2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the death of the author Robert Cedric Sherriff. Better known to us as R C Sherriff, he lived in Esher for most of his life. This year we’re taking this opportunity to celebrate the versatile talent of the man who was author of plays, novels, screenplays, TV scripts, children’s books, anthologies and joint works, and an amateur actor. In this Marvel we look at how Sherriff’s literary success began and what new material has come into the collections at Surrey History Centre.
The Sherriff Collections
Back in 2014 a project funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund allowed us to make Sherriff’s papers fully accessible to the public through detailed cataloguing. These comprised his personal papers, left to Kingston Grammar School, where he was educated (reference 2332) and papers left in his house ‘Rosebriars’, Esher, on his death which passed to the predecessor of Elmbridge Borough Council (reference 3813). Both collections were subsequently transferred into our care and total nearly 140 boxes. The new catalogues are available online and form part of our R C Sherriff resource on our Exploring Surrey’s Past website. Here you’ll find a whole suite of guides to Sherriff’s life and works, including videos and blogs giving a deeper insight into the collections, and a KS4 schools learning resource.
'Journey’s End': where it all began
Sherriff was one of the 5 million men who served on the Western Front during the First World War. What he experienced there as an officer in the 9th Battalion, The East Surrey Regiment, led him to write his first and most successful play, Journey’s End. Set in the trenches of Northern France in March 1918, the play was first performed for just two nights in December 1928 and featured Laurence Olivier in the lead role as Captain Stanhope. The play transferred to the Savoy Theatre and interest in it snowballed, with translations into dozens of languages and theatre performances from Estonia to Japan. Once an insurance clerk, Sherriff was now catapulted to fame and fortune. Royalties poured in and by the end of 1929 his cash book records that the play had earned him £41,184 13s 8d, a cool £2.2 million in today’s money (reference 2332/4/1/1)! A year later Journey’s End was turned into a film, securing global recognition of Sherriff’s talent and the rest, as they say, is history.
As a literary work, 'Journey’s End' continues to reach new audiences. It has never been out of publication and remains on the school curriculum.
Enduring interest
Through Sherriff’s personal papers we see can see his craft as a writer develop and each year we receive dozens of enquiries about his life and works. He continues to inspire people and new research regularly appears which helps reveal more about his place in the wider field of British film and literature. His published and unpublished works offer opportunities for new adaptations and interest in his lesser-known scripts is growing. Sherriff’s long and successful film screenplay career means that some of his films can be viewed regularly on television and now have near-cult status, especially 'The Dam Busters', 'The Invisible Man', and 'Goodbye Mr Chips' (for which Sherriff was nominated for an Academy Award).
Archival serendipity - new additions the Sherriff Collections
In the world of archives, we are continually amazed by how new material reaches us, and Sherriff is no exception. Interest in him shows no sign of abating and we have established an accruing collection which allows additions from multiple sources to be easily added to the archive (reference 9314), such as programmes for new productions of Sherriff’s plays, research articles, and items connected to the man himself.
A recent addition arrived after the British Library alerted us to an auction lot of scripts and programmes for 'Profit & Loss' and 'Mr Birdie's Finger', two ‘amateur’ plays written by Sherriff prior to Journey’s End. Our wonderful charitable support body, the Surrey History Trust, was able to secure the material. Further research revealed the vendor had inherited the manuscripts through a great-grandfather, Herbert Little (1881 to 1947), who with his wife, Amy, had acted alongside Sherriff in his early amateur productions. These early plays were written and produced by Sherriff to raise funds for small organisations such as Kingston Rowing Club. Through them he realised that he wanted to be a writer, rather than an insurance clerk.
Written in 1922, 'Profit & Loss' was Sherriff’s first full-length play. First performed in Surbiton in January 1923, it follows the fortunes of William Jottings and his family. Sherriff starred in the original performance but we had no complete script, only partial drafts. Now we have a full script with a programme and cast list for its performance by The Strolling Players at Elleray Road, Teddington, on 14 May 1924, in which Herbert and Amy Little appeared (reference 9314/29/1-2).
