Gunby Hadath

John Edward Gunby Hadath MA FRSA (30 April 1871 – 17 January 1954) was an English schoolmaster, lawyer, company promoter, songwriter, journalist, and author of boarding school stories.

He is best remembered for over seventy novels (almost all juvenile fiction) of which over two-thirds were set in English Public Schools.

Hadath was born at the Rectory in Owersby, Lincolnshire, England, on 30 April 1871, the only son[note 1] of Reverend Edward Evans Hadath MA (c. 1892 – 19 Nov 1873),[1] the Rector of Owersby and Charlotte Elizabeth (first quarter of 1840 – 27 April 1912),[2][3] the eldest daughter of Rev.

[8] At Cambridge he continuing his sporting career and earned his college colours for rugby, soccer, and cricket.

This Private or Preparatory School had just been acquired by Bertram Bennet MA FRSA (18 April 1864 – 21 March 1925), who was a few years ahead of Hadath at Peterhouse.

Hadath was awarded his MA degree in January 1896 and was the Senior Classics Master at Guildford Grammar-School[note 3] He continued to play sports, especially cricket.

[6] As well as the Cricklewood Address, Hadeth also had a Chalet at Saint-Gervais-les-Bains, in the French Alps, near the Haute Savoie and Mont Blanc.

[24] At a subsequent hearing on 28 July 1910, the Official Receiver reported that Hadath's bankruptcy had been brought on by rash and hazardous speculations.

[7] This was a reserve battalion and was in Mill Hill in North London when war broke out, and were almost immediately sent to Gillingham in Kent.

His first essay into such work was his appeal for the destitute family of the Italian song composer Piccolomini in the Musical Times of 1 August 1900.

[13] Hadath has attracted a lot of praise for his writing: But not everyone shared such high regard for Gunby: In New Zealand Dorothy Neal White, children's librarian at Dunedin, began in 1937 to organize the steady withdrawal from her shelves of books by writers judged second-rate, e.g. Percy Westerman, Elinor Brent-Dyer, and Gunby Hadath.

[36] There is undoubtedly an impression too many quarters that anybody can write books for young people, whereas actually youth is an exceedingly critical audience.

Eyre said The school story was always an artificial type and its decline towards the middle of the century was neither unexpected nor deplored.

He had applied for bankruptcy on 18 November 1909, and owed over three hundred pounds in interest to money lenders when he first appeared in court.

Hadath used a range of pseudonyms, mainly for his short fiction, with a few exception: The authorship of the books by John Mowbray is disputed.

John George Haslette Vahey (1881 – 15 June 1934)[47] was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland and attended Foyle College.

Kemp et al. say that Vahey became an accomplished hack writer and published over forty crime novel, fourteen under his own name, twenty-two as Vernon Loder, four as Walter Proudfoot, seven as Henrietta Clandon, and five as Anthony Lang.