Title: Ralph Hale Mottram Letter (VMF123), 1933
Administrative/Biographical History
Ralph Hale Mottram (October 30, 1883 – April 16, 1971) was an English writer, known as a novelist, particularly for the Spanish Farm books, and as a war poet of World War I.
His father was the chief clerk of Gurney's Bank in Norwich and Mottram had an idyllic childhood growing up in 'Bank House' - a magnificent George II mansion on Bank Plain - which was later Barclay's Bank and is now a youth center. The Mottrams were non-conformist and worshipped at the Octagon Chapel, Norwich in Colegate.
Mottram went from being a bank clerk in Norwich, before the war, to becoming mayor there in 1953. The Spanish Farm won the 1924 Hawthornden Prize. He also wrote a biography of John Galsworthy.
