John Hay Beith - 10th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders

liverpool annie · Sep 15, 2009

Medal card of Beith, John Hay

10th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders Second Lieutenant
Machine Gun Corps Major
Date
1914-1920

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/...asp?Edoc_Id=1388903&queryType=1&resultcount=1

Beith, John Hay [pseud. Ian Hay] (1876–1952), writer, was born on 17 April 1876 in Manchester, the third son and sixth child of John Alexander Beith (d. 1896), cotton merchant and magistrate, and his wife, Janet, daughter of David Fleming, also a merchant in Manchester. He was the grandson of Alexander Beith, one of the founders of the Free Church of Scotland in 1843. Educated at Fettes College, Edinburgh, and then at St John's College, Cambridge, Beith obtained in 1898 a second class degree in classics, and distinguished himself at rowing. He showed early interest in the theatre, writing reviews for the popular press.

In 1901 Beith taught at Fettes before returning to Cambridge for a short period to study science. In 1902 as a junior science master he joined Durham School, where he also coached the rugby teams and river crews. A charming companion, with a developed social sense, he was extremely popular. Durham featured in one of his best books, Housemaster (1936).

In 1906 Beith returned to Fettes. While sharing largely in school life, he spent most of his leisure time in writing. He was a resourceful if unconventional teacher, knew public-school boys instinctively, and enjoyed schoolmastering. When in 1912 he left Fettes to make writing his career his decision was generally regretted, perhaps even eventually by himself.

Beith's first novel, Pip (1907), coloured by early Manchester schooldays, was a best-seller and was followed by other equally light comic novels, among them The Right Stuff (1908) and A Man's Man (1909). With the publication in 1914 of A Knight on Wheels and The Lighter Side of School Life, which owes much to Fettes, his career as a writer was assured. His humour, gift for story-telling, shrewd observation, sentimentality, and truly ‘English’ talent for sympathetically conveying eccentric characters perfectly suited the age.

In the First World War Beith served first with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, then transferred to the machine-gun corps. In 1915 he married Helen Margaret Speirs; they had no children. Also in 1915 he reached the rank of captain and was mentioned in dispatches; he was awarded the MC in 1916. Meanwhile his best-known book, The First Hundred Thousand, was published in 1915. Written in billets at home and in France, it ‘impressed upon a notoriously unmilitarist public the lighter side of Kitchener's army’ (The Times). First serialized in Blackwood's Magazine, it became one of the most popular books of the period, running to multiple editions in Britain and America, and being translated into French. Beith followed this success with Carrying on (1917) and The Last Million (1918). Earlier employed in recruiting, Beith spent 1916–18 in America with the information bureau of the British War Mission, where his energy and success were rewarded by a CBE (1918) and promotion to the rank of major.

In 1919 Beith turned to the theatre, living from then on in London, absorbed in its social and theatrical life. He was particularly successful in translating his own novels into plays, among them A Safety Match (1921), Housemaster (1936), and, perhaps his most successful play, Tilly of Bloomsbury (1919, based on his novel Happy-Go-Lucky, 1913). Tilly of Bloomsbury was adapted for film, as was The Middle Watch (1929). Beith's wit, romanticism, decorous mind, and exceptional theatrical sense kept his plays popular. He proved an excellent collaborator with other writers, among them Seymour Hicks (Good Luck, 1923); Stephen King-Hall (The Middle Watch, 1929, and others); A. E. W. Mason (A Present from Margate, 1933); and P. G. Wodehouse (A Damsel in Distress, 1928, Leave it to Psmith, 1930, and others).

Although Beith's theatrical flair was unfaltering, through some curious change in emphasis his later novels never achieved his pre-war success. He failed to adjust, and his last works were poorly received. The King's Service (1938), an informal history of the army, may have helped him to the directorship of War Office public relations (1938–41) and the rank of major-general, but this and the war cut him off from his public. The Times described him as ‘turning resolutely, perhaps too resolutely, away from the brutal face of the war’, and his tribute to Malta, The Unconquered Isle (1943), an attempt at a second Hundred Thousand, misjudged the mood of a people who with their own experience of bombing resented his cheerful glossing.

On the lapse of his directorship Beith returned to work in America. After 1945 he wrote semi-official histories, which met with little success; his one serious play, Hattie Stowe (1947), about Harriet Beecher Stowe, failed, possibly only through an over-large cast.

Beith apparently enjoyed his London years. He travelled, was chairman of the Society of Authors (1921–4, 1935–9), a member of the council of the League of British Dramatists from 1933, and president of the Dramatists Club from 1937. He was an officer of the order of St John of Jerusalem, for long a governor of Guy's Hospital, and gave his services also to St Dunstan's. Skilled at archery, he was a member of the queen's bodyguard for Scotland (Royal Company of Archers), a history of which he wrote in 1951. He was noted for charm, striking personality, equable temperament, after-dinner speeches, and personal austerity. Some observers, however, thought they detected an inner unhappiness; perhaps his essential Calvinism evoked a sense of regret discernible in his own reported remark, bitter though humorously offered, that all his life he had lived on his wits.

Beith died in the Hillbrow Nursing Home, in Liss, Hampshire, on 22 September 1952. There is a portrait at the Garrick Club by T. C. Dugdale.
Click to expand...

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

You can download 2 of his books about his experiences in the war from the Canadian Archives ( also available Gutenburg Project ! )

http://www.archive.org/details/firsthundredthou00hayiuoft

http://www.archive.org/details/allinitk1carries00hayiuoft

Log in or Sign up

John Hay Beith - 10th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders

liverpool annie New Member

Share This Page

Log in or Sign up

John Hay Beith - 10th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders

Thread Tools

liverpool annie New Member

Share This Page

Useful Searches