John Drinkwater (playwright)

Template:Infobox person John Drinkwater (1 June 1882 – 25 March 1937) was an English poet and dramatist. He was known before World War 1 (also known as the Great War or WW1) as one of the Dymock poets, and his poetry was included in all five volumes of Georgian Poetry (edited by Edward Marsh, 1912–1922). After World War I, he achieved fame as a playwright and became closely associated with Birmingham Repertory Theatre.<ref name=ondb>Eric Salmon. 'Drinkwater, John', in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004, revised 2007)</ref>

Life and career

John Drinkwater was born in Leytonstone, Essex (now Greater London), to actor/author Albert Edwin Drinkwater (1851–1923) and Annie Beck (née Brown), and worked as an insurance clerk. In the period immediately before the First World War, he was one of the group of poets associated with the Gloucestershire village of Dymock, along with Rupert Brooke, Lascelles Abercrombie, Wilfrid Wilson Gibson and others.<ref name=ondb/>

In 1918, he had his first major success with his play Abraham Lincoln. He followed it with others in a similar vein, including Mary Stuart<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and Oliver Cromwell.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In 1927, the George H. Doran Company published Drinkwater's book Oliver Cromwell: A Character Study.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

He had published poetry since The Death of Leander in 1906; the first volume of his Collected Poems was published in 1923. He did also compile anthologies and wrote literary criticism (e.g. Swinburne: an estimate (1913)), and later became manager of Birmingham Repertory Theatre.

He married concert violinist Daisy Kennedy, the ex-wife of Benno Moiseiwitsch, in December 1924.<ref>'John Drinkwater Weds; English Dramatist, Divorced, Marries Miss Daisy Kennedy, Violinist', in The New York Times, 17 December 1924</ref> Their daughter, Penny Drinkwater, went on to become a wine writer and member of the circle of wine writers.

John Drinkwater made recordings in Columbia Records' International Educational Society Lecture series. They include Lecture 10 – a lecture on The Speaking of Verse (four 78 rpm sides, Cat no. D 40018-40019), and Lecture 70 John Drinkwater reading his own poems (four 78 rpm sides, Cat no. D 40140-40141).<ref>Catalogue of Columbia Records, Up to and including Supplement no. 252 (Columbia Graphophone Company, London, September 1933), pp. 371, 374.</ref>

Death and commemoration

File:Piddington StNicholas GravestoneDrinkwater.JPG

John Drinkwater's grave at Piddington, Oxfordshire.

John Drinkwater died in London in 1937 at the age of 54.<ref name="Magill1985">Template:Cite book</ref> He is buried at Piddington, Oxfordshire, where he had spent summer holidays as a child.

A road in Leytonstone, formerly a 1960s council estate, is named after John Drinkwater, as is a small development of modern houses in Piddington.

Archives

Papers of John Drinkwater are held at the Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> This includes a collection of photographs and photograph albums relating to Drinkwater.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> There are also some Drinkwater papers in the Ashley Library in the British Library and in Vestry House Museum in Walthamstow, as well as a large amount of correspondence held at Yale University.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

External links

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• John Drinkwater memorial site
• Special Collections and Archives Catalogue University of Gloucestershire Archives and Special Collections
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• Discussion of John Drinkwater's play Abraham Lincoln
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• Archival material at Template:Wikidata
• Plays by John Drinkwater at Great War Theatre
• John Drinkwater Collection. General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University