Henry Williamson

For the Scottish zoologist, seeHenry Charles Williamson.For the minister of the Free Church of Scotland, seeHenry McIlree Williamson.

Henry William Williamson(1 December 1895 – 13 August 1977) was an English writer who wrote novels concerned withwildlife,Englishsocial history,ruralismand the First World War. He was awarded theHawthornden Prizefor literature in 1928 for his bookTarka the Otter.

Henry Williamson
Portrait byCharles Tunnicliffe,c. 1935
Born	(1895-12-01)1 December 1895 Brockley,London, England
Died	13 August 1977(1977-08-13)(aged 81) Twyford Abbey,London, England
Nationality	English
Known for	Nature writing(Tarka the Otter),Ruralistbooks

He was born inLondon,and brought up in a semi-rural area where he developed his love of nature, andnature writing.He fought in theFirst World Warand, having witnessed theChristmas truceand the devastation of trench warfare, he developed first a pacifist ideology, then fascist sympathies. He moved toDevonafter theSecond World Warand took up farming and writing; he wrote many other novels. He married twice. He died in a hospice in Ealing in 1977, and was buried in North Devon.

Early years

Henry Williamson was born inBrockleyin south-eastLondonto bank clerk William Leopold Williamson (1865-1946) and Gertrude Eliza (1867-1936; née Leaver).In early childhood his family moved toLadywell,and he received agrammar schooleducation atColfe's School.The then semi-rural location provided easy access to theKentcountryside, and he developed a deep love ofnaturethroughout his childhood.

First World War

On 22 January 1914, Williamson volunteered as a rifleman with the5th (City of London) Battalionof theLondon Regiment,part of theBritish Army'sTerritorial Force,and wasmobilisedwhen war was declared uponImperial Germanyon 5 August 1914.

In November 1914, he went to France with the London Rifle Brigade's 1st Battalion, entering theWestern Front's trenches in theYpres Salient,where he witnessed theChristmas Trucebetween British and German troops. In January 1915, he was withdrawn from the winter trenches withtrench footanddysenteryand evacuated back to Britain. After convalescence, he was commissioned on 10 April 1915as asecond lieutenantwith the 10th (Service) Battalion of theBedfordshire Regiment.In May 1915, he was attached for training to the 2/1stCambridgeshire RegimentatNewmarket.In October 1915, he was transferred to the 25thMiddlesex RegimentatHornchurch.He volunteered to specialise inmachine-gunwarfare, and in January 1916, joined No. 208 Machine Gun Company of theMachine Gun CorpsatBelton Park,Grantham.In May 1916, he entered hospital in London withanaemia,and was granted two months' medical leave. He rejoined No. 208 MGC and in February 1917 departed Britain with it for the Western Front, the unit taking the field with the62nd (2nd West Riding) Division.Williamson acted as his company's transport officer and, in June 1917, he wasgassedwhile transporting ammunition up to the front line. He was returned to the UK, spending the next few months in military convalescent hospitals. In September 1917, he was attached for garrison duty as theadjutantof the 3rd Bedfordshire Regiment atFelixstowe.Classed B1 by an Army Medical Board, from the effects of the gas, he was judged to be unfit for active service. After a year at Felixstowe, and frustrated at the nature of garrison life, Williamson attempted to get back to front-line action in September 1918 with an application to be transferred to theRoyal Air Force,but this was rejected due to his medical classification. He then applied for a transfer to theIndian Army,which was granted, but the war was ending and the order was cancelled. He spent a year afterwards on administrative duties demobilising soldiers from military camps on the south east coast of England, and was discharged from the army himself on 19 September 1919.

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.

Early writing

Skirr Cottage inGeorgehamin Devon where Williamson lived (1921–1925). He is buried in the churchyard beyond.

