Gwen John (playwright)

Gwen John (born Gladys Jones; 1878–1953) was a British author and playwright and supporter of women's suffrage.

Early life

Gwen John was born Gladys Jones in 1878 the daughter of a solicitor W.T. Jones.^[1] The family lived at Spital Lodge, Chesterfield until about 1910 when her father died and John moved with her mother and older sister, Winifred, to London. All three were sympathetic to the suffrage movement and Winifred Jones was a notable suffragist.^[1][2]

Career

In 1912 John's short play Edge O' Dark was banned by the Lord Chamberlain who licensed plays for performance though it was published in full in The English Review.^[3][4] The play was set in an impoverished mining household in Derbyshire; a sexual assault of the female character is implied and the men dominate the woman who lacked her own economic power.^[5] There was support for the ban^[1][3] as well as support for John tackling what was a distasteful and contentious subject.^[6]

Luck of War was produced by Edith Craig and performed by the Pioneer Players in 1917.^[7][8] It was a social-realist drama portraying the life of a working class woman who remarries when her husband is presumed missing in World War 1 but later faces a dilemma when he returns; she is eventually reconciled with him.^[5][9]

Plays of Innocence were satirical and Mr Jardyne was described as cynical. The plot attacks commercial theatre management with the central character being a playwright who dies of starvation after his scripts are returned to him.^[7][10]

Gloriana which tells the story of Elizabeth I was produced by Israel Zangwill in London in 1925.^[11]

Plays

• Plays (1916) - includes six short plays: Outlaws, Corinna or The Strenuous Life, Stealing the Contract, Edge O' Dark, The Case of Teresa, In the Rector's Study
• Luck of War (1917)
• The Only Daughter (1920)
• The Goblin, the Student and the Huckster (1921) - title later changed to The Goblin
• Plays of Innocence (1925) - includes four short plays: A Tale that is Told, On the Road, Luck of War, A Peakland Wakes
• Gloriana (1925) - also played as The Prince
• Mr Jardyne (1925) - a mystery
• Mere Immortals: three imaginary conversations (1930)
• The Dyer's Hand (1931)

Other works

• Syringa and other verses (1922)

References

1. "Edge O Dark. Chesterfield lady's banned play". Sheffield Evening Telegraph. 7 November 1912. p. 3.
2. "Gwen John (Gladys Jones) - National Portrait Gallery". www.npg.org.uk. Archived from the original on 31 October 2020. Retrieved 14 October 2020.
3. "Chesterfield lady's banned play". Derbyshire Courier. 12 November 1912. p. 5.
4. John, Gwen (1912). "Edge O' Dark". The English Review. XII: 592–603.
5. Gale, Maggie B. (2019). A social history of British performance cultures 1900-39 : citizenship, surveillance and the body. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. pp. 92–93, 145. ISBN 978-0-203-73020-1. OCLC 1119061862.
6. "Chesterfield lady's banned play". Derbyshire Courier. 16 November 1912. p. 8.
7. Nicoll, Allardyce (1973). English drama, 1900-1930; the beginnings of the modern period. Cambridge [England]: University Press. pp. 267, 314–315, 755. ISBN 0-521-08416-4. OCLC 588815.
8. "Pioneer Players. Triple Bill". The Stage. 17 May 1917. p. 15.
9. Holledge, Julie (1981). Innocent flowers : women in the Edwardian theatre. London: Virago. pp. 137–138. ISBN 0-86068-071-1. OCLC 9323735.
10. "Liverpool Repertory". The Stage. 22 October 1925. p. 22.
11. "The Little. Gloriana". The Stage. 10 December 1925. p. 22.

External links

• Gwen John on Deeds Not Words Towards Liberation website
• Gladys Jones in Extraordinary Women of Chesterfield on Chesterfield Museum website
• Picture of Gladys Jones's shoes in the Chesterfield Museum