Robert Service, the son of an Ayrshire bank clerk and Lancashire mill owner’s daughter, was born in Preston in 1874. At the age of 5 he was sent to live with his grandfather who was postmaster at Kilwinning. Whilst there, he developed an abiding love of poetry, influenced by the English romantic poets of the early 19th century and of course by Robert Burns. In 1883 the whole family moved to Scotland and settled in Glasgow, where Robert attended school. After working briefly for a shipping firm, he followed his father into banking. However, he dreamed of a life in the New World and in 1896, at the age of 22, he emigrated to America. After drifting through various jobs along the west coast, in 1903 he began working for a Canadian banking company at Whitehorse in the remote Yukon territory. He began writing stories about life in Yukon for the local paper and in 1908 had a collection of verse published – ‘Songs of a Sourdough’. Its success led to him resigning from the bank to concentrate on his writing.
In 1912, Service took on a job as a correspondent in the Balkan War. He remained in Europe when the First World War began, serving as a volunteer ambulanceman. Whilst in France, he married and settled in Brittany. After living in exile during the Second World War, he returned to France in 1946 and remained there until his death in 1958.
