William D. Ellis

William Ellis (1794–1872) was an English missionary and author. He traveled through the

Society Islands, Hawaiian Islands and Madagascar, and wrote several books describing his

experiences.

He was born in London of working class parents on 24 August 1794. His father and a

short-lived older brother were also named William. Not much is known of his mother, except

the maiden name of Bedborough, birthplace of Reading, England and wedding date of 13

August 1792. He developed a love of plants in his youth and became a gardener, first in the

East of England, then at a nursery north of London and eventually for a wealthy family in Stoke

Newington. Being of a religious nature, he applied to train as Christian missionary for the

London Missionary Society and was accepted to the school. After attending Homerton College,

then in Hampstead, he was ordained in 1815, and married Mary Mercy Moor on 9 November

1815. He was posted to the South Sea Islands with his wife, leaving England on 23 January

1816. All three missionary families went to Huahine, arriving in June 1818, drawing crowds from

neighbouring islands, including King Tamatoa of Raiatea.

In August 1824 he had to return to England since Mrs. Ellis was in poor health, so took a

ship via America. Back in London, he published his narrative of travels in Hawaii. Ellis became

Assistant Foreign Secretary of the London Missionary Society (1830), and then Chief Foreign

Secretary. Mary Ellis died on 11 January 1835, after having four children. He published a

biography of Mary Mercy Ellis in 1836. Ellis wrote books about his experiences and the history

and geography of the island - Madagascar Revisited, 1867, and Martyr Church of Madagascar,

1870

In 1872 he caught a cold while on a train journey and died on 9 June 1872. Mrs Sarah

Ellis died seven days later on 16 June. After thirty-five years of marriage, they died within a

week of each other. Ellis is buried in a venerated spot in the Congregationalists' non-

denominational Abney Park Cemetery in London where Isaac Watts once lived. His intricately

carved hip tomb is perfectly aligned with its chapel. His independently minded wife preferred to

be buried near their country home. A biography written by his son John and Henry Allon was

published soon after his death.

Alexander Baron

Alexander Baron (4 December 1917 – 6 December 1999) was a British author and screenwriter.

He is best known for his highly acclaimed novel about D-Day entitled From the City from the

Plough (1948) and his London novel The Lowlife (1963). Baron's father was Barnet Bernstein, a

Polish-Jewish immigrant to Britain who settled in the East End of London in 1908 and later

worked as a furrier. Baron was born in Maidenhead and raised in the Hackney district of

London. He attended Hackney Downs School.

During the 1930s, with his school friend Ted Willis, Baron was a leading activist and

organiser of the Labour League of Youth (at that time aligned with the Communist Party),

campaigning against the fascists in the streets of the East End. Baron became increasingly

disillusioned with far left politics as he spoke to International Brigade fighters returning from

the Spanish Civil War, and finally broke with the communists after the Hitler–Stalin Pact of

August 1939.

He used his wartime experiences as the basis for his three best-selling war novels. After

the war he became assistant editor of Tribune before publishing his first novel From the City

from the Plough (1948). At this time, at the behest of his publisher Jonathan Cape, he also

changed his name from Bernstein to Baron. As well as continuing to write novels (for a list of his

works, see below), in the 1950s Baron wrote screenplays for Hollywood, and by the 1960s he

had become a regular writer on BBC's Play for Today. He wrote several episodes of the A Family

at War series: 'The Breach in the Dyke' (1970), 'Brothers in War' (1970), 'A Lesson in War'

(1970), 'Believed Killed' (1971), 'The Lost Ones' (1971), and 'Two Fathers' (1972). Later he

became well known for drama serials like Poldark and A Horseman Riding By, and in the 1980s

for BBC classic literary adaptions including Sense And Sensibility (1981), Jane Eyre (1983), Oliver

Twist (1985) and Vanity Fair (1987). He contributed several episodes to Granada Television's

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1984–1985). Baron's personal papers are held in the

archives of the University of Reading. Since Baron's death in December 1999 his novels have

been republished several times, testifying to a strong resurgence of interest among in his work

among the reading public as well as among critics and academics.

Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, (15 October 1881 – 14 February 1975) was a British

humorist, whose body of work includes novels, short stories, plays, poems, song lyrics, and

numerous pieces of journalism. He enjoyed enormous popular success during a career that

lasted more than seventy years and his many writings continue to be widely read. Despite the

political and social upheavals that occurred during his life, much of which was spent in France

and the United States, Wodehouse's main canvas remained that of pre-1914 English upper-

class society, reflecting his birth, education, and youthful writing career.

