Ralph Hale Mottram

Ralph Hale Mottram (1883 – 1971) was an English writer, known as a novelist, particularly for the Spanish Farm books, and as a war poet of World War I.

His father was the chief clerk of Gurney's Bank in Norwich and Mottram had an idyllic childhood growing up in 'Bank House' - a magnificent George II mansion on Bank Plain - which was later Barclay's Bank and is now a youth centre. The Mottrams were non-conformist and worshipped at the Octagon Chapel, Norwich in Colegate.

Mottram went from being a bank clerk in Norwich, before the war, to becoming mayor there in 1953. "The Spanish Farm" won the 1924 Hawthornden Prize. He also wrote a biography of John Galsworthy.

He was a defender of Mousehold Heath - a large open space in the heart of Norwich. On St. James' Hill, there is a sculpture which depicts the skyline of Norwich which is dedicated to him.

He is buried in the Rosary Cemetery, Norwich. Mottram once said that 'I knew, when I was four years old, exactly where I could be buried.'

Works

* "Repose and other verses" (1907), as J. Marjoram
* "New Poems" (1909), as J. Marjoram
* "The Spanish Farm" (1924), a trilogy with "Sixty-Four, Ninety-Four" and "The Crime at Vanderlynden’s"
* "Sixty-Four, Ninety-Four" (1925)
* "The Crime at Vanderlynden's (1926)
* "Our Mr. Dormer" (1927), a trilogy with "The Boroughmonger" and "Castle Island"
* "The Apple Disdained" (1928)
* "Ten Years Ago. Armistice and other memories" (1928)
* "The English Miss" (1938)
* "A History of Financial Speculation" (1929)
* "The Boroughmonger" (1929)
* "A Rich Man’s Daughter" (1930)
* "Europa’s Beast" (1930)
* "The New Providence" (1930)
* "Poems Old and New" (1930)
* "Three Men’s War" (1930), with John Easton and Eric Partridge
* "The Lost Christmas Presents" (1931)
* "Castle Island" (1931)
* "John Crome of Norwich" (1931)
* "The Headless Hound and other stories" (1931)
* "Dazzle" (1932)
* "At the Sign of The Lame Dog" (1933)
* "East Anglia" (1933)
* "Bumphrey’s" (1934)
* "Flower Pot End" (1935)
* "Journey to the Western Front Twenty Years After" (1936)
* "The Westminster Bank 1836-1936" (1936)
* "Portrait of an Unknown Victorian" (1936)
* "Old England" (1937)
* "Time to Be Going" (1937)
* "Autobiography with a Difference" (1939)
* "Miss Lavington" (1939)
* "You Can’t Have It Back!" (1939)
* "Trader's Dream The Romance of the British East India Company" (1939)
* "Visit of the Princess - a Romance of the 1960s" (1946)
* "Hibbert Houses, A Record" (1947)
* "Norfolk" (1948)
* "The Glories of Norwich Cathedral" (1948)
* "Come to the Bower" (1949)
* "East Anglia, a new guide book" (1951)
* "The Broads" (1952)
* "The Part That Is Missing" (1952)
* "If Stones Could Speak" (1953), social history of Norwich
* "John Galsworthy" (1953), biography
* "The Window Seat or Life Observed" (1954)
* "For Some We Loved" (1956), biography of John Galsworthy and his wife
* "Another Window Seat" (1957)
* "Buxton the Liberator" (1958), biography of Thomas F. Buxton the abolitionist
* "Vanities and Verities" (1958)
* "Time’s Increase" (1961)
* "To Hell with Crabb Robinson" (1962)
* "Behind the Shutters" (1968)
* "12 Poems" (1968)

External links

* [http://www.bookrags.com/R._H._Mottram Biographical Information]
* [http://www.literarynorfolk.co.uk/ralph_hale_mottram.htm Ralph Hale Mottram and Norwich]