Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet ( / ˈ b æ r i / ; 9 May 1860 – 19 June 1937) was a British novelist and playwright, best known for creating the story of Peter Pan. He was born and educated in Scotland. Later, he moved to London, where he wrote several successful novels and plays. In London, he met the Llewelyn Davies boys, who inspired him to write about a baby boy who has magical adventures in Kensington Gardens (first included in Barrie's 1902 adult novel The Little White Bird). This idea later led him to write Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, a 1904 West End "fairy play" about an ageless boy and an ordinary girl named Wendy who have adventures in the fantasy setting of Neverland.
Although he continued to write successfully, Peter Pan became his most famous work and is credited with popularizing the name Wendy. Barrie unofficially adopted the Davies boys after their parents passed away. In 1913, King George V made Barrie a baronet. In 1922, he was named a member of the Order of Merit. Before his death, Barrie gave the rights to the Peter Pan works to Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London. The hospital continues to benefit from these rights.
Childhood and adolescence
James Matthew Barrie was born in Kirriemuir, Angus, to a religious family that followed strict beliefs. His father, David Barrie, was a weaver who had some success in his work. His mother, Margaret Ogilvy, helped take care of the home when she was just eight years old after her own mother passed away. Barrie was the ninth of ten children (two of whom died before he was born), and all of them were taught reading, writing, and arithmetic to prepare for future jobs. He was a small child who often told stories to others. As an adult, he was only 5 feet 3 and a half inches tall, as noted on his 1934 passport.
When Barrie was six years old, his older brother David, who was his mother’s favorite, died in an accident while ice-skating the day before his 14th birthday. This made his mother very sad, and Barrie tried to comfort her by acting like David, wearing his clothes and copying his habits. Once, when he entered his mother’s room, she asked, “Is that you?” Barrie later wrote that he answered in a quiet voice, “No, it’s not him, it’s just me.” His mother found comfort in believing that her son would always stay a boy and never leave her. Over time, Barrie and his mother shared stories about her childhood and read books such as Robinson Crusoe, works by Scottish author Walter Scott, and The Pilgrim’s Progress.
At age eight, Barrie was sent to the Glasgow Academy, where his oldest siblings, Alexander and Mary Ann, helped care for him. At ten, he returned home and continued his education at the Forfar Academy. At 14, he left home again to attend Dumfries Academy, once more under the care of Alexander and Mary Ann. He loved reading and enjoyed books like The Penny Dreadfuls, as well as stories by Robert Michael Ballantyne and James Fenimore Cooper. At Dumfries, he and his friends played pirate games in the garden of Moat Brae house, creating a story that later inspired the play Peter Pan. He and his friends also formed a drama club and performed his first play, Bandelero the Bandit, which caused some discussion after a clergyman criticized it strongly.
Literary career
Barrie wanted to become an author, but his family encouraged him to choose a different job, like being a minister. With help from Alexander, Barrie decided to go to university and study literature. He attended the University of Edinburgh and wrote drama reviews for the Edinburgh Evening Courant. He graduated and received an M.A. on April 21, 1882.
After seeing a job ad in The Scotsman, Barrie worked for a year and a half as a journalist for the Nottingham Journal in the East Midlands of England. When he returned to Kirriemuir, he sent a story to the St. James's Gazette, a London newspaper, based on his mother’s tales about her hometown, which he renamed "Thrums." The editor liked the Scottish style of the story, and Barrie wrote more stories about "Thrums." These stories became the basis for his first novels: Auld Licht Idylls (1888), A Window in Thrums (1889), and The Little Minister (1891).
The stories described the "Auld Lichts," a strict religious group to which Barrie’s grandfather belonged. Some critics later said these early works were sentimental and nostalgic, focusing on small-town Scotland rather than the industrial changes of the 19th century. These works were part of a literary movement called the Kailyard School. Despite this, they were popular and helped Barrie become a successful writer. He later published Better Dead (1888) privately, but it did not sell well. His two "Tommy" novels, Sentimental Tommy (1896) and Tommy and Grizel (1900), told stories about a boy and young man who hold onto childhood fantasy, ending unhappily. The English writer George Gissing disliked Sentimental Tommy after reading it in 1896.