An acknowledged master of English prose, Wodehouse has been admired both by

contemporaries such as Hilaire Belloc, Evelyn Waugh and Rudyard Kipling and by modern

writers such as Stephen Fry, Douglas Adams, Zadie Smith,[citation needed] J. K. Rowling,[3] Jack

Vance, and Terry Pratchett.[citation needed] Journalist and writer Christopher Hitchens

commented, "there is not, and never will be, anything to touch him".

Wodehouse took a modest attitude to his own works. In Over Seventy (1957) he wrote:

"I go in for what is known in the trade as 'light writing' and those who do that – humorists they

are sometimes called – are looked down upon by the intelligentsia and sneered at."

However, he also lightly taunted his critics, as in the introduction to Summer Lightning.

"A certain critic—for such men, I regret to say, do exist—made the nasty remark about

my last novel that it contained 'all the old Wodehouse characters under different names'. He

has probably by now been eaten by bears, like the children who made mock of the prophet

Elisha; but if he still survives he will not be able to make a similar charge against Summer

Lightning. With my superior intelligence, I have outgeneraled the man this time by putting in all

the old Wodehouse characters under the same names. Pretty silly it will make him feel, I rather

fancy." His writing style is notable for its unique blend of contemporary London clubroom slang

with elegant, classically-informed drawing-room English; for example:

"I once got engaged to his daughter Honoria, a ghastly dynamic exhibit who read

Nietzsche and had a laugh like waves breaking on a stern and rockbound coast." Wodehouse

was a prolific author, writing 96 books in his remarkable seventy-three year long career (1902

to 1975). His works include novels, collections of short stories, and musical comedies.

O. Henry

William Sydney Porter (September 11, 1862 – June 5, 1910), known by his pen name O.

Henry, was an American writer. O. Henry's short stories are known for their wit, wordplay,

warm characterization and clever twist endings.

William Sidney Porter was born on September 11, 1862, in Greensboro, North Carolina.

His middle name at birth was Sidney; he changed the spelling to Sydney in 1898. His parents

were Dr. Algernon Sidney Porter (1825–1888), a physician, and Mary Jane Virginia Swaim Porter

(1833–1865). O. Henry is one of the most famous American short story writers. O. Henry’s real

name was William Sydney Porter and he was born in Greensboro, North Carolina on September

11, 1862.

At age of 20 (1882) he moved to Texas, where he had various jobs. He married Athol

Estes in 1887; they had a son and a daughter. His wife died from tuberculosis in 1897. In 1894

while working for First National Bank in Austin, Porter was accused of stealing $4000. He went

to prison in Columbus, Ohio for 3 years eventually.

While in prison Porter first started to write short stories and it’s believed that he has

found his writer’s pseudonym there. After Porter was released from the prison in 1901, he

changed his name to O. Henry and moved to New York in 1902. From December 1903 to

January 1906 o. Henry wrote a story a week for the New York World magazine, and published

several short stories in other magazines. O. Henry’s short stories are famous for their surprise

endings and humor. O. Henry's wrote such classic short stories as The Ransom of Red Chief,

“The Gift of the Magi” and “The Furnished Room”.

O. Henry's work is wide-ranging, and his characters can be found roaming the cattle-

lands of Texas, exploring the art of the con-man, or investigating the tensions of class and

wealth in turn-of-the-century New York. In his last years O. Henry had financial and health

problems. An alcoholic, O. Henry died on June 5, 1910 in New York City, virtually broke.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892), English poet often regarded as the chief representative of

the Victorian age in poetry. Tennyson succeeded Wordsworth as Poet Laureate in 1850.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson was born on August 5, 1809 in Somersby, Lincolnshire. His father,

George Clayton Tennyson, a clergyman and rector, suffered from depression and was

notoriously absentminded. Alfred began to write poetry at an early age in the style of Lord

Byron. After spending four unhappy years in school he was tutored at home. Tennyson

published Poems, Chiefly Lyrical, in 1830, which included the popular "Mariana". His next book,

Poems (1833), received unfavorable reviews, and Tennyson ceased to publish for nearly ten

years. Hallam died suddenly on the same year in Vienna. It was a heavy blow to Tennyson. He

began to write "In Memoriam", an elegy for his lost friend - the work took seventeen years.

