John Cowper Powys (1872-1963) was born on 8 October 1872 at Shirley Vicarage in Derbyshire, the eldest of eleven children born to the Rev. Charles Francis Powys (1843–1923) and Mary Cowper Powys (1849–1914).
From May 1883 to July 1886, John and his younger brother, Littleton Charles Powys (1874-1955), attended Sherborne Preparatory School (under headmaster William Heitland Blake). In September 1886, John and Littleton became pupils at Sherborne School where they boarded with Mr W.B. Wildman at Maperty in Westbury, Sherborne. John remained a pupil at Sherborne School until Easter term 1891, during which time he played rugby for his house and won many school prizes, including the Cardew and Houghton prizes for divinity (1889), the Fifth Form composition prizes for Latin prose and English essay (1890), the English Prize Essay (1891) for his essay on ancient compared with modern ideals of patriotism, and the English Prize Poem (1891) for his poem ‘Corinth’, which he returned to read out in the Big School Room at Commemoration Day on 23 June 1891. From 1939 to 1949, John and Littleton judged the English Verse Prize at Sherborne School.
During his time at Sherborne School, John Cowper Powys was an avid reader and borrowed many books from the School Library. He was a proud old Shirburnian and many years later remembered with pride the School song, The Carmen, which he described as ‘the best of all school songs… free from all those puerile references to cricket and football that make other school songs so ineffably silly’ (Autobiography, 1934). In 1896 John presented the School Library with a copy of his Odes and Other Poems (1896) and in 1901 he joined the Old Shirburnian Society, remaining a member for the rest of his life. John later wrote about his school days in Autobiography (1934), and revisited Sherborne (‘Ramsgard’) in his novel, Wolf Solent (1929).
John Cowper Powys went on to read history at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, from where he graduated in 1894. In 1896, he married Margaret Alice Lyon (1874–1947), the sister of a Cambridge friend, T.H. Lyon. They had a son, Littleton Alfred Powys (1902–1954) who later attended Sherborne School. In 1898, John took up a post lecturing at girls’ school in the Brighton area and then became an extension lecturer for Oxford University. In 1905 he was employed by the American Society for the Extension of University Teaching, and 1909 to 1934 he lived in the USA, initially in New York and later at Phudd Bottom in upper New York state.
John returned to Sherborne School on many occasions. The first was in 1906 when he gave a series of six lectures on Shakespeare in the Big School Room. He also gave a number of papers to the School’s literary society, The Duffers: 27 September 1908 on Walt Whitman, 22 September 1912 on Edgar Allan Poe, 11 May 1913 on Milton, and 23 February 1930 on ‘The Meaning of Culture’. On 7 July 1918, he gave a talk to the boys at Abbey House, which then included his own son Littleton Alfred Powys, in praise of the Americans who he described as idealists, sensitive, brave, and modest.
John’s first published works were Odes and other Poems (1896) and Poems (1899). There was then a gap in publications due to his lecturing commitments, but from 1916 onwards his essays, criticism and philosophical works appeared at regular intervals, interspersed with sixteen novels and an Autobiography (1934). His major novels include Wolf Solent (1929), A Glastonbury Romance (1932), Weymouth Sands (1934), Maiden Castle (1936), Owen Glendower (1941), and Porius (1951).
In 1958, he was awarded the plaque of the Hamburg Free Academy of Arts and in 1962 he was awarded a DLitt by the University of Wales.
John Cowper Powys died on 17 June 1963 at the Memorial Hospital, Blaenau Ffestiniog, Gwynedd, Wales. In accordance with his wishes, his ashes were scattered in the sea off Chesil Beach in Dorset by his sister Lucy and her son-in-law Gerard Casey.
Online resources:
Books borrowed by John Cowper Powys from Sherborne School Library 1890-1891 (pdf)
‘Corinth’ by John Cowper Powys, English Prize Poem, 1891 (pdf)
Extract from John Cowper Powys’ English Prize Essay, 1891 (pdf)
Sherborne School Commemoration Day programme, 23 June 1891 (pdf)
‘To the Late Poet Laureate’ (Alfred Lord Tennyson), a poem by John Cowper Powys, 1892 (pdf)
Six Shakespeare lectures given by J.C. Powys at Sherborne School in 1906
John Cowper Powys’s obituary for the Rev. Henry Robinson King, 1935 (pdf)
John Cowper Powys’s Introduction to From the Ground Up. Collected Papers of A.R. Powys, Architect, Writer, and Secretary of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings 1882-1936 (1937) (pdf)
Judging the English Verse Prize 1939-1949 – Littleton Powys and John Cowper Powys
Littleton C. Powys, The Powys Family (1952)
Summer 1942: A Welsh Poet – Michell Raper (Westcott 1940-45)
‘Mordaunt Ap Gryfith. A Tale’: an even earlier example of J.C. Powys’s literary talent? by Rachel Hassall, 2018 (pdf)
The Powys Family and Sherborne School
An insight into the Powys family through the diaries of Henry Robinson King by Rachel Hassall, 2020
Books written by or about Old Shirburnians (including by members of the Powys family)
Links:
The Powys Society
The Sundial Press
John Cowper Powys manuscripts and papers, National Library of Wales
The Powys Collection, Dorset History Centre
The Powys Family Collection, University of Exeter
Paintings of Gertrude Powys on the Art UK website
For further information about the Sherborne School Archives please contact the School Archivist.
Return to the School Archives homepage.