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John Edward Gunby Hadath
Born (1871-04-30)30 April 1871
Died 17 January 1954(1954-01-17) (aged 82)
Nationality English
Other names Gunby Hadath, Florence Gunby Hadath, John Mowbray, Felix O'Grady, James Duncan, Shepherd/Shepperd Pearson
Occupation Schoolmaster, company promoter, journalist, song-writer, lawyer, and author
Years active 1892 – 1954
Known for English Boarding School Stories
Notable work
Sparrow in search of expulsion

John Edward Gunby Hadath MA FRSA (30 April 1871 – 17 January 1954) was an English schoolmaster, lawyer, company promoter, songwriter, journalist, and author of boarding school stories. He is best remembered for over seventy novels (almost all juvenile fiction) of which over two-thirds were set in English Public Schools.

Early life

St Edmunds School Canterbury2
St Edmund's School, Canterbury, then the Clergy Orphan School, which Hadath attended.

Hadath was born at the Rectory in Owersby, Lincolnshire, England on 30 April 1871, the only son of Reverend Edward Evans Hadath MA (c. 1892 – 19 Nov 1873), the Rector of Owersby and Charlotte Elizabeth (first quarter of 1840 – 27 April 1912), the eldest daughter of Rev. John Mobray Pearson (11 February 1809 – third quarter of 1850), a Wesleyan Minister.

Hadath's father dies when he is two, and after initially attending a Dame school, he was sent to the Clergy Orphan School at St Thomas Hill in Canterbury, where the 1881 census found him registered as a scholar. He was athletic, and like the hero of one of his own school stories, was Captain of the school. He matriculated for Cambridge in October 1889 and was admitted as a resident student to Peterhouse College on 2 October 1889. At Cambridge he continuing his sporting career and earned his college colours for rugby, soccer, and cricket. He was awarded his BA in 1892, and began a career as a schoolmaster.

Early career

On leaving Cambridge Hadath taught first at Montpellier School in Paignton. This Private or Preparatory School had just been acquired by Bertram Bennet MA FRSA (18 April 1864 – 21 March 1925), who was a few years ahead of Hadath at Peterhouse. Bertram was another athlete. By 1894 the school was advertising Hadath as the Second Master, after the Head Master. In 1894 also, Hadath was advertising for private pupils, so he cannot have been content with his salary. It is not clear how many years Hadath remained teaching here, but no advertisements referring to him can be found after 1895.

Branching out

RGS Guildford, Old Building in 2013
Guildford Grammar School, where Hadath was the Head of Classics.

Hadath was awarded him MA degree in January 1896 and was the Senior Classics Master at Guildford Grammar-School He continued to play sports, especially cricket.

Hadath married Florence Annie Webber (9 January 1873 – 23 January 1960) in Tonbridge in the third quarter of 1898. The couple never had any children. Florence was one of the few people who could read Hadath's awful handwriting and she used to type his stories for submission. Florences's twin sister Ella Maud was living with them in 1939. She had been the Matron at Dulwich School for many years. By 18 August 1900 the Hadath's were living at what would be their long-term address of 39 Chichele Road, Cricklewood, North London. It was still his address when he died. As well as the Cricklewood Address, Hadeth also had a Chalet at Saint-Gervais-les-Bains, in the French Alps, near the Haute Savoie and Mont Blanc. He was a member of the Alpine Club of France. He was made a Citoyen d’Honneur of the town in 1932.

00 Saint-Gervais-les-Bains - JPG2
Saint-Gervais-les-Bains in 2004

Hadath was a keen sportsman. He was on the school and college teams at St Edmunds and Peterhouse. After leaving school, he play Rugby as an amateur, but injury stopped him from playing for Devon. Florence was also a keen sportswoman. The Times reported that she collected holes in the most merciless fashion when playing on the Legal Association team in 1920.

It is not known when Hadath ceased teaching, but by 1902 he had already a good income from song-writing, having had more than 100 songs published.Hadath was also working for a number of companies. In 1897, Hadath was appointed liquidator for the Candelaria Gold Mine Limited, a liquidation that was only completed in 1902. Hadeth was listed as company secretary for two copper mines in 1903, The Copaquire Copper Sulphate Co. Ltd, with a mine in Copaquire, Tarapaca, Chile, and the Chile Copper Sulphate Syndicate, Ltd. which was leasing the lands to the first company. In 1907 he was the Company Secretary of British Coalite. 1909 found him company secretary to Sierra Morena Copper Mines Ltd, with an idle copper mine in Penaflor, Seville, Spain. Hadath was admitted to the Inner Temple on 20 February 1908.