Crowberry Cottage, Georgeham, with ablue plaquecommemorating Williamson living there, 1925–1929

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

After the war, he readRichard Jefferies' bookThe Story of My Heartand this inspired him to begin writing seriously. In 1921, he moved toGeorgeham,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 lutenistJulian Bream.

In 1927, Williamson published his most acclaimed book,Tarka the Otter;it won him theHawthornden Prizein 1928, and made him enough money to pay for the wooden hut near Georgeham where he wrote many of his later books, often sitting alone there for 15 hours a day. The wooden writing hut was grantedGrade II listedstatus by English Heritage in July 2014 because of its "historical interest".Tarkaalso sparked a friendship withT. E. Lawrencewho had similar views about the need for a lasting peace settlement in Europe.Williamson was in the process of attempting to set up a meeting between Lawrence andAdolf Hitlerwhen Lawrence was killed in a motorcycle accident.Lawrence died in May 1935 shortly after receiving a telegram from Williamson, which has sparked some conspiracy theories. Williamson had developed a profound admiration for Hitler, whom he called "the only true pacificist in Europe", and believed that the key for peace in Europe was giving leadership to the veterans of the Great War.In a letter to the editor ofTime and Tidein May 1936, Williamson called Hitler "a very wise and steadfast and truth-perceiving father of his people; a man like T.E. Lawrence, without personal ambitions, a vegetarian, non-smoker, non-drinker, without even a bank-balance".Williamson claimed on the Night of the Long Knives in 1934 that Hitler was "actually in tears as he waited in the room", much like Lawrence "when he had to shoot an Arab murderer with his own hands".

He developed the idea that "politicians" and "pettifogging lawyers" were standing in the way of peace, and all that was needed to prevent another world war was to arrange meetings between British and German veterans, who presumably would be able to settle all of the great questions of the day.Williamson wrote: "The German ex-Service man respected the English ex-Service man. The English ex-Service man respected the German ex-Service man, and the German ex-Service men were in power in Germany".He devised the idea of a rally at theRoyal Albert Hallin London to be attended by veterans from Britain, France and Germany, where Lawrence would have been the keynote speaker.He rather naively believed that such a rally would create an unstoppable movement for peace in Europe.Williamson had been very influenced by the Christmas truce of 1914, which led him to the idea that the British and German veterans had common values along with the elitist idea that the veterans constituted the natural ruling class of Europe.Like many other veterans, Williamson believed in the "aristocracy of the trenches", believing that the men who fought in the war were an elite, men who were tougher, braver, and more hardier than anyone else along with being more honorable and noble.As the leadership of the National Socialist German Worker's Party was almost entirely made up of veterans, he was strongly attracted to Nazism as an example of veterans in power.

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

Politics

In 1935, Williamson visited theNational Socialist German Workers PartyCongress atNurembergand was greatly impressed, particularly with theHitler Youthmovement, which he viewed as having a healthy outlook on life compared with the London slums.He had a "well-known belief thatHitlerwas essentially a good man who wanted only to build a new and better Germany. "Opposed to war and believing that wars were caused byJewish "usurial moneyed interests",he was attracted toOswald Mosley'sBritish Union of Fascistsand joined it in 1937.Mosley became Hereward Birkin in Williamson'sA Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight(possibly a reference toHereward the WakeandFreda 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).During theDanzig crisis,Williamson believed if he could end the crisis peacefully by meeting Hitler as he wrote in August 1939: "If I could see him, as a common soldier who had fraternised, on that faraway Christmas Day of 1914, with the men of his Linz battatlion under Messines Hill, might I not be able to give him the amity he so desired from England, a country he admired?"

