Richard Felix Raine Barker (7 May 1917 – 11 July 1997) was an English journalist, drama

critic A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as Art criticism, art, Literary criticism, literature, Music journalism, music, Film criticism, cinema, Theater criticism, theater, Fas ...

and

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...

. He is known for having been the youngest dramatic critic on

Fleet Street Fleet Street is a street in Central London, England. It runs west to east from Temple Bar, London, Temple Bar at the boundary of the City of London, Cities of London and City of Westminster, Westminster to Ludgate Circus at the site of the Lo ...

Biography

Barker was born in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

on the 7th of May 1917, the son of

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

Anthony Raine Barker and his wife, photographer Patricia Russell. He was educated at

Felsted School Felsted School is a co-educational independent school, independent boarding school, boarding and Day school, day school, situated in Felsted in Essex, England. It is in the British Public school (UK), public school tradition, and was founded i ...

before attending the

Choate School Choate Rosemary Hall ( ) is a private, co-educational, college-preparatory boarding school in Wallingford, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1890, it took its present name and began a co-educational system with the 1978 merger of ''The Ch ...

Connecticut Connecticut ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. ...

as part of a

student exchange program A student exchange program is a program in which students from a secondary school (high school) or higher education study abroad at one of their institution's partner institutions. A student exchange program may involve international travel, b ...

.Alumni Felstedienses 1930–2000 He married Anthea Francis Gotch in 1950. Felix Barker died on 11 July 1997.

Career

Barker began his career in his late teens reporting for the '' Evening News''. Two well-received pieces, one on school life and the other on the 1936 Crystal Palace fire, earned him a weekly column as the paper's amateur drama critic at the age of 19, making him the youngest dramatic critic working on

. 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 ...

he served as private and later a sergeant in the Gordon Highlanders where he helped run the theatrical entertainment group, the Balmorals. After the war he rejoined the ''Evening News'', becoming a

feature Feature may refer to: Computing * Feature recognition, could be a hole, pocket, or notch * Feature (computer vision), could be an edge, corner or blob * Feature (machine learning), in statistics: individual measurable properties of the phenome ...

writer in 1946, the deputy drama critic later that same year, and the chief critic in 1958. In 1960, Barker expanded his work to include

film criticism Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films and the film medium. In general, film criticism can be divided into two categories: Academic criticism by film studies, film scholars, who study the composition of film theory and publish ...

, making him one of the few critics at the time who was working in both theatre and film. He became the president of The Critics' Circle in 1974. Throughout his career as a critic, Barker also established himself as an author and historian, publishing such works as ''The Oliviers'' (1953), ''The House that Stoll Built'' (1957), ''London: 2000 Years of a City and its People'' (1974, with

Peter Jackson Sir Peter Robert Jackson (born 31 October 1961) is a New Zealand filmmaker. He is best known as the director, writer, and producer of the ''Lord of the Rings'' trilogy (2001–2003) and the ''Hobbit'' trilogy (2012–2014), both of which ar ...

), ''London as it Might Have Been'' (1982, with Ralph Hyde), ''The History of London in Maps'' (1990, again with Peter Jackson) and ''Greenwich and Blackheath Past'' (1993). His final book was ''Edwardian London'', published in 1995. A posthumous publication was issued by the

London Topographical Society The London Topographical Society was founded as the Topographical Society of London in 1880 to publish "material illustrating the history and topography Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of ...

, numbered 167, which represented another important collaboration with artist Peter Jackson, entitled ''The Pleasures of London'' (2008), and edited by Ann Saunders and Denise Silvester-Carr. In retirement he lived in Benenden in Kent where he landscaped the grounds of the 15th century Wealden Hall house his father Anthony Raine Barker had extensively restored from the 1930s. He had two children, Kent Barker (1953–) and Maxine Barker (1956–1992).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barker, Felix 1917 births 1997 deaths People educated at Felsted School British theatre critics English film critics Choate Rosemary Hall alumni 20th-century English male writers Writers from London 20th-century English historians 20th-century English journalists People from Benenden Presidents of the Critics' Circle British Army personnel of World War II Gordon Highlanders soldiers