Maurice Denton Welch (29 March 1915 – 30 December 1948)
was a British writer and painter, admired for his vivid prose and precise descriptions.
Life
Welch was born in
Shanghai
Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...
, China, to Arthur Joseph Welch, a wealthy British rubber merchant,
[ and his American wife of ]Christian Science
Christian Science is a set of beliefs and practices which are associated with members of the Church of Christ, Scientist. Adherents are commonly known as Christian Scientists or students of Christian Science, and the church is sometimes in ...
faith, Rosalind Bassett[ from ]New Bedford, Massachusetts
New Bedford is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States. It is located on the Acushnet River in what is known as the South Coast region. At the 2020 census, New Bedford had a population of 101,079, making it the state's ninth-l ...
. The youngest of four sons, Welch, was sent to a boarding school at the age of 11, after his mother died from wasting kidney disease
Kidney disease, or renal disease, technically referred to as nephropathy, is damage to or disease of a kidney. Nephritis is an Inflammation, inflammatory kidney disease and has several types according to the location of the inflammation. Infla ...
.[
After a brief time at prep school in London, Welch was sent to ]Repton
Repton is a village and civil parish in the South Derbyshire district of Derbyshire, England, located on the edge of the River Trent floodplain, about north of Swadlincote. The population taken at the 2001 census was 2,707, increasing to 2 ...
, where he was a contemporary of the writer Roald Dahl
Roald Dahl (13 September 1916 – 23 November 1990) was a British author of popular children's literature and short stories, a poet, screenwriter and a wartime Flying ace, fighter ace. His books have sold more than 300 million copies ...
and actor Geoffrey Lumsden
Geoffrey Forbes Lumsden (26 December 1914 – 4 March 1984) was a British character actor who had a lengthy career on television. He often played pompous upper-class characters, army officers and the like.
Biography
Lumsden was born in ...
. By his and others' accounts, his time there was miserable, and he ran away prior to his last term. After leaving Repton, he studied art at Goldsmiths' in London with the intention of becoming a painter
Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...
.
Welch spent part of his pre-school childhood in China, and returned for a longer spell after he left Repton. He recorded this episode in his fictionalised autobiography, '' Maiden Voyage'' (1943). With the help and patronage of Edith Sitwell
Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell (7 September 1887 – 9 December 1964) was a British poet and critic and the eldest of the three literary Sitwells. She reacted badly to her eccentric, unloving parents and lived much of her life with her governess ...
and John Lehmann
Rudolf John Frederick Lehmann (2 June 1907 – 7 April 1987) was an English publisher, poet and man of letters. He founded the periodicals '' New Writing'' and ''The London Magazine'', and the publishing house of John Lehmann Limited.
Early ...
this became a small but lasting success and made for him a distinct and individual reputation.[ It was followed by the novel '' In Youth is Pleasure'' (1944), a study of adolescence published in a limited edition by ]Herbert Read
Sir Herbert Edward Read, (; 4 December 1893 – 12 June 1968) was an English art historian, poet, literary critic and philosopher, best known for numerous books on art, which included influential volumes on the role of art in education. Read wa ...
at the publishers Faber and Faber
Faber and Faber Limited, commonly known as Faber & Faber or simply Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot (an early Faber editor and director), W. H. Auden, C. S. Lewis, Margaret S ...
and then more widely by Routledge
Routledge ( ) is a British multinational corporation, multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, academic journals, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanit ...
. Read said he was happy to publish the book, and enjoyed it himself, but he warned Welch that many people would find its hero perverse and unpleasant. A collection of short stories, entitled '' Brave and Cruel'' followed (1948).
The bulk of Welch's output was to see posthumous publication: an unfinished autobiographical novel '' A Voice Through a Cloud'' in 1950; a further short story collection, '' A Last Sheaf'', in 1951; '' The Denton Welch Journals'' in 1952; an unfinished travelogue, '' I Left My Grandfather's House'' in 1958; and a poetry collection, '' Dumb Instrument'', in 1976.
