The British sculptor and draftsman Henry Moore was born in Castleford on July 30, 1898, the seventh of eight children into poor circumstances. His father is a worker in a coal mine, but he attaches great importance to a solid education for his children. Henry Moore therefore encounters tough resistance with his desire to become a sculptor. He therefore becomes a teacher and teaches for a short time at the elementary school in Castleford, which he also attended. With the outbreak of the First World War, Henry Moore becomes a soldier. During the Battle of Cambrai on November 30, 1917, he suffers gas poisoning, due to which he receives a scholarship at the end of the war and is able to enroll at the School of Arts in Leeds in 1919.