Stapleford History Society – 13 January 2026
A talk by Dr Sean Lang
Dr Lang, a Visiting Fellow at Anglia Ruskin University, gave his fifth talk to the History Society and we were treated to a preview of his ideas about P. G. Wodehouse in his latest book which wil be published in the Autumn.
PGW was a prolific comic writer with more than ninety books to his credit, including biographical sketches of famous Edwardians. He also wrote the lyrics for several Broadway shows including those of Jerome Kerne which were very popular. The series of books featuring Bertie Wooster and his valet, Jeeves , are probably the most famous nowadays as they were the basis of a very popular television series starring Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. Bertie Wooster was the epitome of upper class silliness while Jeeves was the man who thought seriously and kept his employer out of any unexpected difficulties. Jeeves, therefore, represents the man in the street and his opinions and attitudes are what Dr Lang is interested in.
PGW’s parents got married in Hong Kong in 1877 where his father was a Judge. Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, affectionately known as ‘Plum’, was born in Guildford in 1881. He was most definitely a child of Empire and attended Dulwich College which gave him a sense of security and stability while his parents were abroad. He was looked after by twenty actual aunts who were to provide the basis for the fictional aunts he later created.
When he left school he went to work for The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation but did not want to go to Asia as a banker. Quoting Kipling he started ‘on my wild own as a freelance’. He carefully avoided any setting like Asia or India and began to concern himself with the reality of the situation at home. His poem ‘The Parrot’ was concerned with the rise of food prices and the Scouting movement founded by Baden Powell was treated comically in ‘The Swoop! or, How Clarence Saved England & The Military Invasion of America’. Two characters, Mike Jackson and Psmith, were created in order to comment on the boarding school system. The Psmith books were later set in the worlds of Journalism and the City. Psmith was also created to poke fun at the ‘Breed of intrepid Englishmen’ as represented by Bulldog Drummond created by H.C.McNeile in 1920. Dr Lang remarked that Bulldog Drummond was the imperial James Bond of the time. PGW later even poked fun at the Nazi inspired followers of Oswald Mosley by referring to them as the Black Shorts.
In 1934 PGW moved to France for tax reasons. In 1940 he was taken prisoner by the Germans and interned for nearly a year. After his release he made five broadcasts from German radio in Berlin to the USA which had not then joined the war. These broadcasts over the enemy radio were very controversial in Great Britain and, under threat of prosecution, PGW never returned to England but spent the rest of his life in the USA with dual nationality. He died in 1975 aged 93, a month after being awarded a knighthood (KBE) to honour his contribution to comic writing.
Report by Jane Steadman