Eric Whelpton
Eric George Whelpton was an author, teacher and traveller.Early life and education
Whelpton was the son of the Revd George Whelpton, minister of Trinity Methodist Church, Abingdon-on-Thames, Berkshire. From Abingdon School 1906-1909 and the Leys School, Cambridge, he entered Hertford College, Oxford in 1913.Career
Whelpton taught at Christ Church Cathedral School. At the University of Oxford, Whelpton became a close friend of Dorothy Sayers; upon him she perhaps based the character of Lord Peter Wimsey. Whelpton later taught French at King's College School, London, and was reader in comparative education at King's College London. Following the death of her husband, Dorothy Sayers acted as Whelpton's literary secretary. During World War II, Whelpton worked as a BBC news correspondent in France and, as recounted in his travel book, The Balearics:Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza, he was told by a Swiss correspondent that he was on the Gestapo blacklist.
His last two books, The Making of a European and The Making of an Englishman, are largely autobiographical. From 1943 he was married to the artist and travel writer Barbara Crocker who illustrated a number of his books.
