Hugh Sykes Davies (17 August 1909 – 6 June 1984)[1] was an English poet, novelist and communist, who was one of a small group of 1930s British surrealists.
He went to Kingswood School, Bath, and read the Classics and English Triposes at St John's College, Cambridge,[2] where he co-edited the student magazine Experiment with William Empson.
In 1933 he was elected the first-ever fellow of English at St John's College, and three years later he was appointed a University Lecturer in the subject.
[3] Davies spent some time in Paris during the 1930s, and in 1936 he was one of the organisers of the London International Surrealist Exhibition, where he met the artist Salvador Dalí.
During World War II he was employed at the Ministry of Food, which gave him an insight into administrative problems; perhaps consequently, he lost much of his youthful utopianism, and in the 1950s renounced his communist affiliation and reverted to a more orthodox social democracy in its stead.