A Tribute to Crispin Shelworthy

A Tribute to Crispin Shelworthy - Introduction

"A gentleman of the noblest kind"
Nicolo Paganini

Crispin's favourite horse Wol

You have probably come to this page via one of the links which grateful fans and friends of Crispin Shelworthy have already placed on thousands of pages across the Internet. Perhaps you have never heard of the man himself. Such a treat you have in store! As a young boy I remember seeing Shelworthy in a tea-shop in Brighton. He was old then, and rather deaf. But when I tremulously asked him for his autograph he said nothing, and pointed at the waitress with his stick. Ah, happy days.

Lavinia Shelworthy

There was a time, before many of you were born, when Crispin Shelworthy's name was a household word amongst those who loved art, theatre, music, literature, and collecting teaspoons. He was born in the reign of Queen Victoria and died when Margaret was on the throne. But he is almost forgotten. In fact, in his home village of Bradfield Parva in Hampshire, where his 96 year old daughter Lavinia still runs the local public house, he is completely forgotten, even by his daughter. Of course, she can't even remember what day it is, but it still stands as a symbolic, ironic and probably apostolic fact.

Sad but inevitable. Perhaps, however, through this new, modern exciting medium of the Internet, people can come once more to appreciate a man who, though he died in obscurity and poverty in a hovel in Singapore, was once a giant among smaller men. Clearly, because he was only five feet six inches tall he would not have been a giant amongst larger men, rather he would have seemed small in comparison to (let us say) a Harlem Globetrotter. But we are digressing here. And Crispin Shelworthy, at home, and abroad, in love, and in war, inside and outside, never digressed if he could help it.

Theodore Dorking (rtd)
Jimmy Stewart
It was Shelworthy after all who invented the bicycle clip, some fifteen years before the first bicycle appeared on the roads of England. Shelworthy and Oscar Wilde once shared an omnibus together, although since Wilde was on the top deck with Bosie, Shelworthy never actually met him. In 1901 Shelworthy befriended and financed Arthur Stapleton, the humble inventor of the paper clip holder, and took care of Stapleton's young widow.

He actually moved into their little house in Dorking after the tragic explosion in the Winstanley Road Works, and remained there for six months until Julia Stapleton had recovered sufficiently to be left alone. And for many years afterwards Shelworthy was a frequent visitor.

Percy Bysshe Shelworthy
Arthur Stapleton
He made many films of course; his first Massacre in Sumatra in 1907, when in the background of one of the epic crowd scenes may be spotted future stars Charles Bronson, Noel Coward and Stan Laurel. It's said that in his 1911 production of Henry VIII and his Five Wives it was Shelworthy who persuaded fledgling director John Huston to give the young Judy Garland her first screen role. Gregory Peck, Gary Cooper and Henry Fonda never appeared in any of his movies, although he kept signed photographs of all of them in his dressing room.

Dorothy Sandwich
A woman alone!
The aim of this new Website is to introduce Crispin Shelworthy to a new generation. For too long his books have languished unread, and his films remained unseen except by a few insomniacs subscribing to very cheap cable channels. His war record is almost forgotten, and we are even now searching for rare photographs of his 1917 meetings with Lloyd George, and Woodrow Wilson.

And we also hope that those who remember Crispin, who knew him personally, may feel the need to email us with their memories.

Small fonts make very nice Christmas gifts
introduction - childhood - arthur - love - war - parliament - cycling - music - links - email

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Last modified July 9, 1906