"The Lady of Shalott", "The Lotus-eaters" "Morte d'Arthur" and "Ulysses" appeared in 1842 in

the two-volume Poems and established his reputation as a writer.

After marrying Emily Sellwood, whom he had already met in 1836, the couple settled in

Farringford, a house in Freshwater on the Isle of Wight in 1853. From there the family moved in

1869 to Aldworth, Surrey. During these later years he produced some of his best poems.

Among Tennyson's major poetic achievements is the elegy mourning the death of his friend

Arthur Hallam, "In Memoriam" (1850). The patriotic poem "Charge of the Light Brigade",

published in Maud (1855), is one of Tennyson's best known works, although at first "Maud" was

found obscure or morbid by critics ranging from George Eliot to Gladstone. Enoch Arden (1864)

was based on a true story of a sailor thought drowned at sea who returned home after several

years to find that his wife had remarried. Idylls Of The King (1859-1885) dealt with the

Arthurian theme.

In the 1870s Tennyson wrote several plays, among them the poetic dramas Queen Mary

(1875) and Harold (1876). In 1884 he was created a baron. Tennyson died at Aldwort on

October 6, 1892 and was buried in the Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.

Robert Frost

Robert Frost (1874-1963), four-time Pulitzer Prize winning American poet, teacher and

lecturer wrote many popular and oft-quoted poems including “After Apple-Picking”, “The Road

Not Taken”, “Home Burial” and “Mending Wall”.

Robert Lee Frost (named after Southern General Robert E. Lee) was born on 26 March

1874 in San Francisco, California to Isabelle Moodie (1844-1900) teacher, and William Prescott

Frost Jr. (1850-1885), teacher and journalist. San Francisco was a lively city full of citizens of

Pioneering spirit, including Will who had ventured there from New Hampshire to seek his

fortune as a journalist. He also started gambling and drinking, habits which left his family in dire

financial straits when he died in 1885 after contracting tuberculosis.

With both parents as teachers, young Robert was early on exposed to the world of

books and reading, studying such works as those by William Shakespeare and poets Robert

Burns and William Wordsworth. He also formed a life-long love of nature, the great outdoors

and rural countryside.

Frost got his first break as a poet in 1894 when the New York magazine Independent

published “My Butterfly: An Elegy” for a stipend of $15. A year later a wish he had had for some

time came true; on 19 December 1895 he married Elinor Miriam White (1872-1938), his co-

valedictorian and sweetheart from school. They had gone separate ways upon graduation to

attend college, and while Frost had left early, Elinor wanted to wait until she was finished

before getting married. They would have six children together; sons Elliott (b.1896-1900) and

Carol (1902-1940) and daughters Lesley (b.1899), Irma (b.1903), Marjorie (b.1905-1934), and

Elinor Bettina (1907-1907).

Robert Frost died on the 29th of January 1963 in Boston, Massachusetts. ‘Safe!, Now let

the night be dark for all of me. Let the night be too dark for me to see, Into the future. Let what

will be, be.’ (“Acceptance”) He lies buried in the family plot in the Old Bennington Cemetery

behind the Old First Congregational Church near Shaftsbury, Vermont. His gravestone reads ‘I

Had A Lover’s Quarrel With The World’.

William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth (1770-1850), British poet, credited with ushering in the English

Romantic Movement with the publication of Lyrical Ballads(1798) in collaboration with Samuel

Taylor Coleridge.

William Wordsworth was born on 7 April 1770 in Cockermouth, Cumberland, in the Lake

District. His father was John Wordsworth, Sir James Lowther's attorney. The magnificent

landscape deeply affected Wordsworth's imagination and gave him a love of nature. He lost his

mother when he was eight and five years later his father. The domestic problems separated

Wordsworth from his beloved and neurotic sister Dorothy, who was a very important person in

his life. With the help of his two uncles, Wordsworth entered a local school and continued his

studies at Cambridge University. Wordsworth made his debut as a writer in 1787, when he

published a sonnet in The European Magazine . In that same year he entered St. John's College,

Cambridge, from where he took his B.A. in 1791. Encouraged by Coleridge and stimulated by

the close contact with nature, Wordsworth composed his first masterwork, Lyrical Ballads,

which opened with Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner." About 1798 he started to write a large and

philosophical autobiographical poem, completed in 1805, and published posthumously in 1850

under the title The Prelude.