Barrie then focused more on writing for the theater. He co-wrote a biography of Richard Savage, which was performed once and criticized. He next created a play called Ibsen's Ghost, or Toole Up-to-Date (1891), a humorous imitation of Henrik Ibsen’s plays Hedda Gabler and Ghosts. At the time, Ghosts was not legally allowed to be performed in the UK until 1914, but it had caused a stir when shown in a private club.
The production of Ibsen's Ghost at Toole's Theatre in London was seen by William Archer, who translated Ibsen’s works into English. He liked the play and recommended it to others. Barrie’s third play, Walker, London (1892), led to his meeting Mary Ansell, an actress. They married on July 9, 1894. Barrie gave her a Saint Bernard puppy named Porthos, who appeared in his 1902 novel The Little White Bird. He used Mary’s first name for characters in his books. Barrie also wrote a failed comic opera called Jane Annie (1893) for Richard D’Oyly Carte and convinced Arthur Conan Doyle to finish it.
In 1901 and 1902, Barrie had two major successes: Quality Street, about an older woman pretending to be her flirtatious niece to win back a former love, and The Admirable Crichton, a socially aware play about a family and servants who reverse their roles after a shipwreck. The critic Max Beerbohm praised The Admirable Crichton as "the best thing that has happened, in my time, to the British theatre."
The character "Peter Pan" first appeared in The Little White Bird, published in 1902 by Hodder & Stoughton in the UK and in Scribner's Magazine in the US. Barrie’s most famous work, Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, had its first stage performance on December 27, 1904, at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London. At the time, children were not allowed to act on stage, so women played the role of Peter Pan, as they were seen as more believable as young boys. The name "Wendy" came from a girl named Margaret Henley, who called Barrie "Friendy" and had trouble pronouncing "R." The scenes in Peter Pan showed the strict rules of middle-class life in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras, compared to the free-spirited world of Neverland.
George Bernard Shaw called Peter Pan "ostensibly a holiday entertainment for children but really a play for grown-up people," suggesting deeper social messages. In 1907, the play was parodied in a sketch called Baffles or the Peterpan-tomime by H. G. Pélissier and The Follies at the Apollo Theatre. Barrie himself reviewed the parody in Sphere magazine, calling it "funny in little bits" but noting that The Follies were "one of the funniest things now to be seen in London."
After Peter Pan, Barrie continued to write successful plays that explored social issues. The Twelve Pound Look (1910) told the story of a wife leaving her husband after gaining financial independence. Other plays, such as Mary Rose (1920) and Dear Brutus (1917), returned to themes of childhood and alternate worlds. Barrie worked with other playwrights to challenge censorship by the Lord Chamberlain in 1909 and 1911.
In 1911, Barrie adapted Peter Pan into the novel Peter and Wendy. In April 1929, he gave the copyright of the Peter Pan works to Great Ormond Street Hospital, a children’s hospital in London. The copyright status today is complex. His final play, The Boy David (1936), dramatized the biblical story of King Saul and David. Like Peter Pan, the role of David was played by a woman, Elisabeth Bergner, for whom Barrie wrote the play.
Social connections
J. M. Barrie was part of groups of famous writers and had many well-known friends, including his professional partners. Novelist George Meredith supported Barrie early in his career. Barrie and Robert Louis Stevenson, who lived in Samoa, exchanged many letters. Stevenson invited Barrie to visit him, but they never met. Barrie also became friends with S. R. Crockett, who, like Barrie, sometimes wrote in the Scots dialect. George Bernard Shaw lived near Barrie in London for several years and once acted in a Western movie that Barrie wrote and filmed. H. G. Wells was a lifelong friend and tried to help Barrie when his marriage ended. Barrie met Thomas Hardy through Hugh Clifford while staying in London. He was also friends with John Galsworthy, a Nobel Prize winner.
Barrie kept connections to his hometown of Kirriemuir and visited it often with his wards. When he chose his first personal secretary, he selected Elizabeth Lucas, the wife of E. V. Lucas, who had Scottish ancestors despite her American parents. After Elizabeth moved to Paris, France, Barrie chose Cynthia Asquith as his new secretary.
