R.C. Sherriff

Robert Cedric Sherriff was born in 1896 in Hampton Wick, Middlesex. Upon finishing school in 1914, he began working in his father’s insurance office, working as a clerk until World War I. Sherriff served in the East Surrey Regiment, fighting in several notable battles until he was finally injured in 1917. At this point, he returned to his original line of work, acting as an insurance adjuster for ten years. During this period, he began to write plays, drawing upon his wartime experiences in works like Journey’s End, his most famous and celebrated artistic effort. First produced in 1928, Journey’s End attracted widespread critical acclaim and enjoyed a long run in London. After this success, Sherriff attended New College, Oxford in the early thirties, where he was part of the Royal Society of Literature and the Society of Antiquaries of London. During his lifetime, he composed eighteen original plays, wrote fifteen film scripts, and even published several novels.