Nevil Shute | |
|---|---|
 Shute in 1949 | |
| Born | Nevil Shute Norway (1899-01-17)17 January 1899 Ealing, Middlesex, England |
| Died | 12 January 1960(1960-01-12) (aged 60) Melbourne, Victoria, Australia |
| Occupation |
|
| Education | Balliol College, Oxford |
Nevil Shute Norway (17 January 1899 – 12 January 1960) was an English novelist andaeronautical engineer who spent his later years in Australia. He used his full name in his engineering career andNevil Shute as his pen name to protect his engineering career from inferences by his employers (Vickers) or from fellow engineers that he was "not a serious person"[1] or from potentially adverse publicity in connection with his novels, which includedOn the Beach andA Town Like Alice.
Shute was born in Somerset Road,Ealing (which was then inMiddlesex), in the house described in his novelTrustee from the Toolroom. He was educated at theDragon School,Shrewsbury School andBalliol College, Oxford; he graduated from Oxford in 1922 with a third-class degree in engineering science.
Shute was the son of Arthur Hamilton Norway, who became head of the Post Office inIreland before the First World War and was based at theGeneral Post Office, Dublin in 1916 at the time of theEaster Rising, and his wife Mary Louisa Gadsden. Shute himself was later commended for his role as a stretcher-bearer during the rising.[2][3] His grandmotherGeorgina Norway was a novelist.
Shute attended theRoyal Military Academy, Woolwich, and trained as a gunner. He was unable to take up a commission in theRoyal Flying Corps in theFirst World War, which he believed was because of his stammer. He served as a soldier in theSuffolk Regiment, enlisting in the ranks in August 1918. He guarded theIsle of Grain in the Thames Estuary, and served in military funeral parties in Kent during the1918 flu pandemic.[2]
Anaeronautical engineer as well as a pilot, Shute began his engineering career with thede Havilland Aircraft Company. He used his pen-name as an author to protect his engineering career from any potentially adverse publicity in connection with his novels.[4]
Dissatisfied with the lack of opportunities for advancement, he took a position in 1924 withVickers Ltd., where he was involved with the development ofairships, working as Chief Calculator (stress engineer) on theR100 airship project for the Vickers subsidiary Airship Guarantee Company. In 1929, he was promoted to deputychief engineer of the R100 project underBarnes Wallis. When Wallis left the project, Shute became the chief engineer.[2]
The R100 was a prototype for passenger-carrying airships that would serve the needs of Britain's empire. The government-funded but privately developed R100 made a successful 1930 round trip toCanada. While in Canada it made trips fromMontreal toOttawa, Toronto, andNiagara Falls. The fatal 1930 crash nearBeauvais, France, of its government-developed counterpartR101 ended British interest indirigibles. The R100 was immediately grounded and subsequently scrapped.
Shute gives a detailed account of the development of the two airships in his 1954autobiographical work,Slide Rule: Autobiography of an Engineer.[5] When he started, he wrote that he was shocked to find that before building theR38 the civil servants concerned '"had made no attempt to calculate the aerodynamic forces acting on the ship"' but had just copied the size of girders in German airships.[6] The calculations for just one transverse frame of the R100 could take two or three months, and the solution '"almost amounted to a religious experience."[7] But later he wrote that '"the disaster was the product of the system rather than the men at Cardington"; the one thing that was proved is that "government officials are totally ineffective in engineering development" and any weapons (they develop) will be bad weapons. The R101 made one short test flight in perfect weather, and was given an airworthiness certificate for her flight to India to meet the minister’s deadline. Norway thought it probable that a new outer cover for the R101 was taped on with rubber adhesive which reacted with the dope.[8] His account is very critical of the R101 design and management team, and strongly hints that senior team members were complicit in concealing flaws in the airship's design and construction. InThe Tender Ship,Manhattan Project engineer andVirginia Tech professorArthur Squires used Shute's account of the R100 and R101 as a primary illustration of his thesis that governments are usually incompetent managers of technology projects.[9]
In 1931, with the cancellation of the R100 project, Shute teamed up with the talented de Havilland-trained designerA. Hessell Tiltman to found the aircraft construction companyAirspeed Ltd.[2] A site was available in a formertrolleybus garage on Piccadilly,York.[10] Despite setbacks, including the usual problems of a new business, Airspeed Limited eventually gained recognition when itsEnvoy aircraft was chosen for theKing's Flight. With the approach of theSecond World War, a military version of the Envoy was developed, to be called theAirspeed Oxford. The Oxford became the standard advanced multi-engined trainer for theRAF and British Commonwealth, with over 8,500 being built.
For the innovation of developing a hydraulic retractable undercarriage for theAirspeed Courier, and his work on R100, Shute was made a Fellow of theRoyal Aeronautical Society.
On 7 March 1931, Shute married Frances Mary Heaton, a 28-year-old medical practitioner. They had two daughters, (Heather) Felicity and Shirley.