Wordsworth spent the winter of 1798-99 with his sister and Coleridge in Germany,

where he wrote several poems, including the enigmatic 'Lucy' poems. After return he moved

Dove Cottage, Grasmere, and in 1802 married Mary Hutchinson. They cared for Wordsworth's

sister Dorothy for the last 20 years of her life.

Wordsworth's second verse collection, Poems, In Two Volumes, appeared in 1807.

Wordsworth's central works were produced between 1797 and 1808. His poems written during

middle and late years have not gained similar critical approval. Wordsworth's Grasmere period

ended in 1813. He was appointed official distributor of stamps for Westmoreland. He moved to

Rydal Mount, Ambleside, where he spent the rest of his life. In later life Wordsworth

abandoned his radical ideas and became a patriotic, conservative public man.

Thomas Campbell

Thomas Campbell (1733–1795) was an Irish Protestant clergyman, best known as a

travel writer and his accounts of the circle of Samuel Johnson. He was born at Glack in County

Tyrone on 4 May 1733. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin (B.A. 1756, M.A. 1761), and

took orders in 1761. He was curate of Clogher till 1772, when he was collated to the prebend of

Tyholland, and in 1773 he was made chancellor of St. Macartin's, Clogher. He was a reputed

preacher.

In 1778 he published A Philosophical Survey of the South of Ireland in a series of letters

to John Watkinson, M.D. It is supposed to record the tour of an Englishman in the south of

Ireland, and gives a description of the major towns. Remarks on the trade of the country are

thrown in, and Campbell advocates a political and commercial union with England. In the

Survey Johnson's epitaph on Oliver Goldsmith appeared for the first time in print. Campbell is

mentioned by James Boswell.

In 1789 Campbell published ‘Strictures on the Ecclesiastical and Literary History of

Ireland till the Introduction of the Roman Ritual, and the Establishment of Papal Supremacy by

Henry II.’ To this was added a ‘Sketch of the Constitution and Government of Ireland down to

1783.’ The book is controversial in tone, and is directed against O'Conor, Colonel Vallancey, and

other antiquaries. Regarding the early history of Ireland, Campbell displayed a certain amount

of scepticism. He considered the book as a fragment of a large work he meditated, and for

which he obtained help from Edmund Burke, whom he visited at Beaconsfield. Burke, he says,

lent him four volumes of manuscripts, and advised him to be ‘as brief as possible upon

everything antecedent to Henry II.’

Campbell also wrote a portion of the memoir of Goldsmith which appeared in Bishop

Thomas Percy's edition of the poet published in 1801. He kept a little diary during his visits to

London. It was discovered behind an old press in the offices of the supreme court at Sydney,

New South Wales, having been carried to Australia by a nephew at the beginning of the

nineteenth century. It was printed at Sydney in 1854. It contains notes of seven visits to

England (in 1775, 1776–7, 1781, 1786, 1787, 1789, and 1792). The second appears to have been

much the longest visit, but the first is the only one of which there is a detailed account.

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was baptised on 26 April 1564. We don't know the exact date of

his birth but in the 16th century it was normal for babies to baptised within a few days of their

birth (because so many died). Shakespeare was born the same year as Christopher Marlowe.

William Shakespeare's father John was a glover (maker of gloves) and he seems to have

been a leading citizen of Stratford Upon Avon. We don't know if John Shakespeare was a native

of Stratford but he was living in the town by 1552 because in that year he was fined for leaving

a dunghill in Henley Street. At that time Stratford was a small town with a population of

between 1,500 and 2,000.

In 1557 John Shakespeare married a woman from nearby Wilmcote called Mary Arden.

The Shakespeares had 8 children. In 1558 the Shakespeare's had a daughter called Joan (she

died in 1563). However in 1563 they had another daughter called Margaret but she too died in

childhood. After William in 1563 they had a son called Gilbert in 1566. (He died in 1612). They

also had another daughter called Joan (like her dead sister) in 1569 and a daughter called Anne

in 1571. In 1574 they had a son called Richard (he died in 1613). In 1580 they had a son called

Edmund (he died in 1607). When he was 18 William Shakespeare married a woman named

Anne Hathaway. They married in November 1582 and their daughter Susanna was baptised in

May 1583. On 2 February 1585 the Shakespeare's next children, a twin boy and girl, Hamnet

and Judith were baptised. However Hamnet died when he was 11.

