William Francis Casey

Who was William Francis Casey?

William Francis Casey was a journalist and editor of The Times

He was born in Cape Town, the son of Patrick Joseph Casey, theatre proprietor, of Glenageary, and was educated at Castleknock College and Trinity College, Dublin.

He spent two years reading medicine before turning to law. He was called to the Irish bar in 1909. But again he was undecided on his career. He described his period in the law as ‘one year, one brief, one guinea’. His thoughts had been drawn instead towards the theatre and, while reading for the bar, he became interested in the work of the Abbey Theatre when the directors included W. B. Yeats and Lady Gregory. He worked for a time on the business side, and then in 1908 two of his plays, The Suburban Groove and The Man who Missed the Tide, were produced at the Abbey and with their success he decided to try his luck in London. He took with him a letter to Bruce Richmond, editor of the Times Literary Supplement. Richmond saw the young writer's promise and it was agreed that Casey should review for the supplement. In 1914 he married Amy Gertrude Pearson-Gee, a widow, and sister-in-law of Karl Pearson. They had no children.

Shortly before the outbreak of the First World War, Casey was offered a post as a sub-editor in the sporting department of The Times and from then until his retirement he was a permanent member of that paper's staff. He then served as a foreign sub-editor, with his interest and skill leading to a posting to Washington in 1919, then to Paris in the following year. He returned to London in 1923 as chief foreign sub-editor, regarded as one of the most arduous and anxious positions on the paper. He held this post until 1928. He was part of the group of proprietors and editorial staff who attempted to produce the paper during the general strike of 1926. Afterwards a souvenir volume, Strike Nights in Printing House Square, was printed for private record. One of its pictures bore the caption ‘Amateurs in the foundry’ and showed Casey and Captain Shaw, the chairman's secretary, hard at work on a mechanical process, as ‘the champion pair of matrix moulders’.