After World War I, Barrie sometimes stayed at Stanway House near Stanway village in Gloucestershire. He paid for the pavilion at Stanway cricket ground. In 1887, Barrie started an amateur cricket team for friends with similar skill levels. He named the team the Allahakbarries, thinking the Arabic phrase "Allah akbar" meant "Heaven help us" instead of "God is great." Many famous British authors played on the team at different times, including H. G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling, Arthur Conan Doyle, P. G. Wodehouse, Jerome K. Jerome, G. K. Chesterton, A. A. Milne, E. W. Hornung, A. E. W. Mason, Walter Raleigh, E. V. Lucas, Maurice Hewlett, Owen Seaman, Bernard Partridge, George Cecil Ives, George Llewelyn Davies, and the son of Alfred Tennyson. In 1891, Barrie joined the Authors Cricket Club and played for its team, the Authors XI, with Doyle, Wodehouse, and Milne. The Allahakbarries and the Authors XI continued to exist together until 1912.
Barrie became friends with explorer Joseph Thomson and explorer Robert Falcon Scott. He was godfather to Scott’s son Peter and one of the seven people Scott wrote letters to during his final hours on his South Pole expedition. Scott asked Barrie to care for his wife Kathleen and son Peter. Barrie kept the letter for the rest of his life.
In 1896, Barrie’s agent, Addison Bright, convinced him to meet Broadway producer Charles Frohman, who became Barrie’s financial supporter and close friend. Frohman helped produce the first performances of Peter Pan in England and the United States, as well as other plays by Barrie. Frohman refused to board a lifeboat when the RMS Lusitania sank after being attacked by a German submarine. Actress Rita Jolivet was with Frohman, George Vernon, and Captain Alick Scott as the ship sank but survived. She later said Frohman quoted Peter Pan: "Why fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure that life gives us." Barrie sailed on one of Lusitania’s last trips across the Atlantic in September 1914, during which passengers speculated the ship would be used by the British Navy for transporting troops to New York.
Barrie’s secretary from 1917, Cynthia Asquith, was the daughter-in-law of H. H. Asquith, British Prime Minister from 1908 to 1916. In the 1930s, Barrie told stories to the young daughters of the Duke of York, who later became Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret. After meeting Barrie, three-year-old Princess Margaret said, "He is my greatest friend and I am his greatest friend."
Marriage
In 1891, Barrie met actress Mary Ansell when he asked his friend Jerome K. Jerome to introduce him to a talented actress for his play Walker, London. The two became close friends, and Mary helped care for Barrie when he became very ill in 1893 and 1894. They married on July 9, 1894, in Kirriemuir, Scotland, shortly after Barrie recovered. The wedding took place in his parents' home and followed Scottish traditions. It is reported that the marriage was not consummated, and the couple did not have children.
In 1895, the Barries purchased a home on Gloucester Road in South Kensington. Barrie often walked in nearby Kensington Gardens, and in 1900, the couple moved to a house on Bayswater Road that had a view of the gardens. Mary enjoyed decorating and redesigned the ground floor of their home, creating two large rooms with painted wood panels and adding features like a conservatory. That same year, Mary discovered Black Lake Cottage in Surrey, which became a private retreat for the couple.
Beginning in mid-1908, Mary had a romantic relationship with Gilbert Cannan, a man twenty years younger than her and a colleague of Barrie in his work against censorship. The two visited Black Lake Cottage together, a location known only to the staff. When Barrie learned about the affair in July 1909, he asked Mary to end it, but she refused. To avoid a public divorce, Barrie offered a legal separation if she promised not to see Cannan again, but she still refused. Barrie then filed for divorce due to her infidelity, and the court granted the divorce in October 1909. Some of Barrie’s friends asked newspaper editors not to publish details about the divorce, and only three newspapers did so. After the divorce, Barrie continued to financially support Mary by giving her an annual allowance, which was given to her during a private dinner on their wedding anniversary.
Llewelyn Davies family
The Llewelyn Davies family played an important role in Barrie's life. The family included Arthur (1863–1907), Sylvia (1866–1910) (daughter of George du Maurier), and their five sons: George (1893–1915), John (Jack) (1894–1959), Peter (1897–1960), Michael (1900–1921), and Nicholas (Nico) (1903–1980).
Barrie met the family in 1897. He first saw George, Jack, and baby Peter with their nurse, Mary Hodgson, in London’s Kensington Gardens. He lived nearby and often walked his dog, Porthos, in the park. He entertained the boys by wiggling his ears and eyebrows and telling them stories. He met Sylvia later at a dinner party in December. She told Barrie that Peter was named after a character in her father’s book, Peter Ibbetson.
