John Meade Falkner, born 8th May, 1858, in Wiltshire, England, was the eldest surviving son of Reverend Thomas Alexander Falkner (1819-87) and his wife, Elizabeth Grace (Mead). His father remained a curate all his life. John had an older and a younger sister, and two younger brothers.
His education started with Latin lessons from his mother, commencing on his fifth birthday, and Greek from his father on his sixth, which gave him a life-long love of classical learning.
His early education was at a private school in Dorchester. When the family moved to Weymouth he attended Weymouth Grammar School from age 13. He was an exceptionally tall boy, eventually reaching 6 foot 9 inches in height. From age 15 to 19 he was at Marlborough College working towards a University entrance. At Marlborough he produced his first poetry.
From age 20 to 24 he read Modern History at Hertford College, Oxford, graduating with only a Third Class Degree. But he read widely during this time and mastered several modern languages in addition to his Latin and Greek.
In January 1883, he met John Noble, then an Eton schoolboy having problems preparing for his Oxford University entrance examinations. He was taken on as a tutor for John by the father, Andrew Noble, who was the operational head of Armstrong & Co., a world-ranking engineering and armaments firm that was later to become Armstrong Mitchell & Co., and, later still, Armstrong Whitworth.
So JMF became a member of the Noble household, almost one of the family, tutoring first John, then the younger children as needed and, when, about 1885, these responsibilities disappeared, becoming a personal secretary to Andrew Noble.
In 1887, his father, Thomas Falkner died intestate (his mother, Elizabeth Grace having died in 1871) and the family income, based, as it was, on a marriage settlement, ended with this death. The Falkner family fell on hard times—they even had to take in lodgers! JMF, however, was doing well enough by then to put both his brothers through Cambridge University and his sisters through Art School (Anne moved to London in 1889, attended the Slade School of Art, and went on to a successful career as a painter).
In 1888 he was made Company Secretary to Armstrong Mitchell & Co. Because of his abilities and Noble family contacts, his climb was rapid; he became Secretary to the newly amalgamated Armstrong Whitworth Co. in 1897 and a director in 1901. His command of foreign languages, which allowed him to negotiate for the company directly with foreign governments as well as follow military reports from around the world, made him an invaluable member of the firm; so much so that, in 1915, at the height of the 1914-18 World War, he was elected Chairman of the Board of Armstrong Whitworth following the death of Sir Andrew Noble. Remember that this was a world-class armaments company that was a major staple of Britain’s war effort. He travelled widely on behalf of the company, but he always tried to use his travels to follow up his personal mediaeval studies. Such a position is seldom occupied by one mainly thought of as a novelist, poet and aesthete (for very long at least)! But he held this post until 1920 and remained a member of the board until finally retiring in 1926, when the company was reconstructed. His lucrative career easily financed his growing collection of old books and medieval manuscripts.
In 1899, at the age of 40, he had married Evelyn Violet Adye who was then 29. The marriage lasted the rest of his life, but seems to have been, on his part at least, a relatively passionless affair, for he appears to have been a natural celibate. There were no children. Shortly afterwards the couple moved into ‘Divinity House’ in Durham, a home he was to occupy until he died. Evelyn was very definitely the junior member of this partnership and he never referred to her opinion on any subject; he seems to have had a very low opinion of female capabilities in general.
All sorts of medieval lore appealed to him—black-letter, demonology, and old Church music. He was an assiduous collector of rare books, especially of missals. His whole life had a strange dualism, for this mediaevally minded humanist rose to his high position as chairman of a great industrial corporation not by favouritism, but on his merits, and as the direct result of their recognition by the creator of the firm and his ablest successor. Falkner’s annual statements were models of lucidity and were marked by a distinction of style that never failed him whatever he wrote.
He wrote beautifully, in every sense of the word, for until he was disabled by writer’s cramp his script, modelled upon that of the best mediaeval scribes, was exquisitely decorative as well as perfectly legible, and a letter from him was a work of art as well as a revelation the workings of an original and obvservant mind. Some of his earliest literary ventures were of an instructive order—his admirable “History of Oxfordshire,” and his handbooks to Oxfordshire and Berkshire in Murray’s series, for which he prepared himself by long bicycle tours of exploration visiting country churches and villages. In fiction he made his mark in “The Lost Stradivarius” (1895), a romantic ghost story, tinged with mysticism, in which his command of atmosphere and of the “law of suspense” was strikingly displayed. “Moonfleet” (1898), a story of the old smuggling days on the South Coast, is a more straightforward story, which suggests comparisons with Stevenson in subject, but is written in Falkner’s own style in which every word is right and in the right place. But “The Nebuly Coat” (1903) is a far higher achievement, and still remains one of the best novels, appreciation of which establishes a curious link of sympathy between its admirers. He had written a considerable part of a fourth novel, but left the only copy in a bag in the train on his daily journey from Durham to Elswick, and never saw it again. His friends often begged him to rewrite it, but he declared that he was too old for the task.
After the War he published anonymously a brief but most illuminating, study of Bath in its palmy days, and he contributed to Cornhill (December, 1916) the short story entitled “Charalampia,” an entirely fascinating pseudo-historical romance of the Byzantine period. For, while a devout reader of the classics, his studies were not confined to the canon.
His first book, “A Pocket Guide to Oxfordshire”, was published in 1894. This was followed by “The Lost Stradivarius” (1895), “Moonfleet” (1896) and, in 1899, “A History of Oxfordshire”. His last books were “A Pocket Guide to Berkshire” (1902), and “The Nebuly Coat” (1903). He had been writing poetry ever since his days at Marlborough, but, as his health worsened, and his interest in ecclesiastical affairs increased, his poetic output declined considerably. A recent commentator wrote that it is very hard to distinguish between the poetic work of Falkner, and that of John Betjeman, the better part of a century later.
In retirement, he became deeply involved in both Durham University, where he was Honorary Reader in Palaeography and Durham Cathedral where he was Honorary Librarian to the Dean and Chapter, giving him the honour of showing King Alfonso over the treasures of the Library.
He died on 22nd July, 1932, in the same year that his one remaining brother, Charles, died, with whom he shared a memorial in Burford churchyard.
The extent of his charities, whether in cash or kind, if it could be known, must have been astonishingly large, while the amount of time he took to comfort the downhearted or ailing must have added heavy burdens to his daily work. Throughout his life Falkner, though his remarkable gifts were fully acknowledged by his friends and associates, contrived to keep completely out of the limelight, and never asked for, or received, any State recognition of his servies in his own country. He was given decorations by the Turkish, Italian, and Japanese Governments, but the honours that he valued far the most were conferred on him as a man of letters, and involved no initials after his name or handle in front of it.
Academically, he was honorary Reader in Palaeography to the University of Durham; and last, and most treasured distinction of all, was made an honorary Fellow of his former Oxford College, Hertford, in 1927.