John Drinkwater was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

 and dramatist.

He was born in Leytonstone

Leytonstone

Leytonstone is an area of east London and part of the London Borough of Waltham Forest. It is a high density suburban area, located seven miles north east of Charing Cross in the ceremonial county of Greater London and the historic county of Essex...

, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, and worked as an insurance clerk. In the period immediately before the First World War

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, he was one of the group of poets

Dymock poets

The Dymock poets were a literary group of the early 20th century who made their home near the village of Dymock in Gloucestershire, England, near to the border with Herefordshire. They were Robert Frost, Lascelles Abercrombie, Rupert Brooke, Edward Thomas, Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, and John...

 associated with the Gloucestershire

Gloucestershire

Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....

 village of Dymock

Dymock

Dymock is a small village in the Forest of Dean district of Gloucestershire, England about four miles south of Ledbury, with a population of approx. 300 people....

, along with Rupert Brooke

Rupert Brooke

Rupert Chawner Brooke was an English poet known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the First World War, especially The Soldier...

 and others.

In 1918, he scored his first major success with his play Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...

. He followed it up with others in a similar vein, including Mary Stuart and Oliver Cromwell. He had published poetry since The Death of Leander in 1906; the first volume of his Collected Poems appeared in 1923. He also compiled anthologies and wrote literary criticism (e.g. Swinburne: an estimate (1913)), and later became manager of Birmingham Repertory Theatre

Birmingham Repertory Theatre

Birmingham Repertory Theatre is a theatre and theatre company based on Centenary Square in Birmingham, England...

.

He was married to Daisy Kennedy

Daisy Kennedy

Daisy Kennedy was an Australian-born concert violinist.She was born in Burra-Burra, 160km north of Adelaide, to parents of Scottish and Irish descent. Her father, Joseph Kennedy, was headmaster of East Adelaide School. For three years she was Elder scholar at the Adelaide Conservatory...

, the ex-wife of Benno Moiseiwitsch

Benno Moiseiwitsch

Benno Moiseiwitsch CBE was a Ukrainian-born British pianist.-Biography:Born in Odessa, Ukraine, Moiseiwitsch began his studies at age seven at the Odessa Music Academy. He won the Anton Rubinstein Prize when he was just nine years old. He later took lessons from Theodor Leschetizky in Vienna...

.

Papers relating to John Drinkwater and collected by his step daughter are held at the University of Birmingham

University of Birmingham

The University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...

 Special Collections.

John Drinkwater made recordings in the Columbia Records

Columbia Records

Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...

'International Educational Society' Lecture series. They include Lecture 10 - a lecture on 'The Speaking of Verse' (Four 78rpm sides, Cat no. D 40018-40019), and Lecture 70 'John Drinkwater reading his own poems' (Four 78rpm sides, Cat no. D 40140-40141).

His name was given to a towerblock on a 1960s council estate in Leytonstone.

External links

• Dymock Poets Archive University of Gloucestershire Archives and Special Collections
• Discussion of John Drinkwater's play Abraham Lincoln