The theatres in London were closed from 1592 to 1594 because of plague but

Shakespeare wrote two poems during that time, Venus and Adonis 1593 and Lucerce in 1594.

William Shakespeare prospered and in 1597 he bought a house and gardens in Stratford for

£60. William Shakespeare made his will on 25 March 1616 shortly before he death. He died on

23 April 1616 and was buried in the parish church. Anne Shakespeare died in 1623. Susanna

died in 1649 and Judith, the surviving twin died in 1662. In the 19th century as Stratford upon

Avon became famous as the birthplace of William Shakespeare. The house where he was born

was purchased in 1847 and turned into a monument. Anne Hathaway's cottage was purchased

in 1892. The Royal Shakespeare Theatre was built in 1932 and the Shakespeare Centre opened

in 1964.

Pam Ayres

Pam Ayres MBE (born 14 March 1947) is an English poet, songwriter and presenter of radio and

television programmes. Her 1975 appearance on the television talent show Opportunity Knocks

led to a variety of appearances on TV and radio shows, a one woman touring stage show and

performing before the Queen.

Pam Ayres was born at Stanford in the Vale in the English county of Berkshire, now in

Oxfordshire. After leaving Faringdon Secondary School at the age of 15, she joined the Civil

Service as a clerical assistant and worked at the Army (RAOC) Central Ordnance Depot in

Bicester. She soon left and signed up for the Women's Royal Air Force, where she worked in a

drawing office dealing with operational maps, and it was there that she chose her career as an

entertainer. She began reading her verses at the local folk club in Oxfordshire, and this led to an

invitation to read on the local BBC Radio station in 1974. In September 2006, the BBC website

stated that Bob Dylan inspired Ayres to write poetry, although in an interview (aired on Radio

New Zealand's Nine To Noon programme, 24 October 2006) she stated that the Lonnie

Donegan records her brother played were her inspiration.

Her poetry has a simple style and deals with everyday subject matter. Her poem Oh, I

Wish I'd Looked After Me Teeth, was voted into the Top 10 of a BBC poll to find the Nation's

100 Favourite Comic Poems. In the UK Arts Council's report on poetry Ayres was identified as

the fifth best-selling poet in Britain during 1998 and 1999. In June 2004 she was awarded the

MBE for services to literature and entertainment.

On 16 January 2009, she made her first appearance on BBC TV programme, QI. In

September 2011 she said in a Daily Telegraph magazine interview that she was "about to go on

my 14th tour of Australia". Ayres is well known for her comedy songs. One of these is "They

Should Have Asked My Husband". Her biography, The Necessary Aptitude: A Memoir, was

published 15 September 2011. It traces her life and career from growing as the youngest of six

children in a council cottage in the Vale of White Horse, Berkshire. It covers her time in the

Women's Royal Air Force and the string of events that lead up to her winning Opportunity

Knocks. The title refers to the number of times she was told in her life she "did not have the

necessary aptitude".

Khalil Gibran

Gibran Khalil Gibran was born on January 6, 1883, to the Maronite family of Gibran in

Bsharri, a mountainous area in Northern Lebanon [Lebanon was a Turkish province part of

Greater Syria (Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine) and subjugated to Ottoman dominion].

Being laden with poverty, he did not receive any formal education or learning, which

was limited to regular visits to a village priest who doctrined him with the essentials of religion

and the Bible, alongside Syriac and Arabic languages. Recognizing Gibran's inquisitive and alert

nature, the priest began teaching him the rudiments of alphabet and language, opening up to

Gibran the world of history, science, and language.

On June 25, 1895, the Gibrans embarked on a voyage to the American shores of New

York. The Gibrans settled in Boston's South End, which at the time hosted the second largest

Syrian community in the U.S. following New York.