On the day of theBritish declaration of war,Williamson suggested to friends that he might fly to Germany to speak with Hitler to persuade him away from war. Following a meeting with Mosley later that day, however, he was dissuaded from his plan.At the start of theSecond World War,Williamson was briefly held underDefence Regulation 18Bfor his political views.Williamson was very unpopular during the war for his pro-Nazi views, which made him into an outcast.Visiting London in January 1944, he observed with satisfaction that what he perceived as the ugliness and immorality represented by its financial and banking sector had been "relieved a little by a catharsis of high explosive" and somewhat "purified by fire". InThe Gale of the World,the last book of hisChronicle,published in 1969, Williamson has his main character Phillip Maddison question the moral and legal validity of theNuremberg Trials.

Williamson initially retained a close relationship with Mosley in the immediate aftermath of the war, but when he brought Mosley as his guest to theSavage Club,the former BUF leader was asked to leave.Williamson refused Mosley's invitation that he join the newly establishedUnion Movementand indeed, his suggestion to Mosley that Mosley should instead join him in abandoning politics altogether led to the two men falling out.Nonetheless, Williamson would write for the Mosleys' theoretical journalThe European.He also continued to express admiration after the war for aspects of Nazi Germany.

Post-war life and writing

The Williamsons' home in Capstone Road,Ilfracombe

After the war, the family left the farm. In 1946 Williamson went to live alone at Ox's Cross,GeorgehaminNorth Devon,where he built a small house in which to write. In 1947 Henry and Loetitia divorced. Williamson fell in love with a young teacher, Christine Duffield, and they were married in 1949. He began to write his series of fifteen novels collectively known asA Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight.In 1950, the year his only child by this marriageHarry Williamsonwas born, he edited a collection of poems and short stories byJames Farrar,a promising young poet who had died, at the age of 20, in the Second World War. From 1951 to 1969 Williamson produced almost one novel a year while contributing regularly to theSunday ExpressandThe Europeanmagazine, edited byDiana Mosley.He also contributed a number of reviews and articles toThe Sunday Times.

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

In 1974 he began working on a script for a film treatment ofTarka the Otter,but it was not regarded as suitable to film, being 400,000 words long. Filming went on, unbeknownst to him, andthe film ofTarka the Otter,narrated byPeter Ustinov,was released in 1979.

Death

Williamson's grave in the churchyard ofSt George's Church, Georgeham

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 fromdementia,he moved into a hospice atTwyford Abbeyin Ealing. He died there on 13 August 1977, by coincidence on the day that the death scene of Tarka was being filmed. His body was buried in the graveyard ofSt George's Church, Georgeham,North Devon.At a service of thanksgiving inSt Martin-in-the-Fields,Ted Hughesdelivered the memorial address.

Henry Williamson Society

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.

Works

The Flax of Dream

Atetralogyfollowing 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.

• The Dark Lantern(1951)
• Donkey Boy(1952)
• Young Phillip Maddison(1953)
• How Dear Is Life(1954)
• A Fox Under My Cloak(1955)
• The Golden Virgin(1957)
• Love and the Loveless(1958)
• A Test to Destruction(1960)
• The Innocent Moon(1961)
• It Was the Nightingale(1962)
• The Power of the Dead(1963)
• The Phoenix Generation(1965)
• A Solitary War(1967)
• Lucifer Before Sunrise(1967)
• The Gale of the World(1969)

Other works

• The Lone Swallows(1922)
• The Peregrine's Saga, and Other Stories of the Country Green(1923)
• The Old Stag(1926)
• Tarka the Otter(1927)
• The Linhay on the Downs(1929)
• The Ackymals(1929)
• The Wet Flanders Plain(1929)
• The Patriot's Progress(1930)
• The Village Book(1930)
• The Labouring Life(1932)
• The Wild Red Deer of Exmoor(1931)
• The Star-born(1933)
• The Gold Falcon or the Haggard of Love(1933)
• On Foot in Devon(1933)
• The Linhay on the Downs and Other Adventures in the Old and New Worlds(1934)
• Devon Holiday(1935)
• Salar the Salmon(1935)
• Goodbye West Country(1937)
• The Children of Shallowford(1939)
• The Story of a Norfolk Farm(1941)
• Genius of Friendship: T. E. Lawrence(1941; reprinted by the Henry Williamson Society 1988; e-book 2014)
• As the Sun Shines(1941)
• The Incoming of Summer(undated)
• Life in A Devon Village(1945)
• Tales of a Devon Village(1945)
• The Sun in the Sands(1945)
• The Phasian Bird(1948)
• The Scribbling Lark(1949)
• Tales of Moorland and Estuary(1953)
• A Clear Water Stream(1958)
• In The Woods, a biographical fragment(1960)
• The Scandaroon(1972)