The second script is a draft for the comedy 'Mr Birdie's Finger', written between April and September 1925 and the last of the ‘amateur’ plays Sherriff’s staged prior to Journey’s End. The plot involves a village under threat of developers and a crucial cricket match in which star bowler Mr Birdie is unable to play because of an injured finger. The draft script bears Sherriff’s name and address and has been amended in his handwriting (he has a unique capital ‘D’), along with staging directions for the cast and a list of set props (reference 9314/29/3-4). Herbert Little is cast as Mr Winter but as he also directed, produced and wrote his own plays, it is possible that some of the script annotations may be in his handwriting. The accompanying programme by The Strolling Players at Teddington has a cast list for a performance, including (Sir) Ben Greet. The play was later reworked into 'Badger's Green' (1930).
The Little family
The Littles shed light on the circle of talented amateur-dramatic friends that surrounded Sherriff. He can’t have failed to have learned from their wider experience and been inspired by them. Herbert had also served in the war and the family lived in Teddington with their two daughters, Marie and Josè. Herbert was acting and writing from as early as 1907 but worked as the director of Mac Fisheries Ltd in London which explains why some of the early Sherriff programmes for plays in which Herbert appears were sponsored by the firm and carry their advertisements. The Littles later moved to Kent and the 1939 Register shows them in Whitstable, with Josè working as a ‘chauffeuse, secretary’ and ‘ambulance driver’.
Fast forward to 1956, and the BBC broadcast the R C Sherriff Festival as part of their popular ‘Light Programme'. This consisted of six plays, including 'Journey's End' and 'Badger's Green' (formerly ‘Mr Birdie’s Finger’), with an introduction by Sherriff. Among his correspondence there is a two-page letter (reference 2332/1/2/5) from Josè (Revell, now married), dated 3 October. She writes:
‘Dear Mr Sherriff
Having just listened to your play “Badger’s Green” on the radio I wondered if the enclosed copy of an old programme would recall some memories - ’
Josè encloses a transcribed cast list from the performance of ‘Mr Birdie’s Finger’ by The Strolling Players in 1925, featuring her father, Herbert. The programme she copied these details from is the very one that went to auction and is now part of our accruing Sherriff collection (reference 9314/29/4). Sherriff replied to Josè on 19 October 1956, with a typed card thanking her for her letter. He annotates it with a handwritten postscript: ‘The old programme was most interesting’. Having relayed the story to the Little family, this card (reference 9314/29/10) has now been donated and sits alongside the scripts and programmes, showing that sometimes serendipity in archives can reunite two sides of a story.
Join us for a celebration of R C Sherriff!
On 8th November we’ll be holding a special ‘Celebrating R C Sherriff’ event with talks from experts Roland Wales and David Cottis. Tickets will be available to book in due course. And throughout the whole of November you can also see our free foyer display ‘To Journey’s End and Beyond: the Life and Legacy of R C Sherriff’.
Images
Select image to view a larger version.
- R C Sherriff standing at the front door of his house ‘Rosebriars’, Esher Park Avenue, Esher, late 1930s (reference 3813/14/2/5)
- Pictorial souvenir programme for 'Journey’s End', produced at the Savoy Theatre, Mon 21 January 1929 (reference 2332/8/12/1/1)
- Typed scripts for R C Sherriff plays ‘Profit and Loss’ (1924) and 'Mr Birdie's Finger' (1925), with performance programmes (reference 9314/29/1-4)
- Programme for the performance of R C Sherriff’s play ‘Mr Birdie’s Finger’, featuring Herbert Little, c.1925 (reference 9314/29/4), with R C Sherriff’s reply to Josè Revell, 19 October 1956 (reference 9314/29/10)
- Letter from Josè Revell to R C Sherriff, reminding him of the ‘old programme’ for ‘Mr Birdie’s Finger’, 3 Oct 1956 (reference 2332/1/2/5)