Accident and literary work
At the age of 20,[ Welch was hit by a car while cycling in ]Surrey
Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...
and suffered a fractured spine. He was temporarily paralysed, and suffered severe pain and bladder complications, including pyelonephritis
Pyelonephritis is inflammation of the kidney, typically due to a bacterial infection. Symptoms most often include fever and flank tenderness. Other symptoms may include nausea, burning with urination, and frequent urination. Complications ...
,[ and ]spinal tuberculosis
Pott's disease, or Pott disease, named for British surgeon Percivall Pott who first described the symptoms in 1799, is tuberculosis of the spine, usually due to haematogenous spread from other sites, often the lungs. The lower thoracic and up ...
that ultimately led to his early death.
After the accident, Welch spent time at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery
The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery (informally the National Hospital or Queen Square) is a neurological hospital in Queen Square, London. It is part of the University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. It was the f ...
and then was relocated to Southcourt Nursing Home in Broadstairs
Broadstairs () is a coastal town on the Isle of Thanet in the Thanet district of east Kent, England, about east of London. It is part of the civil parish of Broadstairs and St Peter's, which includes St Peter's, and had a population in 2011 ...
, Kent. In July 1936, Welch rented an apartment with his friend and housekeeper Evelyn Sinclair in Tonbridge
Tonbridge ( ) (historic spelling ''Tunbridge'') is a market town in Kent, England, on the River Medway, north of Royal Tunbridge Wells, south west of Maidstone and south east of London. In the administrative borough of Tonbridge and Mall ...
so that he could be close to his doctor, John Easton. Sinclair travelled with him to various residences until May 1946, when he settled in one of the Noël and Bernard Adeney residences in Middle Orchard, Borough Green
Borough Green is a civil parish in the borough of Tonbridge and Malling in Kent, England. The central area is situated on the A25 road between Maidstone and Sevenoaks, with the M26 motorway running through the centre dividing Wrotham and Borough ...
with his partner, Eric Oliver. Two years later, Sinclair moved in as well, and remained with him until his death on 30 December 1948.[
Despite his injuries, he continued to paint, and perhaps because of them,][ he started to write. In 1940, he began to write ]poem
Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...
s, the first one appearing in print in 1941. In August 1942, he wrote an essay on the painter Walter Sickert
Walter Richard Sickert (31 May 1860 – 22 January 1942) was a German-born British painter and printmaker who was a member of the Camden Town Group of Post-Impressionist artists in early 20th-century London. He was an important influence on d ...
which, published originally in ''Horizon
The horizon is the apparent curve that separates the surface of a celestial body from its sky when viewed from the perspective of an observer on or near the surface of the relevant body. This curve divides all viewing directions based on whethe ...
'', brought him to the notice of Edith Sitwell, in no small part down to his own cultivation of her attentions.[ Scores of short stories followed, around a dozen being published in various magazines. Many more were left unfinished at the time of his death.
Welch's literary work, intense and introverted, has been described as Proustian in its attention to the minutiae of life, in particular that of the English countryside during ]World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. A close attention to aesthetics, be it in human behaviour, physical appearance, clothing, art, architecture, jewellery, or antiques, is also a recurring concern in his writings.
The extent to which Welch's work is autobiography or fiction has been much discussed, apart from his frequent use of the first person (and in some cases is identified in the narrative as "Denton"). Fictional content aside, the point of origin of virtually all of his stories is biographical: they are often set in places he knew or had visited, and feature thinly-disguised, often deeply unflattering, depictions of friends, family and acquaintances (to the extent that over thirty years after Welch's death, his art school friend, the artist Gerald Leet, refused to contribute to Michael De-la-Noy's biography, where he is identified only as 'Gerald' in the index.). Welch chose to depict himself a few times in fictionalised form, most notably as "Orvil Pym" in ''In Youth is Pleasure'', and as "Mary" in "The Fire in the Wood". "Robert" was also one of his favourite personas. The philosopher Maurice Cranston __NOTOC__
Maurice William Cranston (8 May 1920 – 5 November 1993) was a British philosopher, professor and author. He served for many years as Professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics, and was also known for his pop ...
