Person    | Male  Born 9/5/1860  Died 19/6/1937

Sir J. M. Barrie

Categories: Literature, Theatre

Countries: Scotland

Playwright and novelist. Born Kirriemuir, Scotland. Moved to London, Bloomsbury, in 1885 for his writing career. Less than 5 foot tall he was not very successful with women and developed a habit of befriending the families of married friends, playing with their children, and on one occasion developing a close friendship with the wife, Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, the mother of the four boys (living at 31 Kensington Park Gardens) on whom it is said the "Lost Boys" in Peter Pan are based. His marriage in 1891 was unsuccessful and during the divorce proceedings in 1909 his impotence became public knowledge. Within 4 years of each other the Llewelyn Davies parents died, leaving Barrie in 1910 as the guardian of their boys.

In 1913 his close friend, the explorer Robert Scott, wrote to him from the South Pole, knowing he was dying and asking him to look after his wife, Lady Scott, and their child. Lady Scott did not require his protection but Barrie looked after the Davies boys as if they were his own sons. Wrote Peter Pan in 1904, initially as a play, and gave the copyright to Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital in April 1929.

When given the freedom of Dumfries Barrie said that Peter Pan's adventures had been inspired by his childhood games in the house and garden of Moat Brae House in Dumfries where he played with the sons of the owner. Presented the first Peter Pan Cup, competed for by the members of the Serpentine Swimming Club on Christmas morning. Londonist has more info.

Barrie founded the Allahakbarries, who played village cricket almost every summer from 1887 until the eve of WW1, 26 years. The team included: Barrie himself, Conan Doyle, Jerome K. Jerome, A. A. Milne, P. G. Wodehouse and many other writers and artists. Barrie didn't just arrange the matches, he ran the team, properly, with club colours, dinners and memorial booklets. Quality Street chocolates were named after one of his plays, and many were filmed, e.g. The Admirable Crichton, 1957. He became ill at his home, 3 Adelphi Terrace, and died at a nursing home at 57 Manchester Street, Marylebone.

And the Llewelyn Davies boys? George died in the trenches in 1915; Michael (the source of that line: "To die would be an awfully big adventure") drowned at Oxford aged 21 clasping another undergraduate; Peter, threw himself under a train at Sloane Square in 1960, apparently sick of his association with "that terrible masterpiece".

2019: People report on a house for sale in "South Kensington" where Barrie lived  "1895-1902" and provides photos inside and out. The house is 133 Gloucester Road, on the section that forms the east side of Hereford Square.

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Sir J. M. Barrie

Commemorated ati

Adam, Hood, Galsworthy, Barrie, etc.

Robert Adam, Thomas Hood, John Galsworthy, Sir James Barrie and other eminent...

Read More

Great Ormond Street Hosp. - Peter Pan

In 2005, after our photo, Tinkerbell was added to the statue, fluttering at P...

Read More

J. M. Barrie - W2

Barrie and his wife Mary Ansell lived at Gloucester Road, 1895 - 1904, when t...

Read More

J.M. Barrie - WC1

Sir James Matthew Barrie, Bart. OM, 1860 - 1937, novelist, dramatist and crea...

Read More

This section lists the memorials created by the subject on this page:
Sir J. M. Barrie

Creations i

Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens

The first Peter Pan, Nina Boucicault, (always a woman) modelled for the statu...

Read More

Other Subjects

Jane Loudon

Jane Loudon

Author and pioneer of science fiction. Born near Birmingham as Jane Webb. Wrote "The Mummy!: Or a Tale of the Twenty-Second Century" and published it in 1827, anonymously. This was reviewed favour...

Person, Art, Gardens / Agriculture, Literature

1 memorial
B. Traven

B. Traven

Pen-name of a novelist about whom little is known for certain other than the fact that he spent time in Mexico where he died. Author of 'The Treasure of the Sierra Madre', 1927, made into the 1948 ...

Person, Literature, Politics & Administration, Germany, Mexico

1 memorial
Henry Watson Fowler

Henry Watson Fowler

Lexicographer, grammarian and schoolteacher. Born at Tonbridge, Kent. He taught at Fettes College in Edinburgh and Sedbergh School in Yorkshire. Best remembered for 'A Dictionary of Modern English ...

Person, Literature

2 memorials
Martin Chuzzlewit

Martin Chuzzlewit

Novel by Charles Dickens.  Originally published in serial form 1843–4.  The picture is an ilustration by Fred Barnard from the 1870s.

Fiction, Literature

2 memorials

Previously viewed

Southern Railway, 626 men who died in WW2

Southern Railway, 626 men who died in WW2

626 men of the Southern Railway who died in WW2.

Group, Transport

3 memorials
Suranjit Sengupta

Suranjit Sengupta

Bangladesh Awami League politician. The first Railway Minister of Bangladesh.

Person, Politics & Administration, Bengal

1 memorial
Flanders and Swann

Flanders and Swann

W8, Scarsdale Villas, 1

Michael Flanders, 1922 - 1975, Donald Swann, 1923 - 1994, writers and performers of comic songs, lived and worked in the garden studio. E...

2 subjects commemorated, 1 creator
Sir Stafford Cripps

Sir Stafford Cripps

SW10, Elm Park Gardens, 32

English Heritage Sir Stafford Cripps, 1889-1952, statesman born here.

1 subject commemorated, 1 creator
Bobby Moore

Bobby Moore

E13, Green Street, Boleyn Ground

The Heritage Foundation website mentions a plaque to him unveiled in 2000 by his wife Stephanie, Sir Norman Wisdom, Kenneth Wolstenholme,...

3 subjects commemorated, 1 creator