James Kenward

Who was James Kenward?

James Kenward, English author and illustrator, best known for his accounts of suburban and prep school life.

James Macara Kenward was born in 1908 in South London, the son of the Lloyd's insurance broker who invented rain insurance: The Jupiter Pluvius policy. James Kenward received his prep school education at Ripple Vale School near Deal in Kent until entering Brighton College in 1919. On leaving Brighton he spent three years at Lloyd's in his father’s footsteps before taking up writing full-time, at the age of twenty. His first novel for adults, John and David, a story of feuding brothers, was published by Peter Davies in 1931. This was followed by the fantasy Summervale in 1935, published by Constable and Co. and recounting the metamorphosis of an unassuming suburban insurance broker into a dog. The Manewood Line, a fictional account of the rise, decline and revival of Selsey's branch line and Kenward’s last novel for adults, was published by Stanley Paul in 1937. Kenward’s next book, The Roof-Tree, can be classed loosely as a work on architecture and was first published in 1938: it was reissued in The Oxford Bookshelf series in 1941.