Occupation reporter
author
poet Name Eric Whelpton Genre travel | Ethnicity Caucasian Nationality English Died 1981 | |
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Spouse Catherine Elsie Marian Barnes (1924)
Barbara Crocker (born 1910) Books The making of a European, The Making of an Englishman | ||
(George) Eric Whelpton (1894–1981) was the son of the Revd George Whelpton, minister of Trinity Methodist Church, Abingdon, Berkshire. From Abingdon School and the Leys School, Cambridge, he entered Hertford College, Oxford, then taught at Christ Church Cathedral School.
At Oxford, Whelpton became a close friend of Dorothy Sayers; upon him she perhaps based the character of Lord Peter Wimsey. Whelpton later taught French at King's College School, London, and was reader in comparative education at King's College London (1931–42). Following the death of her husband, Dorothy Sayers acted as Whelpton's literary secretary. During World War II, Whelpton worked as a BBC news correspondent in France and, as recounted in his travel book, The Balearics:Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza, he was told by a Swiss correspondent that he was on the Gestapo blacklist.
His last two books, The Making of a European (1974) and The Making of an Englishman (1977), are largely autobiographical.