William John Locke

William John Locke (20 March 1863 – 15 May 1930) was a British novelist, dramatist and playwright, best known for his short stories.

Biography

He was born in Georgetown, Demerara, British Guyana on 20 March 1863, the eldest son of John Locke, Bank Manager of Barbados, and his first wife, Sarah Elizabeth Locke (née Johns). His parents were English. In 1865, a second son was born, Charles Alfred Locke in Berbice, British Guyana, who was eventually to become a doctor. In about 1867 the family moved to Trinidad and Tobago. Charles Locke died in 1904 aged 39. His half-sister, Anna Alexandra Hyde (née Locke), by his father's second marriage, died in 1898 in childbirth aged 25.

At the age of three, Locke was sent to England for further education. He remained in England for nine years, before returning to Trinidad to attend prep school with his brother at Queen's Royal College. There, he won an exhibition to enter St John's College, Cambridge. He returned to England in 1881 to attend Cambridge University, where he graduated with honours in Mathematics in 1884, despite his dislike of that "utterly futile and inhuman subject".

After leaving Cambridge, Locke became a schoolmaster. He disliked teaching, but is known to have been a master at the Oxford Military College at Temple Cowley, in 1889 and 1890, and at Clifton College, Bristol in 1890; from 1891 to 1897 he was modern languages master at Trinity College, Glenalmond. In 1893 he published a school edition of Murat, an extract from the Celebrated Crimes (Les crimes célèbres) of Alexandre Dumas père. In 1890 he became seriously ill with tuberculosis, which affected him for the rest of his life. From 1897 to 1907 he was secretary of the Royal Institute of British Architects and lived in London.