Thomas Hinde | |
|---|---|
| Born | Thomas Willes Chitty 2 March 1926 Felixstowe,Suffolk, England |
| Died | 7 March 2014(2014-03-07) (aged 88) West Hoathly,West Sussex, England |
| Occupation | Novelist and nonfiction author |
| Citizenship | British |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 4 |
Sir Thomas Willes Chitty, 3rd Baronet (2 March 1926 – 7 March 2014), better known by hispen nameThomas Hinde, was a British novelist.
Thomas Chitty was born inFelixstowe,Suffolk, England, the son ofSir Thomas Henry Willes Chitty, 2nd Baronet, a barrister, and his wife Ethel Constance Gladstone, daughter of Samuel Henry Gladstone.[1] He was educated atWinchester College andUniversity College, Oxford. After service in theRoyal Navy, he worked briefly for theInland Revenue and then for theShell Petroleum Company, before becoming a full-time writer. He became abaronet on the death of his father in 1955.
Chitty marriedSusan Hopkinson (1929-2021), daughter of the novelistAntonia White, in 1951;[2] the couple remained married until his death in 2014 and had four children. Hinde and his wife, also an author writing under the nameSusan Chitty, lived at Bow Cottage,West Hoathly,West Sussex, a village on the edge ofAshdown Forest in theHigh Weald.[3][4]
The surname Hinde belonged to Chitty's family history on his mother's side. Samuel Henry Gladstone (1853–1932) was son of Robert Gladstone, the younger (1811–1872), of Highfield, Cheetham Hill, Manchester, a member of the Liverpool Gladstone family. Robert Gladstone married in 1852 Anne Mary Hinde, daughter of Samuel Hinde of Lancaster; and after her death another Miss Hinde, a cousin of his first wife.[5][6][7][8][9]
His first novel,Mr Nicholas, was published in 1953.[10] His second,Happy As Larry, the story of a disaffected, unemployable, aspiring writer with a failed marriage, led critics to associate him with theAngry Young Men movement.[11] An excerpt fromHappy As Larry appeared in the popular paperback anthology,Protest: The Beat Generation and the Angry Young Men.[12]
Hinde published thirteen further novels before turning to non-fiction. After 1980, he also published books on English stately homes and gardens, English court life, and the forests of Britain, as well as histories of English schools.
 | This sectionlacksISBNs for the books listed. Please helpadd the ISBNs or run thecitation bot.(April 2015) |
| Baronetage of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Henry Willes Chitty | Baronet (of the Temple) 1955–2014 | Succeeded by Edward Wiles Chitty |