, who had known him since his teens (and who featured in at least one story) observed that Welch was as unforgiving in depictions of himself as he was of others.[Cranston, Maurice (1951) "Denton Welch" in ''The Spectator'', 1 June 1951, reprinted in ''Spectator Harvest'' (1952), ed. Wilson Harris, London: Hamish Hamilton, p.74]
Art
From an early age Welch's aptitude for art was evident, and in his journals he recalls his first still life
A still life (: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, human-m ...
(holly and beech leaves), completed when he was nine. However, his enrolment at Goldsmith's came initially out of his family's desire that he do something with his life after his return from China, any sort of activity associated with business evidently being ruled out of the question. It was through a fellow student that Welch sold his first artwork: a view of Hadlow Castle
Hadlow Castle was an 18th-century country house in Hadlow, Kent, England, built in the fashionable Strawberry Hill 'Gothic' style. The house was gradually enlarged and extended during the 19th century and finally demolished in the 20th, apart ...
to Shell
Shell may refer to:
Architecture and design
* Shell (structure), a thin structure
** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses
Science Biology
* Seashell, a hard outer layer of a marine ani ...
for a series of lorry posters featuring landmarks. It is now on display at the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu, Hampshire
Beaulieu ( ) is a village located on the southeastern edge of the New Forest in Hampshire, England. It is home to both Beaulieu Palace House, Palace House and the National Motor Museum, Beaulieu, National Motor Museum. In 2020, it was named ...
. He later failed to sell a painting of Lord Berners
Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson, 14th Baron Berners (18 September 188319 April 1950), also known as Gerald Tyrwhitt, was a British composer, novelist, painter, and aesthete. He was also known as Lord Berners.
Biography Early life and education
B ...
to its subject, but the experience generated a short story.
Common themes in his art include ''objets d'art'', cats, still lifes (often incongruously juxtaposed) and assorted gothic motifs, often in a fantastical landscape, although not in one of his most famous works, ''The Coffin House'' (1946) depicting a locally-renowned dwelling, north of Hadlow
Hadlow is a village and civil parish in the borough of Tonbridge and Malling in Kent, England. It is situated in the Medway valley, north-east of Tonbridge and south-west of Maidstone.
The Saxon name for the settlement was Haeselholte (in t ...
, Kent
Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...
. Welch exhibited his artwork at the Leicester Galleries
Leicester Galleries was an art gallery located in London from 1902 to 1977 that held exhibitions of modern British, French and international artists' works. Its name was acquired in 1984 by Peter Nahum, who operates "Peter Nahum at the Leiceste ...
. Other exhibitions followed, in The Redfern Gallery and the Leger Gallery.
In May 1945, Welch restored an 18th-century Georgian doll's house
A dollhouse or doll's house is a toy house made in scale model, miniature. Since the early 20th century dollhouses have primarily been the domain of children, but their collection and crafting is also a hobby for many adults. English-speakers in ...
from 1783, which was given to him by his friend Mildred Bosanquet. The doll's house is on display at the V&A Museum of Childhood
Young V&A, formerly the V&A Museum of Childhood, is a branch of the Victoria and Albert Museum (the "V&A"), which is the United Kingdom's national museum of applied arts. It is in Bethnal Green in the East End of London, and specialises in obje ...
, department of the Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...
.
Opinions on Welch's artworks have varied widely: amongst his biographers, Michael De-la-Noy and James Methuen-Campbell consider him to be underrated; in Robert Phillips' view his paintings are "lightweight" and his drawings "fussy and shallow". For Jocelyn Brooke, had he been a painter merely, and not also a writer, "it is doubtful ... whether he would be remembered at all."
In a perceptive review of the reproductions in ''A Last Sheaf'', the un-named ''Times'' art critic remarked on the "whimsically sinister" qualities of Welch's depictions. The writer noted that Welch's specific skill—that of the detached but perceptive observer—which is so evident in his writings, is lost in his art, where he inadvertently (and falsely) appears to present "himself sclever to like what most people would think preposterous."["A Born Writer's Pictures", ''The Times'', Thursday 10 September 1953] A painting such as ''Now I have only my dog'', ... is easy to remember and evidently the work of a man of unusual and definite character, but for all that it is painfully smart, and leaves precisely the impression of frivolity that the writings always manage to avoid.
