staged was Paris and Oenone (1906) ; Boadicea was produced, 1925. His Collected Poems ap peared, 1931. He was Keeper of Prints and Drawings, British Mu seum, 1932-33 ; created a Companion of Honour, 1932.