Denton Welch

Maurice Denton Welch (29 March 1915 – 30 December 1948) was a British writer and painter, admired for his vivid prose and precise descriptions.

Welch was born in Shanghai, China, to Arthur Joseph Welch, a wealthy British rubber merchant, and his American wife of Christian Science faith, Rosalind Bassett from New Bedford, Massachusetts.

The youngest of four sons, Welch, was sent to a boarding school at the age of 11, after his mother died from wasting kidney disease.

After a brief time at prep school in London, Welch was sent to Repton, where he was a contemporary of the writer Roald Dahl and actor Geoffrey Lumsden.

By his and others' accounts, his time there was miserable, and he ran away prior to his last term.

After leaving Repton, he studied art at Goldsmiths' in London with the intention of becoming a painter.

Welch spent part of his pre-school childhood in China, and returned for a longer spell after he left Repton.

In July 1936, Welch rented an apartment with his friend and housekeeper Evelyn Sinclair in Tonbridge so that he could be close to his doctor, John Easton.

In 1940, he began to write poems, the first one appearing in print in 1941.

In August 1942, he wrote an essay on the painter Walter Sickert which, published originally in Horizon, brought him to the notice of Edith Sitwell, in no small part down to his own cultivation of her attentions.

Scores of short stories followed, around a dozen being published in various magazines.

Many more were left unfinished at the time of his death.

Welch's literary work, intense and introverted, has been described as Proustian in its attention to the minutiae of life, in particular that of the English countryside during World War II.

A close attention to aesthetics, be it in human behaviour, physical appearance, clothing, art, architecture, jewellery, or antiques, is also a recurring concern in his writings.

The extent to which Welch's work is autobiography or fiction has been much discussed, apart from his frequent use of the first person (and in some cases is identified in the narrative as "Denton").

Fictional content aside, the point of origin of virtually all of his stories is biographical: they are often set in places he knew or had visited, and feature thinly-disguised, often deeply unflattering, depictions of friends, family and acquaintances (to the extent that over thirty years after Welch's death, his art school friend, the artist Gerald Leet, refused to contribute to Michael De-la-Noy's biography, where he is identified only as 'Gerald' in the index. ). Welch chose to depict himself a few times in fictionalised form, most notably as "Orvil Pym" in In Youth is Pleasure, and as "Mary" in "The Fire in the Wood".

"Robert" was also one of his favourite personas.

The philosopher Maurice Cranston, who had known him since his teens (and who featured in at least one story) observed that Welch was as unforgiving in depictions of himself as he was of others.

From an early age Welch's aptitude for art was evident, and in his journals he recalls his first still life (holly and beech leaves), completed when he was nine.

However his enrolment at Goldsmith's came initially out of his family's desire that he do something with his life after his return from China, any sort of activity associated with business evidently being ruled out of the question.

It was through a fellow student that Welch sold his first artwork: a view of Hadlow Castle to Shell for a series of lorry posters featuring landmarks.

It is now on display at the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu, Hampshire.

He later failed to sell a painting of Lord Berners to its subject, but the experience generated a short story.

He recorded this episode in his fictionalised autobiography, Maiden Voyage (1943).

With the help and patronage of Edith Sitwell and John Lehmann this became a small but lasting success and made for him a distinct and individual reputation.

It was followed by the novel In Youth is Pleasure (1944), a study of adolescence published in a limited edition by Herbert Read at the publishers Faber and Faber and then more widely by Routledge.

Read said he was happy to publish the book, and enjoyed it himself, but he warned Welch that many people would find its hero perverse and unpleasant.

In May 1945, Welch restored an 18th-century Georgian doll's house from 1783, which was given to him by his friend Mildred Bosanquet.

The doll's house is on display at the V&A Museum of Childhood, department of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Sinclair travelled with him to various residences until May 1946, when he settled in one of the Noël and Bernard Adeney residences in Middle Orchard, Borough Green with his partner, Eric Oliver.

Common themes in his art include objets d'art, cats, still lifes (often incongrously juxtaposed) and assorted gothic motifs, often in a fantastical landscape, although not in one of his most famous works, The Coffin House (1946) depicting a locally-renowned dwelling, north of Hadlow, Kent.

Welch exhibited his artwork at the Leicester Galleries.

Other exhibitions followed, in The Redfern Gallery and the Leger Gallery.

A collection of short stories, entitled Brave and Cruel followed (1948).

Two years later, Sinclair moved in as well, and remained with him until his death on 30 December 1948.

Despite his injuries, he continued to paint, and perhaps because of them, he started to write.

The bulk of Welch's output was to see posthumous publication: an unfinished autobiographical novel A Voice Through a Cloud in 1950; a further short story collection, A Last Sheaf, in 1951; The Denton Welch Journals in 1952; an unfinished travelogue, I Left My Grandfather's House in 1958; and a poetry collection, Dumb Instrument, in 1976.

At the age of 20, Welch was hit by a car while cycling in Surrey and suffered a fractured spine.

He was temporarily paralysed, and suffered severe pain and bladder complications, including pyelonephritis, and spinal tuberculosis that ultimately led to his early death.

After the accident, Welch spent time at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery and then was relocated to Southcourt Nursing Home in Broadstairs, Kent.