Between 1896 and 1910, Hadath earned between £1,300 and £1,400 from his songwriting. However, his losses from his speculations on the stock exchange exceeded this. He lost nearly £2,000 on the stock market and he was declared bankrupt on 19 January 1910. He had an initial hearing in February 1910, in which he declared that he had been a schoolmaster, a secretary of more than one company, a journalist and songwriter.

At a subsequent hearing on 28 July 1910, the Official Receiver reported that Hadath's bankruptcy had been brought on by rash and hazardous speculations. Because of this, the Registrar suspended the discharge for two years, and Hadath's discharge was to date from 28 July 1912.

Hadath joined up in the First World War and served in the 6th Battalion of the Middlesex Volunteer Regiment. This was a reserve battalion and was in Mill Hill in North London when war broke out, and were almost immediately sent to Gillingham in Kent. In November 1915, the Battalion was sent to nearby Chatham where the remained for the rest of the war. and was never sent to as a First-Class Light Guns instructor at Hythe, in Kent, England. Hadath was appointed to the Rank of Captain (Temporary) on 2 February 1917. He resigned his commission due to ill-health on 2 December 1918.

Later life

After the war, Hadath began coaching pupils for the bar exam. He continued writing, and published right up to his death. Hadath was the director and co-trustee of the Benevolent Fund of the Performing Right Society. His first essay into such work was his appeal for the destitute family of the Italian song composer Piccolomini in the Musical Times of 1 August 1900. Hadath was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts,

Hadath dies in a London Hospital on 17 January 1954. Florence survived him another six years, until 1960.

Hadath has attracted a lot of praise for his writing:

  • Hadath became famous for his authentic and true-to-life school stories .
  • . . . his name became one of the best known and best loved of those who aim to instruct as well as entertain youth
  • His articulate and highly intelligent (as well as often very funny) school stories often spotlighted real-life social problems.
  • Sports, humor, and loyalty play an important role in his sixty novels
  • . . . he has been a schoolmaster, and is a schoolboy at heart still. He has the atmosphere of the public school. Boys know it and revel in it.
  • It is a pleasant surprise to find an old favourite still writing, and still writing well.

But not everyone shared such high regard for Gunby: In New Zealand Dorothy Neal White, children's librarian at Dunedin, began in 1937 to organize the steady withdrawal from her shelves of books by writers judged second-rate, e.g. Percy Westerman, Elinor Brent-Dyer, and Gunby Hadath.

Hadath himself identified one of the problems facing his work. Juvenile fiction was a poor relation of other literature. It attracted far less attention than adult fiction, and far less monetary reward. There is undoubtedly an impression too many quarters that anybody can write books for young people, whereas actually youth is an exceedingly critical audience.

By the time he died, the weekly boy's reading papers, which had sustained the genre through serialisation, were all but gone. Eyre said The school story was always an artificial type and its decline towards the middle of the century was neither unexpected nor deplored. Trease noted that the boys’ school-story is – with a few notable exceptions – non-existent in the new lists.

Writing

Hadath had his first published juvenile fiction story, a school story, published in The Captain in 1909. It was a story about a boy called Foozle who was to be one of his recurring characters. It may have been that Hadath was already feeling the financial pinch when he wrote the story. He had applied for bankruptcy on 18 November 1909, and owed over three hundred pounds in interest to money lenders when he first appeared in court.

Hadath wrote for The Captain and other boy's papers including Chums, The Modern Boy, and The Boy's Own Paper. His serial stories were almost always published later in book form.

Works

The following list of major works excludes shorter fiction, the many anthologies and annuals to which Hadath contributed, and only lists the full-length novels. It is drawn from four sources:

