Harold Begbie

Edward Harold Begbie (1871–1929), also known as Harold Begbie, was an English author and journalist who published nearly 50 books and poems and contributed to periodicals. Besides studies of the Christian religion, he wrote numerous other books, including political satire, comedy, fiction, science fiction, plays and poetry. Begbie was born in 1871, the fifth son of Mars Hamilton Begbie, rector of Fornham, St. Martin, Suffolk; he died in London on 8 October 1929.

At first Begbie took up farming, but later moved to London and joined the Daily Chronicle and later the Globe. He wrote books of popular verse, and much literature for children. He was a close friend of journalist Arthur Mee. When Mee embarked on his Children's Encyclopædia in its initial fortnightly serial form, he gave to Begbie the task of writing a series on "Bible Stories".

At the outbreak of World War I Begbie wrote a number of recruiting poems and visited America on behalf of his paper. Some of the articles he wrote there were used as propaganda.

Begbie had a strong religious bent: he was involved in the Oxford Group (which later became Moral Re-Armament) and with the Salvation Army. His concern with social reform appeared strongly in his book The Little that is Good (1917), where he wrote about charitable work among the poor of London. He raised large sums of money for East End charities.

Begbie might be described as a Broad Church Anglican, who was interested in the ways in which modern science seemed to cast doubt on materialism by showing matter was more complicated than previously believed. He was hostile to Anglo-Catholic Ritualism and to Roman Catholicism; several pre-First World War novels portray Ritualists as sinister and dishonest crypto-Catholic conspirators. His 1914 book The Lady Next Door, however, supports Irish home rule and gives an idealised portrayal of Catholicism in Ireland as a genuinely popular religion. His hostile view of urban industrial society in Belfast was criticised by many Ulster Unionists including the writer St. John Ervine.

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