British author and banker. Educated at St. Edward’s School, Oxford. He was orphaned at an early age and brought up by his grandmother. His family unable to afford the cost of university he took up a career with the Bank of England where he stayed until ill health caused his retirement, in his late forties, in 1907. During the banking days he wrote (and had published) essays and poems in his spare time. Among his books were Pagan Papers (1893), The Golden Age (1895), Dream Days (1898) and then… The Wind in the Willows (1908) which started life as a bedtime serial tale for his son Alastair.
