John Hampson
John Hampson Simpson was an English author born in Birmingham in 1901, known for his impactful yet often overlooked literary contributions. Hampson's early life was marked by economic difficulties after his family's brewery closed, leading them to Leicester. He was home-schooled and worked in a munitions factory during World War I. Despite facing hardships, he developed a passion for reading and eventually took a job as a live-in nurse for a disabled child, which provided him the stability to pursue writing.
His debut novel, *Saturday Night at the Greyhound*, published in 1931 by Hogarth Press, garnered critical acclaim for its unique Aristotelian structure and its exploration of the tragic decline of a public house through the inner thoughts of its characters. Hampson's subsequent works, including *O Providence* and *Strip Jack Naked*, shifted towards the family saga genre and delved into themes of isolation and complex family dynamics. Notably, *Strip Jack Naked* addressed homoerotic themes through the relationship between brothers, reflecting Hampson's nuanced understanding of identity. His later years saw a decline in recognition, but he continued to write, including radio scripts, until his death in 1955. Hampson's literary legacy is primarily tied to his first novel and its deep empathy for working-class struggles.
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John Hampson
Writer
- Born: 1901
- Birthplace: Birmingham, Warwickshire (now in West Midlands), England
- Died: December 26, 1955
Biography
John Hampson Simpson was born in Birmingham in 1901, the fifth of eight children. His family had found success running both a local theater and a brewery. When the brewery closed in 1907, the family faced difficult economic circumstances. They relocated to Leicester, where John’s mother taught swimming and his father worked in a motorcycle depot. Hampson, a frail child, was educated entirely at home. During World War I, Hampson worked in a munitions factory. After the war, he took a variety of jobs, mostly in pubs. Despite his penurious conditions, he was a voracious reader; indeed, he did time in Wormwood Scrubs Penitentiary for stealing books. In 1925, Hampson was hired by a wealthy family in Birmingham as a live-in nurse for their disabled child, a position that Hampson kept for thirty years. The position brought Hampson security to do what he had long dreamed of doing: writing.
His first novel, Saturday Night at the Greyhound, used the model of Aristotelian tragedy to relate, using a tight twelve-hour period, the financial collapse of a public house. It was published in 1931 by Hogarth Press, run by Virginia and Leonard Woolf, to enthusiastic reviews. It quickly sold out several editions. Starkly realistic in its mood, if modernist in its execution, the novel is divided into three sections, each an interior monologue of characters involved with the pub’s decline. When the pub’s manager, a spendthrift and alcoholic, loses everything in the closing section during a fixed card game and is arrested for serving drinks after hours, Hampson creates a forbidding sense of tragedy as characters face economic ruin and loss of hope.
Hampson would never again experience the critical success of that first novel. His other principal novels—O Providence and Strip Jack Naked—forsook the experimental ensemble tragedy form of his first novel to use the traditional family saga genre. Both would center on an introspective artistic boy who must face isolation—in both cases, Hampson hints strongly that his central character is confused by his sexual identity, although he never explicitly examines homosexuality. Strip Jack Naked was particularly notable as Hampson treated the homoerotic impulse by using the love between two brothers, one of whom, grief-stricken, marries his brother’s fiancée in a loveless act of devotion after the brother is killed. Hampson himself was involved in an odd marriage relationship—on the encouragement of poet W. H. Auden, he agreed to marry the fiery German actress Therese Giehse, a longtime friend of Thomas Mann, to provide the Jewish star with British citizenship to permit her escape from Nazi Germany to Switzerland. The two never lived together.
After the war, Hampson fell into obscurity although he continued publishing novels. He wrote radio scripts until he died on December 26, 1955. Assessments of Hampson’s career center on his first novel, its originality in structure and its compassion for working-class characters caught in circumstances, financial and emotional, beyond their control.