By the outbreak of the Second World War, Shute was a rising novelist. Even as war seemed imminent he was working on military projects with his former boss at Vickers,Sir Dennistoun Burney. He was commissioned into theRoyal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) as a sub-lieutenant, having joined as an "elderly yachtsman" and expected to be in charge of a drifter or minesweeper, but after two days he was asked about his career and technical experience. He reached the "dizzy rank" of lieutenant commander, knowing nothing about "Sunday Divisions" and secretly fearing when he went on a little ship that he would be the senior naval officer and "have to do something".[11]
So he ended up in theDirectorate of Miscellaneous Weapons Development. There he was a head of engineering, working on secret weapons such asPanjandrum, a job that appealed to the engineer in him. He also developed theRocket Spear, an anti-submarine missile with a fluted cast iron head. After the first U-boat was sunk by it,Charles Goodeve sent him a message concluding "I am particularly pleased as it fully substantiates the foresight you showed in pushing this in its early stages. My congratulations."[12]
His celebrity as a writer caused theMinistry of Information to send him to theNormandy Landings on 6 June 1944 and later toBurma as a correspondent. He finished the war with the rank of lieutenant commander in the RNVR.
Shute's first novel,Stephen Morris, was written in 1923, but not published until 1961 (with its 1924 sequel,Pilotage).
His first published novel wasMarazan, which came out in 1926. After that he averaged one novel every two years until the 1950s, with the exception of a six-year hiatus while he was establishing his own aircraft construction company, Airspeed Ltd. Sales of his books grew slowly with each novel, but he became much better known after the publication of his third to last book,On the Beach, in 1957.
Shute's novels are written in a simple, highly readable style, with clearly delineated plot lines. Many of the stories are introduced by a narrator who is not a character in the story. The most common theme in Shute's novels is thedignity of work, spanning all classes, whether a Spanish bar hostess in the Balkans (Ruined City) or a brilliant but unworldlyboffin (No Highway). His novels are in three main clusters: early pre-war flying adventures; Second World War tales; and stories set in Australia.
Another recurrent theme is the bridging of social barriers such as class (Lonely Road andLandfall), race (The Chequer Board), or religion (Round the Bend). The Australian novels are individual hymns to that country, with subtle disparagement of the mores of the United States (Beyond the Black Stump) and overt antipathy towards the post-World War II socialist government of Shute's native Britain (The Far Country andIn the Wet).
Aviation and engineering provide the backdrop for many of Shute's novels. He identified how engineering, science, and design could improve human life and more than once used the anonymous epigram, "It has been said an engineer is a man who can do for ten shillings what any fool can do for a pound."[4]
Several of Shute's novels explored the boundary between accepted science and rational belief, on the one hand, andmystical orparanormal possibilities, includingreincarnation, on the other hand. Shute did this by including elements of fantasy and science fiction in novels that were considered mainstream. They includedBuddhist astrology and folk prophecy inThe Chequer Board; the effective use of aplanchette inNo Highway; amessiah figure inRound the Bend; reincarnation, science fiction, and Aboriginal psychic powers inIn the Wet.
Twenty-four of his novels and novellas have been published. Many of his books have been adapted for the screen, includingLonely Road in 1936;Landfall: A Channel Story in 1949;Pied Piper in 1942 and again in 1959, and also asCrossing to Freedom, a CBSmade-for-television movie, in 1990;On the Beach in 1959 and again in 2000 as a two-part miniseries; andNo Highway in 1951.A Town Like Alice was adapted into a film in 1956, serialised forAustralian television in 1981, and also broadcast onBBC Radio 2 in 1997 starringJason Connery,Becky Hindley,Bernard Hepton andVirginia McKenna. Shute's 1952 novelThe Far Country was filmed for television as six one-hour episodes in 1972, and as a two-partminiseries in 1987.[13]
Vintage Books reprinted all 23 of his books in 2009.[14]
Shute's final work was published more than 40 years after his death.The Seafarers was first drafted in 1946–47, rewritten, and then put aside. In 1948, Shute again rewrote it, changing the title toBlind Understanding, but he left the manuscript incomplete. According to Dan Telfair in the foreword of the 2002 edition, some of the themes inThe Seafarers andBlind Understanding were used in Shute's 1955 novelRequiem for a Wren.[15]
In 1948, Shute flew his ownPercival Proctor aeroplane to Australia and back, accompanied by the writerJames Riddell, who published a book,Flight of Fancy, based on the trip, in 1950.[16]
On his return, concerned about what he saw as he "felt oppressed by British taxation", he decided that he and his family would move to Australia. In 1950, he settled with his wife and two daughters on farmland atLangwarrin, south-east ofMelbourne.[17] Remembering his 1930 trip to Canada and his decision to immigrate to Australia, he wrote, in 1954, "For the first time in my life I saw how people live in an English-speaking country outside England."[18] Although he intended to remain in Australia, he did not apply forAustralian citizenship, which was at that time a mere formality because he was aBritish citizen.[19] In the 1950s and 1960s he was one of the world's best-selling novelists.[20] Between 1956 and 1958 in Australia, he took up car racing as a hobby, driving a whiteJaguar XK140.[21] Some of this experience found its way into his bookOn the Beach.
Shute died in Melbourne in 1960 after a stroke.[22]
Norway Road and Nevil Shute Road atPortsmouth Airport, Hampshire were both named after him. Shute Avenue inBerwick, Victoria was named after him, when the farm used for filming the 1959 filmOn the Beach was subdivided for housing.
The public library inAlice Springs,Northern Territory is the Nevil Shute Memorial Library.[23]
In the Readers' List of theModern Library 100 Best Novels of the 20th century,A Town Like Alice came in at number 17,Trustee from the Toolroom at 27, andOn the Beach at 56.[24]
