British novelist, poet and dramatist, born in India on the 4th of November 1862, and was educated at Plymouth. He was a clerk for ten years in the Sun fire insurance office, then studied for the stage, but turned his attention to literature, producing a number of successful novels with a Devonshire setting. They include Some Everyday Folks (1893); Children of the Mist (1898); The Human Boy (1899); Sons of the Morning (1900); My Devon Year (1903); The Mother (1908; dramatized 1913); Orphan Dinah (1920) and a play, St. George and the Dragons (1919). His play, The Secret Woman (dramatized from his novel of that title), was refused a licence but, after a public protest by twenty-four authors, it was performed six times at matinées in 1912 under the management of Mr. Granville-Barker. He also published single poems such as The Iscariot (1912), and two collections of poems, Plain Song (1917) and As the Wind Blows (1920). See also “Verdun,” “To Belgium,” “To a Mother,” “Song of the Red Cross” and “Man’s Days.”
