Editing Siegfried Sassoon (section)

==Personal life==
[[File:SiegfriedSassoonGraveMells(GrahamAllard)May2006.jpg|upright|thumb|Siegfried Sassoon's gravestone at {{Nowrap|[[St Andrew's Church, Mells]],}} Somerset]]

===Homosexuality and affairs===
At Craiglockhart, Sassoon had met [[Wilfred Owen]], another war poet. Numerous surviving documents demonstrate clearly the depth of Owen's love and admiration for him.<ref name="LitHub"/> Writing years after Owen died, Sassoon said that "W's death was an unhealed wound, & the ache of it has been with me ever since. I wanted him back – not his poems."<ref>{{Cite web |title=Gay Love Letters through the Centuries: Wilfred Owen |url=https://rictornorton.co.uk/owen.htm |access-date=2023-10-18 |website=rictornorton.co.uk}}</ref> Despite sentiments expressed in numerous letters between Sassoon and Owen, there is no support for a physical relationship between them. Both men returned to active service in France, where Owen was killed in 1918. 

Following the war he is believed to have had a succession of love affairs with men, including:
* William Park "Gabriel" Atkin, the landscape architectural and figure painter, draftsman and illustrator<ref>{{cite book|last=Miller|first=Neil|title=Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present|url=https://archive.org/details/outofpastgayand00mill|url-access=registration|year=1995|page=[https://archive.org/details/outofpastgayand00mill/page/96 96]|publisher=Alyson Books |isbn=9780679749882}}</ref>
* [[Ivor Novello]], actor<ref name="Telegraph"/>
* [[Glen Byam Shaw]], actor and Novello's former lover{{sfn|Moorcroft Wilson|2003|pp=11–}}
* [[Prince Philipp of Hesse]], German aristocrat<ref name="Telegraph">{{cite web|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3593051/The-war-poets-long-peace.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3593051/The-war-poets-long-peace.html |archive-date=12 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=The war poet's long peace|author=John Gross|website=The Daily Telegraph|date=22 April 2003|access-date=11 June 2017}}{{cbignore}}</ref>
* [[John Beverley Nichols|Beverley Nichols]], writer<ref name="Telegraph"/>
* [[Stephen Tennant]], an aristocrat<ref name="Telegraph"/>
Although Byam Shaw remained Sassoon's close friend throughout his life, only Tennant made a permanent impression.{{sfn|Moorcroft Wilson|2003|pp=11–}}

Introduced by the [[The Sitwells|Sitwells]] in 1927, Sassoon and Stephen Tennant began a relationship which lasted nearly six years.{{sfn|Egremont|2014|p=5387 (Kindle edition)}} Tennant, however, had recurrent tuberculosis, and the strain which that put on their relationship had started to show by the early 1930s. In May 1933, Tennant, then receiving treatment at a sanatorium in Kent, abruptly informed Sassoon via a letter written by his physician that he never wanted to see him again. Sassoon was devastated.{{sfn|Hoare|1991|p=177}}

When he met his future wife Hester Gatty a few months later, he was still reeling from his break-up with Tennant. Sensing a sympathetic nature, Sassoon confided in Hester about their relationship and, at her suggestion, wrote Tennant a letter to put the past to rest.{{sfn|Egremont|2014|p=6765 (Kindle edition)}} While he and Tennant exchanged letters, telephone calls and infrequent visits in the years to come, they never resumed their previous relationship.{{sfn|Hoare|1991|p=274}}

===Marriage and later life===
In September 1931, Sassoon rented Fitz House, [[Teffont Magna]], Wiltshire, and began to live there.{{sfn|Moorcroft Wilson|2003|p=255}} In December 1933, he married Hester Gatty (daughter of [[Stephen Herbert Gatty|Sir Stephen Gatty]]), who was 20 years his junior, and soon afterwards they moved to [[Heytesbury]] House.

The marriage led to the birth of a child, something Sassoon had purportedly craved for a long time. Siegfried's son, [[George Sassoon]] (1936–2006), became a scientist, linguist, and author, and was adored by Siegfried, who wrote several poems addressed to him. Siegfried's marriage broke down after the Second World War, with Sassoon apparently unable to find a compromise between the solitude he enjoyed and the companionship he needed.

Separated from his wife in 1945, Sassoon lived in seclusion at Heytesbury in Wiltshire, but he maintained contact with a circle which included [[E. M. Forster]] and [[J. R. Ackerley]]. One of his closer friends was the cricketer [[Dennis Silk]] who later became Warden (headmaster) of Radley College. He also formed a close friendship with Vivien Hancock, then headmistress of Greenways School at Ashton Gifford House, Wiltshire, where his son George was a pupil. The relationship provoked Hester to make strong accusations against Hancock, who responded with the threat of legal action.{{sfn|Moorcroft Wilson|2003|pp=345–346}}

===Religion===
After a lifetime of grappling with questions of faith and spirituality, Sassoon made the decision to convert to Catholicism in 1957.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Foundation |first=Poetry |date=2023-10-17 |title=Siegfried Sassoon |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/siegfried-sassoon |access-date=2023-10-18 |website=Poetry Foundation |language=en}}</ref> His motivation for this conversion has been the subject of much speculation and analysis.<ref name="ODNB" /> Intellectual exploration, aesthetic appeal, spiritual seeking, and the influence of figures like [[Ronald Knox]] were factors for Sassoon's decision to convert.{{sfn|Moorcroft Wilson|2003|p=408}}