Bertram Higgins left Melbourne for Oxford in 1919, at the age of 18. He worked in England until 1930, becoming a literary journalist and book reviewer for several publications, including the Times Literary Supplement, the Spectator and the New Statesman. He co-edited the London literary magazine Calendar of Modern Letters (1925-1927) and also several poetry anthologies with Clifford O'Brien.
After living in Australia from 1930 to 1933, Higgins went to England to serve in the RAF, returning to Australia in 1946. A poet of some complexity, some of his contemporaries compared his work with that of T. S. Eliot.
