Betjeman, Sir John

(1906-1984)

   Broadcaster, television presenter and poet laureate known for writing about the recent past in such a way as to make it accessible and familiar. The only child of a London furniture manufacturer, he was educated at Marlborough College, Wiltshire, and Magdalen College, Oxford, which he left without graduating. He was a schoolmaster, assistant editor of the Architectural Review in 1930, and film critic of the London Evening Standard in 1933. His writings on Victorian architecture paved the way for the founding of the Victorian Society. His first poems were published in London Mercury in 1930; his first collection, Mount Zion, was published in 1931, and Collected Poems followed in 1958. He went on to publish many more collections of poems, as well as his blank verse autobiography, Summoned by Bells, in 1960. Betjeman wrote non-fiction books, including several guidebooks to English counties. He was knighted in 1969 and is buried in Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. His many poems are witty and sometimes satirical. Some of his poems: "A Bay in Anglesey," "Blame the Vicar," "Cornish Cliffs," "Diary of a Church Mouse," "The Cottage Hospital," "The Olympic Girl," "Winter Seascape."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. John Betjeman Home Page (www.johnbetjeman.com). The Collected Poems of John Betjeman. Birkenhead, Earl of, ed. John Murray, 1979, reissued 1990. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. Westminster Abbey Official Guide (no date).