Following the reissue of the ''Journals'', writer Alan Hollinghurst
Sir Alan James Hollinghurst (born 26 May 1954) is an English novelist, poet, short story writer and translator. He won the 1989 Somerset Maugham Award and the 1994 James Tait Black Memorial Prize. In 2004, he won the Booker Prize for his novel ...
found in Welch's self-portraiture (of which there are several examples; one is in the National Portrait Gallery National Portrait Gallery may refer to:
* National Portrait Gallery (Australia), in Canberra
* National Portrait Gallery (Sweden), in Mariefred
*National Portrait Gallery (United States), in Washington, D.C.
*National Portrait Gallery, London
...
) a tendency to "amplify the over-riding concern of his writing to fix his youth forever while he accelerates towards death."
Legacy
The playwright and diarist Alan Bennett
Alan Bennett (born 9 May 1934) is an English actor, author, playwright and screenwriter. He has received numerous awards and honours including four BAFTA Awards, four Laurence Olivier Awards, and two Tony Awards. In 2005 he received the Socie ...
stated that he shared many similar preoccupations when he first encountered Welch's work.
William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist. He is widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major Postmodern literature, postmodern author who influen ...
cited Welch as the writer who most influenced his own work and dedicated his 1983 novel '' The Place of Dead Roads'' to him. In 1951 the English composer Howard Ferguson
George Howard Ferguson (June 18, 1870 – February 21, 1946) was the ninth premier of Ontario, from 1923 to 1930. He was a Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, Conservative member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1905 to ...
set five of Welch's poems (included in ''A Last Sheaf'') as a song-cycle for voice and piano, entitled ''Discovery''. Others who have named Welch as an influence have included the film-maker John Waters
John Samuel Waters Jr. (born April 22, 1946) is an American filmmaker, actor, writer, and artist. He rose to fame in the early 1970s for his transgressive cult films, including '' Multiple Maniacs'' (1970), '' Pink Flamingos'' (1972) and '' Fe ...
, the artist Barbara Hanrahan, and the writers Beryl Bainbridge
Dame Beryl Margaret Bainbridge (21 November 1932 – 2 July 2010) was an English writer. She was primarily known for her works of psychological fiction, often macabre tales set among the English working class. She won the Whitbread Awards priz ...
and Barbara Pym
Barbara Mary Crampton Pym (2 June 1913 – 11 January 1980) was an English novelist. In the 1950s she published a series of social comedies, of which the best known are '' Excellent Women'' (1952) and '' A Glass of Blessings'' (1958). In 1977 ...
.
Welch appears as "Merton Hughes" in the 1956 novel ''No Coward Soul'', written by his friend, the painter Noël Adeney, and as "Kim Carsons" in William S. Burroughs' ''The Place of Dead Roads''.
Many commentators who wrote about Denton Welch after his death had their views clouded by largely non-aesthetic concerns: by their perception of his sexuality, or of his treatment of them personally in his writing, or of the "hateful winsomeness" of his personality. The appropriateness of Welch's alleged solipsism, at a time when the world was in turmoil, appears as a factor in some reviews; the poet Randall Swingler
Randall Carline Swingler MM (28 May 1909 – 19 June 1967) was an English poet, writing extensively in the 1930s in the communist interest.
Early life and education
His was a prosperous upper middle class Anglican family in Aldershot, with an ...
went so far as to remark on the comparatively commonplace fact of Welch's early death, being, as it was, only one of many at the time. However, Welch's friends observed that close focus on his sexuality was to miss the point of his writing. Fellow student at Goldsmith's, Helen Roeder, called him 'Ariel
Ariel may refer to:
Film and television
*Ariel Award, a Mexican Academy of Film award
* ''Ariel'' (film), a 1988 Finnish film by Aki Kaurismäki
*, a Russian film directed by Yevgeni Kotov
* ''ARIEL Visual'' and ''ARIEL Deluxe'', a 1989 and 1991 ...
', and Maurice Cranston highlighted the complexity of Welch's character, at least in part influenced by his health. Simply labelling him ...'a homosexual' is to use a bright, pat word which will make foolish people think they have learned the secret of something they have not begun to understand.
