D.H.Lawrence in Croydon

Lawrence, living and working in Croydon.

David Herbert Lawrence moved to Croydon from Nottinghamshire in 1908-12 and later in 1916. Lawrence stayed in Croydon only until 1912 however and soon after found himself travelling to Germany and Italy for two years returning in 1914 to England and married to Frieda von Richthofen. Lawrence returned to Croydon in 1916 to take up a new job – that of school master at Davidson Road School – a short distance from his new home in Croydon.

Lawrence was born in Eastwood Nottinghamshire in 1885 the fourth child of a miner. His first job at 13 was with a manufacturers in Nottingham. This he soon abandoned in favour of becoming a qualified teacher in Eastwood itself. 

He began his first novel The White Peacock whilst he attended Nottingham University for his teacher’s certificate. This was published in 1911 and was very successful. From that time onward with the exception of the short time teaching in Croydon he lived entirely by his writing and was the beginning of a writing career that made him one of the most significant writers of the 20thCentury. In 1919 the Lawrence’s left England, and travelled first in Europe, then in Australia and America. They settled for a while in New Mexico, but came back to Europe in 1929. In that year Lawrence became seriously ill, and he died of tuberculosis on 2 March 1930.

D.H. Lawrence by Elliott & Fry
© National Portrait Gallery, London

Davidson Road School PH-97-20056

The Davidson Road School in Croydon had some very poor boys and it was not to be an easy introduction for the young schoolmaster. However, ‘he was dedicated and innovative – he encouraged the boys to act out The Tempest rather than sitting at their desks reading it’- and the headmaster was pleased with his work (even if Lawrence himself was not too happy). In his free time Lawrence wrote.

Log book from Davidson Road School

In 1911 Lawrence suffered from ill-health that was to affect him for most of his life thereafter. The doctor told him outright that to return to teaching would be to court tuberculosis and so, again, it became necessary for Lawrence to consider a change of career. A German uncle suggested a plan whereby Lawrence could possibly become a Lektor in a German university. ‘Lawrence accepted the invitation and within two months was in Germany (not, however, as a Lektor but as the lover of Frieda Weekley, the thirty two year old mother of Weekley's three children!)’

Perhaps out of unhappiness or just to pass the time I have heard from one of the well-known teachers of recent times that Lawrence used to on breaks from his duties at the school would go up to the top floor of the main school building and watch the trains go by from the nearby Norwood Junction to Croydon mainline.

In recognition of Lawrence’s stay at the school there is a bust of him on one of the walls in the main old hall of the school. He found the demands of teaching in a large school in a poor area very different from those at Eastwood under a protective headmaster. Nevertheless he established himself as an energetic teacher, ready to use new teaching methods.

I find that the fact that Lawrence lived and taught in Croydon really adds to the cultural landscape of the past and of Croydon as a borough because Lawrence became such a successful and influential writer even though his stay in Croydon was quite short.

Simon Barnett
Collections Access Officer


Sources: The Young Lawrence by Helen Croom
hwww.spartacus-educational.com