Sub-Lieutenant Alan (AP) Herbert

24 September 1890 – 11 November 1971
Hawke Bn, Royal Naval Division

 

 

AP Herbert website story

AP Herbert archive document

SEN resources

AP Herbert symbol story

 

• Biography

  From being a writer, particularly of light verse,to a soldier and sailor, to a law reformer and campaigner for good causes, A. P. Herbert followed many careers in his life. Alan Herbert started writing for the humorous magazine Punch while completing a law degree at Oxford.

  Immediately after the outbreak of war in 1914 he joined the Royal Naval Division. His battalion went to Gallipoli in May 1915. On the 4th June 1915 they were in the reserve but very soon needed to challenge the fierce Ottoman counter attacks.  At Gallipoli Herbert was mentioned in dispatches and wrote many poems. He later drew on his war experiences for a remarkable novel ‘The Secret Battle’ about an officer who was shot in France for cowardice ‘and he was one of the bravest men I ever knew.’ He also wrote WW1’s most famous insulting poem about a general.
  
  As a satirical writer he was most famous for his “Misleading Cases of the Common Law” series, wherein he commented on the obscure and tangled aspects of the British legal System. ‘Such was his presentation style that though fictional, his works were often mistaken to be real.’ : http://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/a-p-herbert-180.php#s7SXAYf2etug35lq.99

  He became a member of parliament for Oxford University in 1935 and was knighted in 1945 for his successful parliamentary campaigns, backed with satirical writings, against outdated divorce, alcohol licensing and other laws.
  
  In 1967, Herbert published Sundials Old and New; or, Fun with the Sun; a book describing in detail his long fascination with, and experiments in sundial technology. He loved the Thames and lived most of his life in a house in Hammersmith that overlooked it. He became an expert navigator of the river, putting his skills to good use in World War 2 as Master of his boat Water Gipsy which patrolled as a unit of the River Emergency Service.  

  Herbert married Gwendolyn Harriet Quilter on New Year's Eve 1914, a marriage that lasted until his death in 1971. Gwendolyn lived to the age of 97, and died in 1986, they had four children Crystal, Lavender, Jocelyn Herbert and John.

• The community

  Residences: Raised in Ashtead, Surrey. Lived in Hammersmith Terrace in Hammersmith, London.

• Examples of work

  Novel:  The Secret Battle, 1919, Methuen www.gutenberg.org/files/35164/35164-h/35164-h.htm

  Satirical writing and drawing:
  Uncommon Law, 1935, Methuen; 1969 (new edition) Methuen
  ON DRAWING, Essay by Herbert in Modern Essays by Harry Morgan Ayres et al.
  www.gutenberg.org/files/38280/38280-h/38280-h.htm#ON_DRAWING

  Writing on his hobby: Sundials Old and New: Or Fun With the Sun (1964)

  Poetry: Half-hours at Helles (1916) archive.org/details/halfhoursathelle00herb

• Correspondence

  Alan P. Herbert, speech, House of Commons (1935)

  spartacus-educational.com/PRherbertA.htm

  I have in my hand a Bill which I am ready to introduce next Friday, or on the Friday after, or on all the Fridays, until it is passed into law; and I swear that it shall be passed before this Parliament is over. But I must remind them that all the serious politicians laughed when I disclosed my obscene designs upon my almost virgin University. They said that with my extraordinary opinions I ought to go to Hoxton, to the taverns, to the racecourses of our land, and hope perhaps to scramble together a discreditable vote or two, but that to go to Oxford, the citadel of Christian enlightenment and the stronghold of orthodoxy, a constituency with more parsons to the square vote than any other constituency besides - this was lunacy. However, I went on, and the walls of Jericho fell down. Therefore, I would ask honourary Members in the north-east corner of the House to consider again before they laugh at my intentions.

  At all events, here is this Bill, and it is not a feeble little Bill. It is called the Matrimonial Causes Bill. It is a Bill to reform the indecent, hypocritical, cruel, and unjust marriage laws of this country. It is a Bill which carries out or is based upon the recommendations of the Majority Report of the Royal Commission which reported twenty-three years ago, and I am ready, as I say, to introduce it next Friday.

  In your wise advice to us the other day, Mr. Speaker, you mentioned the decline of public interest in the proceedings of this House. I was wondering then whether some part of that decline might not be due to the fact that so many high and great problems are discussed in the House which are not understood or understandable by the common people, and that simple human problems such as are dealt with in this Bill, and which the common man does think he understands, are so seldom mentioned here, and when they are mentioned are dismissed as frivolities,

• Other primary sources

  A.P. Herbert. [Internet]. 2015. The Famous People website. Available from: www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/a-p-herbert-180.php [Accessed 11 Jan 2015].

  Works by or about A. P. Herbert at Internet Archive [Accessed 11 Jan 2015].

• Where commemorated

   

• Gallantry awards

  He was knighted in 1945 in Winston Churchill's Resignation Honours. The Times noted “his individual niche in the parliamentary temple as the doughty vindicator of the private member's rights, including not least the right to legislate.”

• Secondary sources

  Punch Magazine archives: punch.photoshelter.com/image...

  Modern Essays by Harry Morgan Ayres et al., Project Gutenberg. Available from www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38280[Accessed 11 Jan 2015].

• Additional activity resources

  Share in Herbert’s hobby and make your own sundial using this template builder:
  analemmatic.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/papercraft.pl

  Instructions here: www.instructables.com/id/15-minute-paper-craft-sundial/