Derek Stanford

Who was Derek Stanford?

Derek Stanford FRSL was a British writer, known as a biographer, essayist and poet. He was educated at Upper Latymer School, Hammersmith, London.

As a conscientious objector during World War II he served in the Non-combatant Corps. He edited Resistance, a poetry magazine of just one issue, with David West in 1946.

For a period in the early 1950s he worked with Muriel Spark on several books, and was a supporter of hers, in the Poetry Society. Stanford described Spark's ousting in Inside the Forties. Spark convinced him of the talent of Dylan Thomas, and Stanford wrote an early book on Thomas shortly after his death.

He died on 19 December 2008 in Brighton. His widow is the poet Julie Whitby.