Gibran entered school on September 30, 1895, merely two months after his arrival in

the U.S. Having no formal education, he was placed in an ungraded class reserved for

immigrant children, who had to learn English from scratch. Gibran caught the eye of his

teachers with his sketches and drawings, a hobby he had started during his childhood in

Lebanon. Gibran's works were especially influential in the American popular culture in the

1960s. In 1904 Gibran had his first art exhibition in Boston. From 1908 to 1910 he studied art in

Paris with August Rodin. In 1912 he settled in New York, where he devoted himself to writing

and painting. Gibran's early works were written in Arabic, and from 1918 he published mostly in

English. In 1920 he founded a society for Arab writers, Mahgar (al-Mahgar). Among its

members were Mikha'il Na'ima (1889-1988), Iliya Abu Madi (1889-1957), Nasib Arida (1887-

1946), Nadra Haddad (1881-1950), and Ilyas Abu Sabaka (1903-47). Gibran died in New York on

April 10, 1931. Among his best-known works is THE PROPHET, a book of 26 poetic essays, which

has been translated into over 20 languages. The Prophet, who has lived in a foreign city 12

years, is about to board a ship that will take him home. He is stopped by a group of people,

whom he teaches the mysteries of life.

Sacha Guitry

Alexandre-Pierre Georges (Sacha) Guitry (21 February 1885 – 24 July 1957) was a French

stage actor, film actor, director, screenwriter, and playwright of the Boulevard theatre.

Guitry was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in 1885, the son of the well-known actor

Lucien Guitry. Sacha was first on stage at age five. He developed a charming, witty stage

persona, often appearing in period-dress light comedies, for instance his 1925 pastiche Mozart,

which contains a story about the fictional adventures of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart on a visit to

Paris. In his 1937 film Pearls of the Crown he plays four roles, one of them being Napoleon III.

Both enormously popular and enormously productive through the 1920s, Guitry was

responsible for 124 plays (some written in less than three days), more than 30 books, and a

heavy schedule of performances and appearances. In 1919 he married actress Yvonne

Printemps, but it was his third marriage, to actress Jacqueline Delubac, in 1935, that

encouraged Guitry to document his stage performances on film. He directed 33 movies, and

married twice more.

Guitry's career took a dark turn during the Nazi occupation. The crisis did not slow the

pace of his career; he was accused of accepting special favors (the return of his confiscated

villa, for instance, and the rare privilege of being allowed to drive on Sunday), and he produced

a commemorative tribute book to the president of the Nazi puppet state Vichy France, Marshal

Philippe Pétain, 1429-1942 - From Joan of Arc to Philippe Petain, and presented it in an opera

gala in June 1944. Upon the liberation of France, Guitry was among the first arrested, by a self-

appointed militia, and was imprisoned for two months. Officially absolved in 1947, he

expressed regret at the absence of a formal trial.

True or not, those accusations clung to him. His career and reputation went into sharp

decline after the war. A recent critical re-assessment began with a 2010 reissue of four of his

films by Eclipse (DVD) a division of the Criterion Collection.

In 2011 (17 and 18 November), an auction sale with works by Sacha Guitry was

organized in Hôtel Drouot (Paris) and considered as the most important since the artist's death.

Norman McKinnel

Norman McKinnel (10 February 1870 – 29 March 1932) was a Scottish stage and film

actor and playwright, active from the 1890s until his death. He appeared in many stage roles in

the UK and overseas as well as featuring in a number of films, the best known of which is Alfred

Hitchcock's 1927 production Downhill.

McKinnel was born in 1870 at Maxwelltown, Kirkcudbrightshire (since incorporated into

Dumfries) and originally intended to follow his father into the engineering business before

deciding to enter the acting profession.

His first stage appearance was in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex in 1894 and he soon based

himself in London to further his career. He became known over the course of his career for

playing many Shakespearian roles, and his stage work took him the U.S., Australia and South

Africa. McKinnel was also known for writing several easily-stageable one-act plays, the most

successful of which was The Bishop's Candlesticks (1901).

McKinnel's film career began in 1899 in King John, the earliest known example of

Shakespeare on film. The work consisted of four brief scenes from the play, and a two-minute

fragment survives at the EYE Film Institute in Amsterdam. McKinnel did not act on screen again

until the mid-1910s, when he began to make further film appearances fitted in around his stage

work. He played the title character in the original London production of Hobson's Choice in

1916. Notably, he appeared as the same character (Nathaniel Jeffcote) in three separate film

versions of the same play Hindle Wakes, in 1918 and 1927 silent adaptations and again in 1931

in sound. In 1919 he played Paul Dombey in the first screen version of the Charles Dickens novel

Dombey and Son.

McKinnel's most widely-known film to contemporary audiences is Hitchcock's Downhill,

as the harsh but ultimately repentant patriarch opposite Ivor Novello.McKinnel died of a heart

attack in London on 29 March 1932, aged 62.