NOTED WRITER'S DEATH

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22687, 27 March 1937, Page 11

NOTED WRITER'S DEATH

MR. JOHN DRINKWATER POET AND DRAMATIST (Received March 26, 5.5 p.m.) LOXDOX, March 25 The death has occurred of Mr. John Drinkwater, noted British poet and dramatist. Mr. John Drinkwater was born at ! Leytonstone, Essex, in June, ISB2. His father was a schoolmaster, and also an amateur actor, and he eventually gave up teaching to become a member of a touring theatrical company. When he was only eight, he tried his hand at Writing a play. His holidays from the Oxford High School were spent on farms, and memories of those experiences were eghoed in some of his poems, such as '"Burning Bush," which he published years later with others under the title of "Preludes." When Mr. Drinkwater left school he wanted to go on the stage, but his father objected, and put him into an insurance office in Nottingham. In the next few years he conducted insurance business half-heartedly, living on a small salary, while he wrote verse in his spare time. The theatre still attracted him and in 1907 he took part in the founding of the Pilgrim Players at Birmingham, and made his first appearance on the stage. Two years later he appeared at the Court Theatre, London, in "The King's Threshold.'' The Pilgrim Players were afterwards converted into the Birmingham Repertory Company. Mr. Drinkwater was its "producer and general manager and played over 60 parts. Mr. Drinkwater's masterpiece, thc» plav "Abraham Lincoln," appeared in 1918, and was one of the most successful plays of the time. It ran for more than a year in London and during part of the time ho played in it himself. Among his other plays are "Oliver Cromwell," "Robert E. Lee." "Mary Stuart" and "Bird-in-Hand." He also wrote many books, including studies of Morris, Swinburne and Burns, and essavs. In "The Gentle Art of Theatre-going" (1927) he made a strong appeal for the institution of a national theatre. „ ~ The marriage of the Australian violinist, Miss Daisy Kennedy, whose union with the pianist Benno Moiseiwitseh had been dissolved, and Mr. Drinkwater occured in 1924. In 193 d he wrote "The King's Reign, dealing with the life of King George V.