His parents, Mabel (née Dawson) and Ernest Betjemann, had a family firm at 34–42 Pentonville Road which manufactured the kind of ornamental household furniture and gadgets distinctive to Victorians.

His father's forebears had actually come from the present day Netherlands more than a century earlier, setting up their home and business in Islington, London, and during the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War had, ironically, added the extra "-n" to avoid the anti-Dutch sentiment existing at the time.

The family lived at Parliament Hill Mansions in the Lissenden Gardens private estate in Gospel Oak in north London.

While at school, his exposure to the works of Arthur Machen won him over to High Church Anglicanism, a conversion of importance to his later writing and conception of the arts.

He was, however, admitted as a commoner (i.e., a non-scholarship student) at Magdalen College and entered the newly created School of English Language and Literature.

[7] Betjeman particularly disliked the coursework's emphasis on linguistics, and dedicated most of his time to cultivating his social life, his interest in English ecclesiastical architecture, and private literary pursuits.

[8] It is a common misapprehension, cultivated by Betjeman himself, that he did not complete his degree because he failed to pass the compulsory holy scripture examination, known colloquially as "Divvers", short for "Divinity".

Betjeman then wrote to the Secretary of the Tutorial Board at Magdalen, G. C. Lee, asking to be entered for the Pass School, a set of examinations taken on rare occasions by undergraduates who are deemed unlikely to achieve an honours degree.

[10] He worked briefly as a private secretary, school teacher and film critic for the Evening Standard, where he also wrote for their high-society gossip column, the "Londoner's Diary".

[2] At this time, while his prose style matured, he joined the MARS Group, an organisation of young modernist architects and architectural critics in Britain.

[13] The object of his affections, "Greta", remained a mystery until revealed to have been a member of a well-known Anglo-Irish family of Western county Waterford.

His official brief included establishing friendly contacts with leading figures in the Dublin literary scene: he befriended Patrick Kavanagh, then at the very start of his career.

He was rejected after the Prime Minister's Appointments Secretary John Hewitt consulted with Dame Helen Gardner, the Merton Professor of English at the University of Oxford (who stated that Betjeman was "a lightweight, amusing but rather trivial" with "critical views about the establishment") and Geoffrey Handley-Taylor, chair of The Poetry Society (who stated that Betjeman "called himself a poetic hack and there was some truth to this").

His longest and best documented relationships were with women, and a fairer analysis of his sexuality may be that he was "the hatcher of a lifetime of schoolboy crushes – both gay and straight", most of which progressed no further.

[22] Nevertheless, he has been considered "temperamentally gay", and even became a penpal of Lord Alfred 'Bosie' Douglas, friend and lover of Oscar Wilde.

In this way I differ from most modern poets, who are agnostics and have an idea that Man is the centre of the Universe or is a helpless bubble blown about by uncontrolled forces.

Unlike Thomas Hardy, who disbelieved in the truth of the Christmas story while hoping it might be so, Betjeman affirms his belief even while fearing it might be false.

His views on Christianity were expressed in his poem "The Conversion of St. Paul", a response to a radio broadcast by humanist Margaret Knight: But most of us turn slow to see The figure hanging on a tree And stumble on and blindly grope Upheld by intermittent hope, God grant before we die we all May see the light as did St. Paul.

There are constant evocations of the physical chaff and clutter that accumulates in everyday life, the miscellanea of an England now gone but not beyond the reach of living memory.

[28] Prompted by the rapid development of the Buckinghamshire town before World War II, Betjeman wrote the ten-stanza poem "Slough" to express his dismay at the industrialisation of Britain.

He is considered instrumental in helping to save St Pancras railway station, London, and was commemorated when it became an international terminus for Eurostar in November 2007.

[32] About it he wrote, "What [the Londoner] sees in his mind's eye is that cluster of towers and pinnacles seen from Pentonville Hill and outlined against a foggy sunset and the great arc of Barlow's train shed gaping to devour incoming engines and the sudden burst of exuberant Gothic of the hotel seen from gloomy Judd Street".

The finished work was erected in the station at platform level, including a series of slate roundels depicting selections of Betjeman's writings.

[32] Betjeman was given the remaining two-year lease on Victorian Gothic architect William Burges's Tower House in Holland Park after leaseholder Mrs E. R. B. Graham died in 1962.

[34] Betjeman felt he could not afford the financial implications of taking over the house permanently, with his potential liability for £10,000 of renovations upon the expiry of the lease.

[35] He edited, and wrote large sections of, The Collins Guide to English Parish Churches (1958); his substantial editorial preface was described by The Times Literary Supplement as "pure gold".

In the preface of his collection of architectural essays First and Last Loves he wrote We accept the collapse of the fabrics of our old churches, the thieving of lead and objects from them, the commandeering and butchery of our scenery by the services, the despoiling of landscaped parks and the abandonment to a fate worse than the workhouse of our country houses, because we are convinced we must save money.In a BBC film made in 1968,[38] but not broadcast at that time, Betjeman described the sound of Leeds to be of "Victorian buildings crashing to the ground".

[41] Betjeman was for over 20 years a trustee of the Bath Preservation Trust and was vice-president from 1965 to 1971, at a time when Bath—a city rich in Georgian architecture—was coming under increasing pressure from modern developers and a road had been proposed to cut across it.

The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings annually presents a John Betjeman award to recognise the repair and conservation of places of worship in England and Wales.

[42] The John Betjeman Poetry Competition for Young People began in 2006 and was open to 10- to 13-year-olds living anywhere in the British Isles (including the Republic of Ireland), with a first prize of £1,000.