  • The Jisc Library Hub Discover catalogue. This is a collated catalogue of 161 academic and specialist libraries across the UK and Ireland, including The British Library. The J column in the table indicates if the title appears in the Jisc catalogue.
  • The list of school-boy fiction given in Benjamin Watson's English Schoolboy Stories: An annotated bibliography of hardcover fiction (1992) The Scarecrow Press, inc., Metuchen, New Jersey. The W column in the table indicates if the title appears in Watson's list.
  • The list of boy's school stories presented in The Encyclopedia of Boys School Stories for both Gunby Hadath and John Mowbray.. The E column in the table indicates if the title appears in the Encyclopedia's list.
  • The online catalogue of Abe Books for both Gunby Hadath and John Mowbray. The A column in the table indicates if the title appeared in the Abe Books catalogue at 23:00UTC on 23 May 2020.
List of full-length books by Gunby Hadath
No Year Title Illustrator Publisher Pages J W E A Notes
1 1913 The Feats of Foozle W. F. Thomas, T. M. R. Whitwell London, Adam & Charles Black viii, 237 p., 12 fp ill. (8º) Yes Yes Yes Yes
2 1913 Schoolboy grit: a public school story A. Twiddle London, James Nisbet & Co vi, 296 p., ill., (8º) Yes Yes Yes Yes
3 1913 Paying the price!: a public school story E. Prater London, S.W. Partridge 384 p., 5 fp ill., (8º) Yes Yes Yes Yes
4 1914 Never say die!: a public school story London, S.W. Patridge 319 p., 5 fp ill., (8º) Yes Yes No Yes
5 1914 The last of his line: a public school story London, S.W. Partridge 382 p., 6 fp ill., (8º) Yes Yes Yes Yes
6 1915 Sheepy Wilson: a public school story London, James Nisbet ix, 304 p., 6 fp ill., (8º) Yes Yes Yes Yes
7 1915 The outlaws of St Martyn's, or, The school on the downs London, S.W. Partridge 384 p., 6 fp ill., (8º) Yes Yes Yes No
8 1916 Fall In! A public school story London, S.W. Partridge 320 p., (8º) Yes Yes Yes Yes
9 1922 Won by a try. A story, etc Frank Gillett London, Cassell & Co viii, 293 p., (8º) Yes Yes Yes Yes
10 1923 The New House at Oldborough. A public school story London, Hodder & Stoughton 319 p., (8º) Yes Yes Yes Yes
11 1924 Against the Clock. A public school story London, Hodder & Stoughton 318 p., (8º) Yes Yes Yes Yes
12 1924 His Highness. A public school story London, T. Nelson & Sons 428 p., (8º) Yes Yes Yes Yes
13 1924 Pulling his weight: a public school story London, Hodder & Stoughton 320 p., 1 ill., (8º) Yes Yes Yes Yes
14 1924 Sparrow in Search of Expulsion, etc London, Hodder & Stoughton 320 p., (8º) Yes Yes Yes No
15 1924 The way of the Weasel : a public school story London, S.W. Partridge 159 p., 1 ill. ; (8º) Yes No Yes Yes
16 1925 The Fattest Head in the Fifth, etc London, Hodder & Stoughton 319 p., (8º) Yes Yes Yes Yes
17 1925 Something like a hero Henry Matthew Brock London, Cassell & Co 215 pages ; (8º) Yes No Yes Yes
18 1925 Barkworth's Last Year. A school story London, Cassell & Co 185 pages ; (8º) Yes No Yes Yes
19 1926 Go-Bang Garry. A public school story London, Hodder & Stoughton 318 p., (8º) Yes Yes Yes Yes
20 1926 The secret of the code: being the truth of certain recent astonishing happenings at St. Quentin's School, Tidegate, and on the coast by Ottersfoot and Oldport London, Hodder & Stoughton 319 p., fs, (8º) Yes No Yes No
21 1926 The Black Sheep of the School London, Cassell & Co 185 pages ; (8º) Yes No Yes Yes
22 1927 Feversham's fag London, Cassell & Co 215 pages ; (8º) Yes No Yes Yes
23 1928 Carey of Cobhouse, etc London, Humphrey Milford 287 p., (8º) Yes Yes Yes Yes
24 1928 Sparrow gets going: being the unvarnished truth concerning the notable efforts of Thomas Whitcombe Shirley Sparrow ... to become a great man of business and, perhaps, Lord Mayor of London London, Hodder & Stoughton 320 p., fs, (8º) Yes Yes No Yes
25 1928 The lost legion: a story of Wallcaster School London, Hodder & Stoughton 320 p., ill, (8º) Yes No Yes Yes
26 1928 Wonder Island, etc London, Cassell & Co 246 p., (8º) Yes No No Yes
27 1928 Dismal Jimmy of the fourth Henry Matthew Brock London, Cassell & Co 215 pages ; (8º) Yes No Yes Yes
28 1929 Young Hendry, etc London, Hodder & Stoughton 320 p., (8º) Yes Yes Yes No
29 1929 Feversham's brother Henry Matthew Brock London, Cassell & Co 215 pages ; (8º) Yes No Yes Yes
