Stanley Unwin (publisher)

Sir Stanley Unwin, KCMG (19 December 1884 – 13 October 1968) was a British publisher, founder of the George Allen and Unwin Ltd UK publishing house in 1914. It published serious and sometimes controversial authors such as Bertrand Russell and Mahatma Gandhi.

He was born at 13 Handen Road in Lee, Lewisham, south-east London. The children's writer Ursula Moray Williams was his niece.

Unwin was a lifelong pacifist, and during the First World War, as a conscientious objector, he joined the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD).

In 1936 J. R. R. Tolkien submitted The Hobbit for publication and Unwin paid his ten-year-old son Rayner Unwin a shilling to write a report on the manuscript. Rayner's favourable response prompted Unwin to publish the book. Once the book became a success, Unwin asked Tolkien for a sequel, which eventually became The Lord of the Rings.

Unwin died in 1968 and was honoured with a Blue Plaque at his birthplace.

His birthplace in Handen Road, Lewisham

Blue Plaque on his birthplace.

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