J.B PRIESTLEYJ.B PRIESTLEYJ.B PRIESTLEYJ.B PRIESTLEY

LIFE AND WORKSLIFE AND WORKSLIFE AND WORKSLIFE AND WORKS

1894 John Boynton Priestley born, 13 September, in Bradford

Yorkshire

1910Priestley leaves school and takes a

jobwith a firm of wool merchants

1914 – 1918

Priestley joins 10th Duke of Wellington’s Regiment. Serves on front line in France. Is wounded and gassed.

1919• Awarded a place at Trinity Hall,

Cambridge, to study literature, history and political science

1921• Marries Pat Tempest, a young

woman he met in Bradford

1922• Begins work in London as journalist

writing for publications such as The Times Literary Supplement and The New Statesman

• Publishes his first collection of essays under the title Brief Diversions

1925• The English Comic Character is

published• His first wife, Pat Priestley, dies of

cancer

1925• Marries Jane Wyndham Lewis, with

whom he had been having an affair during Pat’s illness, and by whom he already had a daugher, Mary

1932• Writes Dangerous Corner

1934• Uses his travels through poorer

parts of Britain to write English Journey

1937• Writes play Time and Conways

1938• Writes When We Are Married

1939-1940• Makes regular wartime broadcasts

on BBC Radio, 1940 radio talks published as Britain Speaks

1945• An Inspector Calls is written

1952• After many affairs, Priestley

divorces Jane and marries the writer Jacquetta Hawkes

1957• Writes the article ‘ Russia, the

Atom and the West’ in The New Statesman; as a result the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is formed

1962• Writes Margin Released, first

volume of his autobiography

1977• Second part of autobiography,

Instead of The Tree is written

1984• J.B Priestley dies

THE ENDTHE ENDTHE ENDTHE END