Basil Dowling (1910-2000) was variously a poet, pacifict, teacher and librarian. Several of his collections of poetry were published by the Caxton Press, and he was regarded as a "southern poet" and associated with Charles Brasch and Ruth Dallas.

Many of his poems refer to his Christchurch youth and much of his poetry alludes to alienation both from a bucolic New Zealand childhood and from the English pastoral literary tradition.