Evelyn Wrench

Evelyn Wrench
Evelyn Wrench at English-Speaking Union
Born	29 October 1882 Brookeborough, County Fermanagh, Ireland
Died	1966
Occupation	Author
Spouse(s)	Hylda Henrietta Brooke

Sir John Evelyn Leslie Wrench, CMG, LLD (1882–1966), was a British author and the founder of the Royal Over-Seas League and the English-Speaking Union.

Wrench was born on 29 October 1882, in Brookeborough, County Fermanagh, part of the Province of Ulster in Ireland, the son of the Rt. Hon. Frederick Stringer Wrench (1849-1926), an Irish Land Commissioner, Deputy Lieutenant and Privy Councillor, by his wife Charlotte Mary Bellingham (1848-1935), sister of Sir Henry Bellingham, 4th Baronet.

At the age of five years, his favourite literature was Army and Navy Stores catalogues, which his parents gave him to keep him quiet during railway journeys. He attended Summer Fields Preparatory School (1896), and Eton College (1896-1899), where he was remembered for his kindness towards new boys, and as the best looking boy in the school.

Upon leaving Eton, Wrench travelled on the Continent to learn languages with the idea of entering the Diplomatic Service. He noticed the lead that the Continent had over Great Britain in the production of picture postcards, and upon his return instituted a firm that soon became the largest of its kind in the country. This occupied him from 1900 until 1904, when the firm failed, mainly through too rapid an expansion and lack of capital. This venture indicated the enterprising spirit that Wrench possessed, and its failure in no way lowered his reputation.

The future Lord Northcliffe had observed Wrench's qualities and invited him to join his staff, which he did in 1904. He was editor of The Overseas Daily Mail and in addition manager of the export department of the Amalgamated Press from 1907 and sales manager from 1909. Wrench, however, was less interested in success in journalism than in his visions of Commonwealth development awakened by his visits to Canada and the United States. He told in his book "Uphill", the first volume of his autobiography, how in 1910 a turning point came in his life, crystallizing itself in his memory as a "vision" that came to him at the memorial service to King Edward VII in Westminster Abbey, where he said, "the scales fell from my eyes, I vowed I would devote my life to great causes -- to the Empire, to my fellows."