Barrie visited the Davies family often and became a close friend to Sylvia and her sons, even though both were married to other people. In 1901, he invited the family to Black Lake Cottage, where he created an album of photos showing the boys acting out a pirate adventure. The album was called The Boy Castaways of Black Lake Island. Barrie made two copies of the album. One was given to Arthur, who lost it on a train. The only remaining copy is kept at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.
The character of Peter Pan was created to entertain George and Jack. Barrie told the boys that their younger brother, Peter, could fly. He said babies were birds before birth, and parents put bars on windows to stop them from flying away. This idea led to the story of a baby boy who actually flew away.
Arthur Llewelyn Davies died in 1907, and "Uncle Jim" became more involved with the family, helping them financially. His income from Peter Pan and other works was enough to support the family. After Sylvia died in 1910, Barrie claimed they had recently planned to marry. Sylvia’s will did not mention this but named Barrie as a guardian for the boys, along with others. She also wanted Mary Hodgson, the boys’ nurse, to continue caring for them. Barrie changed this in a copy of the will, writing that "Jimmy" (his nickname) should be involved. Barrie and Hodgson did not get along well but worked together as the boys’ caretakers until they grew up.
Barrie had friendships with other children before and after meeting the Davies boys. Some people have guessed that Barrie had inappropriate relationships with children, but there is no proof of this. Nico, the youngest brother, said as an adult that Barrie never acted inappropriately. He believed Barrie was innocent, which is why he could write Peter Pan. His relationships with the surviving Davies boys continued into adulthood.
The Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens was secretly placed there in 1912 for a celebration called May Morning. It was meant to look like Michael in old photos dressed as Peter Pan. However, the sculptor, Sir George Frampton, used a different child as a model. Barrie was unhappy with the statue, saying it did not show the "devil in Peter."
Barrie experienced great sadness when two of the boys he loved most died young. George was killed in battle during World War I in 1915. Michael, who wrote to Barrie daily while at school and university, drowned in 1921 near Oxford, one month before his 21st birthday. Years after Barrie’s death, Peter collected family letters and papers to create a book called Morgue, which included his thoughts about the family and their relationship with Barrie. Peter died in 1960 by jumping in front of a train at Sloane Square station.
Death
J.M. Barrie died from pneumonia in a nursing home on Manchester Street, Marylebone, on June 19, 1937. He was buried in Kirriemuir, next to his parents and two of his siblings. His birthplace at 9 Brechin Road is now a museum managed by the National Trust for Scotland.
Barrie left most of his money to his secretary, Lady Cynthia Asquith, but he did not give her the rights to his books and plays about Peter Pan, including The Little White Bird, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, the play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up, and the novel Peter and Wendy. These rights had already been given to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. Barrie also left money to the surviving Llewelyn Davies brothers and provided for his former wife, Mary Ansell, to receive money every year during her lifetime.
His will also gave £500 to the Bower Free Church in Caithness to honor Rev. James Winter, who was to marry Barrie’s sister in June 1892 but died in a horse-related accident in May 1892. Barrie had many connections to the Free Church of Scotland, including his maternal uncle, Rev. David Ogilvy (1822–1904), who was a minister at Dalziel Church in Motherwell. James and his brother William Winter, both sons of Rev. William Winter, were born in Cortachy. Cortachy is near Kirriemuir, and the Winter family appears to have been closely related to the Ogilvy family.
Honours
Barrie was given the title of baronet by King George V in 1913. In 1922, he was honored as a member of the Order of Merit.
In 1919, he was chosen as Rector of the University of St Andrews for three years. In 1922, he gave a famous speech titled "Courage" at St Andrews. He also visited University College Dundee with Earl Haig to open new playing fields. During this visit, Barrie bowled a few balls to Haig. From 1930 to 1937, he served as Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh.
Barrie was the only person ever given the Freedom of Kirriemuir. This honor was presented to him on June 7, 1930, in Kirriemuir Town Hall. He received a silver casket containing the freedom scroll. The casket was made by Brook & Son, a silversmith in Edinburgh, in 1929. It is decorated with images of places in Kirriemuir that were meaningful to Barrie, including Kirriemuir Townhouse, Strathview, Window in Thrums, the statue of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, and the Barrie Cricket Pavilion. The casket is currently displayed in the Kirriemuir Gateway to the Glens Museum, located in the Kirriemuir Town House.