Cranston also offered what might be considered a more balanced assessment[Methuen-Campbell (2002) p. 85] of Welch's shortcomings and gifts: He had no trust. This in turn connects with his greatest limitation as an artist. He built too many barricades and enclosed the range of his understanding. If he could have seen the wider human comedy with his miraculously penetrating eye, and described the world as he described his own, he would surely have been among the greater writers in our language. As it is he will survive as a minor genius, one of very few from an uncreative age.
Works
*'' Maiden Voyage'' (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1943), . (Penguin Books, 1954; 1982 (Penguin Travel Library)), . (Exact Change
Exact Change is an American independent book publishing company founded in 1989 by Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang (musician), Naomi Yang who, outside of their publishing careers, are musicians associated with Galaxie 500 and Damon and Naomi. The ...
, 1999), .
*'' In Youth is Pleasure'' (London: Routledge, 1945), (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1985), .
*''Brave and Cruel and Other Stories'' (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1948). Comprising:
**"The Coffin on the Hill"
**"The Barn"
**"Narcissus Bay"
**"At Sea"
**"When I Was Thirteen"
**"The Judas Tree"
**"The Trout Stream"
**"Leaves from a Young Person's Notebook"
**"Brave and Cruel"
**"The Fire in the Wood"
*'' A Voice Through a Cloud'' (London: J. Lehmann, 1950). (London: Enitharmon Press
Enitharmon Press is an independent British publishing house specialising in artists' books, poetry, limited editions and original prints.
The name of the press comes from the poetry of William Blake: Enitharmon was a character who represented s ...
, 2004), .
*'' A Last Sheaf'', edited by Eric Oliver (London: John Lehmann, 1951). Comprising:
**"Sickert at St. Peter's"
**"The Earth's Crust"
**"Memories of a Vanished Period"
**"A Fragment of a Life Story"
**"A Party"
**"Evergreen Seaton-Leverett"
**"A Picture in the Snow"
**"Ghosts"
**"The Hateful Word"
**"The Diamond Badge"
**Poems
*'' The Denton Welch Journals'', edited by Jocelyn Brooke (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1952, revised 1973). As ''The Journals of Denton Welch'', edited by Michael De-la-Noy (London: Allison & Busby
Allison & Busby (A & B) is a publishing house based in London established by Clive Allison and Margaret Busby in 1967. The company has built up a reputation as a leading independent publisher.
Background
Launching as a publishing company in Ma ...
, 1984).
*'' Dumb Instrument'' (London: Enitharmon Press, 1976).
*'' I Left My Grandfather's House'' (Allison & Busby, 1984; London: Enitharmon Press, 2006), .
*''Fragments Of A Life Story: The Collected Short Writings Of Denton Welch'', edited by Michael De-la-Noy (London: Penguin Books
Penguin Books Limited is a Germany, German-owned English publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers the Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the ...
, 1987), .
**Collects ''Brave and Cruel'', ''A Last Sheaf'' and previously unpublished shorter works.
*''A Lunch Appointment'' (Elysium Press, 1993)
*''When I was an Art Student'' (Elysium Press, 1998)
*''Where Nothing Sleeps: The Complete Short Stories and Other Related Works'', edited by James Methuen-Campbell (North Yorkshire: Tartarus Press
Tartarus Press is an independent book publisher in Coverdale in North Yorkshire, England. , 2005), .
**Includes all the material from the above plus some further unpublished pieces and selected extracts from the journals.
Further reading
*De-la-Noy, Michael, ''The Making of a Writer'' (1984),
*Methuen-Campbell, James, ''Denton Welch, Writer and Artist'' (Carlton-in-Coverdale: Tartarus Press, 2002), and (2003) .
References
External links
Denton Welch Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Welch, Denton
1915 births
1948 deaths
20th-century English painters
20th-century English novelists
20th-century English short story writers
20th-century English diarists
20th-century English LGBTQ people
20th-century English poets
British gay writers
People educated at Repton School
Alumni of Goldsmiths, University of London
English people of American descent
Writers from Shanghai
British male novelists
20th-century English male writers
Writers who illustrated their own writing
People from Tonbridge and Malling (district)