John Langdon-Davies

John Eric Langdon-Davies (18 March 1897 – 5 December 1971) was a British author and journalist. He was a war correspondent during the Spanish Civil War and the Russo-Finnish war. As a result of his experiences in Spain, he founded the Foster Parents' Scheme for refugee children in Spain, now a huge international organisation called Plan. He was awarded the MBE for services to the Home Guard.

Author of books on military, scientific, historical and Spanish (including Catalan) subjects, Langdon-Davies has been described as "an accomplished war correspondent" and "a brilliant populariser of science and technology".

Langdon-Davies was born in Eshowe, Zululand (now in South Africa) in 1897. He was the son of the teacher Guy Langdon-Davies (died 1900), who described himself as "a Huxleyan, a Voltairean and a Tolstoyan pacifist." Langdon-Davies came to England at the age of six and attended Yardley Park Prep school and Tonbridge School (he disliked the latter intensely). His first published work was an article entitled "The Hermit Crab", which appeared on the young people's page of The Lady in 1910.

In 1917, he published The Dream Splendid, a book of poetry inspired by the beauty of nature. According to one critic, it showed "all the young poet's faults"; to another, "Mr Langdon-Davies's verse owes nothing to the transient excitements of the hour", referring to the fact that it was not influenced by war fever. The Times Literary Supplement said it was "the outcome of a brooding imagination intensely affected by open-air influences....and expressing itself with a real sense of style".

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