John Drinkwater photographs

Four photographs featuring John Drinkwater at various times throughout his career as an actor, director, playwright and poet.

John Drinkwater (1882–1937, poet, playwright, actor, director) was born at Leytonstone, Essex, on 1 June 1882. On meeting Barry Jackson with whom he bonded over their love of theatre he left his office job in Nottingham. Together they established an amateur theatre company in 1907 called the Pilgrim Players and turned it into a professional company by erecting a theatre building of their own, calling it the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. It opened in 1913 with a production of Twelfth Night. He left Birmingham in 1918 to take his own play 'Abraham Lincoln' to London and onto New York. From then on he continued to write and produce many plays and published poetry.

Source: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online Accessed: 15/11/06

Open. Access to all registered researchers.

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Former location: MSS 1/vi/2

Birmingham University Special Collections department holds a number of items pertaining to the life and career of John Drinkwater. The Drinkwater Collection (ref. JD) consists of a small collection of manuscript poems, the Theatre Collection (ref. MS38) contains files of reviews and publicity regarding a number of his plays and various letters are dispersed within other collections held by Special Collections. MS236 contains letters of John Drinkwater's wife, Daisy Kennedy.

Associated Materials
The archives of Sir Barry Jackson and the Birmingham Repertory Theatre company can be found at Birmingham City Archives, Central Library.