30 1930 Pamela: a story for girls (and their aunts and uncles) London, Andrew Dakers 188 p., col fs, (8º) Yes No No Yes
31 1930 St. Palfry's Cross. A story of adventure in the Alps, etc Margaret Freeman (in the US edition) London, Cassell & Co viii, 215 p., (8º) Yes No No Yes
32 1930 The new school at Shropp: a public school story and R. Mills London, OUP 283 p., 5 fp ill., (8º) Yes Yes Yes Yes
33 1930 The feud at Fennell's Henry Matthew Brock London, Cassell & Co 215 pages ; (8º) Yes No Yes Yes
34 1931 Brent of Gatehouse. A public school story, etc London, OUP 282 p., (8º) Yes Yes Yes Yes
35 1931 The strongest chap in the school Henry Matthew Brock London, Cassell & Co 215 pages ; (8º) Yes No Yes Yes
36 1932 The Big Five! A public school story, etc London, OUP 288 p., (8º) Yes Yes Yes Yes
37 1932 The Mystery of the Seventh Sword London, Cassell & Co 287 p., (8º) Yes No No Yes
38 1933 The mystery at Ridings: a public school story London, Oxford University Press, Humphrey Milford 286 p., 5 fp ill., (8º) Yes Yes Yes Yes
39 1933 Twenty Good Ships. A tale London, Cassell & Co 256 p., 4 ill., (8º) Yes No No Yes
40 1934 Revolt at Fallas, etc London, OUP 287 p., (8º) Yes Yes Yes Yes
41 1935 Grim Work at Bodlands. A public school story Reginald Mills London, OUP 287 p., (8º) Yes Yes Yes Yes
42 1935 Sparrow in Search of Fame, etc London, Hutchinson & Co 287 p., (8º) Yes Yes No Yes
43 1935 The Hand and the Glove. A public school story London, George Newnes 255 p., (8º) Yes Yes Yes Yes
44 1936 The house that disappeared London, George Newnes 256 p., fs, (8º) Yes Yes No Yes
45 1936 The mystery of the three chimneys and V. Cooley London, Thomas Nelson and Sons vi, 296 p., fs, (8º) Yes No No Yes
46 1938 Living up to it: a public school story London, Collins 320 p., fs, (8º) Yes Yes Yes No
47 1938 Major and minor: a public school story and R. Mills London, OUP 288 p., ill., (8º) Yes Yes Yes No
48 1939 Happy-go-lucky: a public school story Henry Matthew Brock London, Collins 256 p., 3 fp ill., (8º) Yes Yes Yes No
49 1939 More Pamela Henry Matthew Brock London, Collins 288 p., (8º) Yes No No Yes
50 1939 On secret service London, Cassell & Co 303 pages ; (8º) Yes No No Yes
51 1940 From pillar to post London, Collins 256 p., ill., (8º) Yes No Yes Yes
52 1940 Pamela Calling Henry Matthew Brock London, Collins 288 p., (8º) Yes No No Yes
53 1940 The seventh swordsman London, Boys' Own Paper Office 256 p., fs, (8º) Yes No No Yes
54 1940 The frontier mystery London, Cassell & Co 256 pages ; (8º) Yes No No No
55 1941 Blue berets R. Sheppard London, Lutterworth Press 252 p., ill., (8º) Yes No No Yes
56 1941 Pamela: George Medal London, Collins 256 p., (8º) Yes No No Yes
57 1941 The radio mystery London, Collins 254 p. ; (8º) Yes No No Yes
58 1941 The Megève mystery London, Cassell & Co 256 pages ; (8º) Yes No No Yes
59 1942 Grim and gay: the story of a school which stayed put London, Lutterworth Press 255 p., fs, (8º) Yes Yes Yes Yes
60 1942 The swinger: a story of school life in war-time London, Faber and Faber 254 p., (8º) Yes Yes Yes Yes
61 1943 Fight it out London, Lutterworth Press 254 p., (8º) Yes Yes Yes Yes
62 1944 All Clear!: a public school story London, OUP 192, (8º) Yes Yes Yes Yes
63 1944 The Second Count London, John Gifford Ltd. 280 p. No No No Yes
64 1945 The Bridgehead, etc London, OUP 192 p., (8º) Yes No Yes Yes
65 1945 What's in a Name? London, Lutterworth Press 221 p., (8º) Yes Yes Yes Yes
66 1946 The March of Time. A story of school life in war time London, Faber & Faber 222 p., (8º) Yes Yes Yes Yes
67 1947 Men of the Maquis London, Lutterworth Press 236 p., (8º) Yes No No Yes
68 1948 Fortune Lane London, Faber & Faber 189 p., (8º) Yes No No Yes
69 1948 The Fifth Feversham London, Lutterworth Press 96 p., (8º) Yes Yes Yes Yes
70 1949 The Atom Norman Howard London, OUP v, 186 p., (8º) Yes Yes Yes Yes
71 1949 The Shepherd's Guide John Drever London, C. & J. Temple 236 p., ill., (8º) Yes No Yes Yes
72 1950 No Robbery London, Lutterworth Press 191 p., (8º) Yes Yes Yes Yes
73 1950 Playing the game: a public school story London, Latimer House 150 p., fs., (8º) Yes Yes Yes Yes
74 1953 Honours easy Drake Brookshaw London, Thomas Nelson & Sons vii, 214 p., (8º) Yes Yes Yes Yes
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