Writings published posthumously by the Henry Williamson Society

• Days of Wonder(1987; e-book 2013)
• From a Country Hilltop(1988; e-book 2013)
• A Breath of Country Air(2 vols, 1990–91; e-book 2013)
• Spring Days in Devon, and Other Broadcasts(1992; e-book 2013)
• Pen and Plough: Further Broadcasts(1993; e-book 2014)
• Threnos for T.E. Lawrence and Other Writings(1994; e-book 2014)
• Green Fields and Pavements(1995; e-book 2013)
• The Notebook of a Nature-lover(1996; e-book 2013)
• Words on the West Wind: Selected Essays from The Adelphi(2000; e-book 2013)
• Indian Summer Notebook: A Writer's Miscellany(2001; e-book 2013)
• Heart of England: Contributions to the Evening Standard 1939-41(2003; e-book 2013)
• Chronicles of a Norfolk Farmer: Contributions to the Daily Express 1937-39(2004; e-book 2013)
• Stumberleap, and other Devon Writings: Contributions to the Daily Express and Sunday Express, 1915-1935(2005; e-book 2013)
• Atlantic Tales: Contributions to the Atlantic Monthly 1927-1947(2007; e-book 2013)

Sources

• Farson, Daniel,Henry: An Appreciation of Henry Williamson.London, Michael Joseph. 1982.ISBN0-7181-2122-8
• Higginbottom, Melvyn David,Intellectuals and British Fascism: A Study of Henry Williamson.London, Janus Publishing Co. 1992.ISBN1-85756-085-X
• Griffiths, Richard (1980).Fellow Travellers of the Right British Enthusiasts for Nazi Germany, 1933-9.Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Lamplugh, Lois,A Shadowed Man: Henry Williamson 1895-1977.2nd revised ed., Dulverton, Somerset, Exmoor Press, 1991.ISBN0-900131-70-5
• Matthews, Hugoe,Henry Williamson. A Bibliography.London, Halsgrove. 2004.ISBN1-84114-364-2
• Murry, John Middleton,'The Novels of Henry Williamson', inKatherine Mansfield, and other Literary Studies.London, Constable. 1959.
• Sewell, Fr. BrocardHenry Williamson: The Man, The Writings: A Symposium.Padstow, Tabb House. 1980.ISBN0-907018-00-9
• West, Herbert Faulkner,The Dreamer of Dreams: An Essay on Henry Williamson,Ulysses Press, 1932.
• Williamson, Anne,Henry Williamson: Tarka and the Last Romantic,Sutton Publishing(1995)ISBN0-7509-0639-1.Paperback edition (1997)ISBN0-7509-1492-0
• Williamson, Anne,A Patriot's Progress: Henry Williamson and the First World War,Sutton Publishing (1998)ISBN0-7509-1339-8
• Wilson, Peter (ed),T. E. Lawrence. Correspondence with Henry Williamson.Fordingbridge, Hants, Castle Hill Press. 2000. (Volume IX ofT. E. Lawrence Letters,edited by Jeremy Wilson)

External links

• Quotations related toHenry Williamsonat Wikiquote
• The Great War InterviewBBC
• The Henry Williamson Society
• Henry Williamson PapersMSS 1714,L. Tom Perry Special Collections,Harold B. Lee Library,Brigham Young University
• Henry Williamsonat University of Exeter Special Collections