Henry Williamson

Henry William Williamson (1 December 1895 – 13 August 1977) was an English writer who wrote novels concerned with

Henry Williamson was born in Brockley in south-east London to bank clerk William Leopold Williamson (1865-1946) and Gertrude Eliza (1867-1936; née Leaver).^[1] In early childhood his family moved to Ladywell, and he received a grammar school education at Colfe's School. The then semi-rural location provided easy access to the Kent countryside, and he developed a deep love of nature throughout his childhood.^[2]

First World War

On 22 January 1914, Williamson volunteered as a rifleman with the

In November 1914, he went to France with the London Rifle Brigade's 1st Battalion, entering the

Williamson became disgusted with what he considered to be the pointlessness of the war, blaming its causation on greed and bigotry. He became determined that Germany and Britain should never go to war again. Williamson was also powerfully influenced by the camaraderie that he had experienced in the trenches, and what he saw as the bonds of kinship that existed between the ordinary British and German soldiers.[5]

Early writing

He told of his war experiences in The Wet Flanders Plain (1929), The Patriot's Progress (1930) and in many of his books in the semi-autobiographical 15-book series A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight (1951–1969).

After the war, he read Richard Jefferies' book The Story of My Heart^[6] and this inspired him to begin writing seriously. In 1921, he moved to Georgeham, Devon, initially living in Skirr Cottage there. He married Ida Loetitia Hibbert in 1925; they had six children. One daughter, Margaret, was the first wife of the guitarist and lutenist Julian Bream.^[7][8]

In 1927 Williamson published his most acclaimed book,

Lawrence died in May 1935 shortly after receiving a telegram from Williamson, which has sparked some conspiracy theories.

In 1936 he bought a farm in Stiffkey, Norfolk. The Story of a Norfolk Farm (1941) is his account of his first years of farming there.

Politics

In 1935, Williamson visited the

Jewish "usurial moneyed interests",^[13] he was attracted to Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists and joined it in 1937.^[14] Mosley became Hereward Birkin in Williamson's Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight (possibly a reference to Hereward the Wake and Freda May Birkin, or possibly a reference to Chattie Wake who married Michel Hewitt Salaman who became master of the Exmoor Hunt 1908-11-see Piers P Read's biography of Alec Guinness).^{[citation needed}

]

On the day of the

Nuremberg Trials.^[2]

Williamson initially retained a close relationship with Mosley in the immediate aftermath of the war, but when he brought Mosley as his guest to the Savage Club, the former BUF leader was asked to leave.^[16] Williamson refused Mosley's request to join the newly established Union Movement and indeed, his suggestion to Mosley that he should instead join him in abandoning politics altogether led to the two men falling out.^[17] Nonetheless, Williamson would write for the Mosleys' theoretical journal The European.^[18] He also continued to express admiration after the war for aspects of Nazi Germany.^[19]

Post-war life and writing

After the war, the family left the farm. In 1946 Williamson went to live alone at Ox's Cross,

In 1964 he had a short affair with the novelist Ann Quin, who was nearly forty years his junior (he had previously had an affair with his secretary Myfanwy Thomas, daughter of poet Edward Thomas). All this put great strain on his marriage and, in 1968, Christine and he were divorced after years of separation.^[20]

In 1974 he began working on a script for a film treatment of Tarka the Otter, but it was not regarded as suitable to film, being 400,000 words long. Filming went on, unbeknownst to him, and

After a general anaesthetic for a minor operation Williamson's health failed catastrophically; one day he was walking and chopping wood, the next day he was unrecognisable and had forgotten who his family were. Suffering from

The Henry Williamson Society was founded in 1980. His first wife, Loetitia, supported the society until her death in 1998 and his son, Richard, is its president.[22]

Works

The Flax of Dream

A tetralogy following the life of Willie Maddison.

• The Beautiful Years (1921)
• Dandelion Days (1922)
• The Dream of Fair Women (1924)
• The Pathway (1928)

A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight

A sequence of fifteen novels following the life of Phillip Maddison from his birth in the late 1890s till the early 1950s. The books were based loosely on Williamson's own life and experiences. If considered as one novel, it is one of the longest in English.

Other Works

Writings published posthumously by the Henry Williamson Society

Sources

• ISBN 0-7181-2122-8
• Higginbottom, Melvyn David, Intellectuals and British Fascism: A Study of Henry Williamson. London, Janus Publishing Co. 1992.
  ISBN 1-85756-085-X
• Lamplugh, Lois, A Shadowed Man: Henry Williamson 1895-1977. 2nd revised ed., Dulverton, Somerset, Exmoor Press, 1991.
  ISBN 0-900131-70-5
• Matthews, Hugoe, Henry Williamson. A Bibliography. London, Halsgrove. 2004.
  ISBN 1-84114-364-2
• Murry, John Middleton, 'The Novels of Henry Williamson', in Katherine Mansfield, and other Literary Studies. London, Constable. 1959.
• ISBN 0-907018-00-9
• West, Herbert Faulkner, The Dreamer of Dreams: An Essay on Henry Williamson, Ulysses Press, 1932.
• Williamson, Anne, Henry Williamson: Tarka and the Last Romantic,
  ISBN 0-7509-1492-0
• Williamson, Anne, A Patriot's Progress: Henry Williamson and the First World War, Sutton Publishing (1998)
  ISBN 0-7509-1339-8
• Wilson, Peter (ed), T. E. Lawrence. Correspondence with Henry Williamson. Fordingbridge, Hants, Castle Hill Press. 2000. (Volume IX of T. E. Lawrence Letters, edited by Jeremy Wilson)