Major General John Hay Beith, CBE MC (17 April 1876 – 22 September 1952), was a British schoolmaster and soldier, but is best remembered as a novelist, playwright, essayist, and historian who wrote under the pen name Ian Hay.
After reading Classics at Cambridge University, Beith became a schoolmaster. In 1907 his novel Pip was published; its success and that of several more novels enabled him to give up teaching in 1912 to be a full-time writer. During the First World War, Beith served as an officer in the army in France. His good-humoured account of army life, The First Hundred Thousand, published in 1915, was a best-seller. On the strength of this, he was sent to work in the information section of the British War Mission in Washington, D.C.
After the war, Beith's novels did not achieve the popularity of his earlier work, but he made a considerable career as a dramatist, writing light comedies, often in collaboration with other authors including P. G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton. During the Second World War Beith served as Director of Public Relations at the War Office, retiring in 1941 shortly before his 65th birthday.
Among Beith's later works were several war histories, which were not as well received as his comic fiction and plays. His one serious play, Hattie Stowe (1947), was politely reviewed but had a short run. In the same year he co-wrote a comedy, Off the Record, which ran for more than 700 performances.
Life and career
Early years
John Hay Beith was born at Platt Abbey, Rusholme, Manchester, the third son and sixth child of John Alexander Beith, and his wife Janet, née Fleming. Beith senior was a cotton merchant, magistrate, and leading member of the local Liberals. Both Beith's parents were of Scottish descent; his paternal grandfather was a Presbyterian clergyman, Alexander Beith, one of the founders of the Free Church of Scotland in 1843. Like his father, Beith had a lifelong pride in his Scottish ancestry; he did not share his father's political views, and was a Conservative.
Beith was educated at a Manchester preparatory school, Lady Barn House, and then at Fettes College, Edinburgh. A contemporary there was the future Liberal cabinet minister John Simon, for whom the young Beith fagged. From Fettes he went up to St John's College, Cambridge, where he read Classics, distinguished himself at rugby, and captained the college boat club. After graduating with a second class degree, he held temporary teaching posts at Charterhouse and Fettes. Unable to secure a permanent position teaching Classics he returned to Cambridge and spent what a biographer called "a laborious year in acquiring sufficient knowledge of chemistry and physics to fit him for a Senior Mastership".
Beith joined Durham School in 1902 as junior science master; he also coached the rugby and boating crews. Durham was the model for Marbledown School in his 1936 play Housemaster. After four years at Durham, Beith taught for six years at Fettes, as master of one of the lower forms. He spent much of his leisure time in writing. His first novel, the schoolboy romance Pip (1907), appeared while he was still teaching at the school. He used the pen-name Ian Hay to save himself embarrassment in his professional capacity if the book failed. He offered the work to a succession of publishing firms, but it was rejected. Finally he paid a firm £50 to publish the book. Pip was an immediate success, and was still selling forty years later. It was a critical as well as a commercial success: The Times Literary Supplement said, "Pip is a restful and cheering book. We recommend it earnestly to any one who may be suffering from a glut of the 'feminism' of the current English imitations of Maupassant." Beith's cautiously adopted pen name was redundant for its original purpose of camouflage in case of failure, but he decided to stick with it; he remained "Ian Hay" in all his published work thereafter. Between 1908 and 1914 he followed Pip with five more novels, characterised by The Times as "of the right stuff and happy-go-lucky, their good feeling saved from insipidity by its seasoning of piquant humour".
In 1912, Beith resigned from Fettes, to work full-time as an author. In April the following year he was chosen as prospective Unionist (i.e. Conservative) candidate for the Kirkcaldy Burghs constituency. He was unable to contest the seat as there was no general election until 1918, when the Unionists did not oppose the sitting member, a coalition Liberal.