Nineteenth Issue: The Llewelyn Davies Boys

I spent some time this week reading about J. M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan, and the Llewelyn Davies boys who inspired his story. Barrie became friends with the boys when they were young, and he became their guardian when their parents died. There were five boys, George, Jack, Peter, Michael, and Nico. The boys were middle class, and their father was a barrister. They became friends with J. M. Barrie in 1897 when he met George, Jack, and Peter in Kensington Gardens where their nanny had taken them to play.  They called him Uncle Jim, and he entertained them by dancing with his dog Porthos, wiggling his ears, and telling stories. Below is a picture of all five of the boys, with baby Nico in his father's arms.

 

 

The boys’ father died in 1907, and their mother raised them until she also died in 1910. When their parents were sick, Barrie became even closer to them, including helping them out with financial troubles. At first the boys’ father didn’t like Barrie because he saw him as usurping his position as the boys’ father, but then when he got a malignant sarcoma, he had surgery. He was unable to talk and was in pain, and Barrie not only paid for his medical care but stayed with him at his bedside. They became much closer at this time, friends. As their guardian after the boys’ parents’ death, Barrie provided housing and education to the boys until they were financially independent.

Barrie himself married an actress named Mary Ansell, but his wife had an affair with a man called Gilbert Cannan, and he got a divorce in 1909. She married Gilbert, and for years and years after that she still met up with Barrie on their wedding anniversary for dinner and he would give her an annual allowance.

 Now that you’ve got some background, let me get to the actual boys in question. The oldest son was named George, and the character of Mr. George Darling from Peter Pan was named for him. He was four years old when he met Barrie, and was the inspiration for a lot of Peter Pan’s adventures. Apparently he was responsible for the famous line, “to die will be an awfully big adventure”. George and his younger brother Michael were the two closes Llewelyn Davies boys to Barrie, and George would write to him all the time when he was at boarding school.

 

 

George went to Eton College and played cricket. He also attended Trinity College and performed in plays. When the UK entered World War One, George volunteered. He died of a gunshot wound to the head. He was only twenty-one years old.

 

 

Above is a picture of Jack. Jack was the second son. Wendy Darling’s older brother, John Darling, was named after him. Unlike his brothers, Jack went to the Osborne Naval College. He wasn’t as close to Barrie as his brothers were, resenting him for trying to take his father’s place. Just before his mother died, he joined the Royal Navy and served in World War I. He got married in 1917 to a woman called Geraldine “Gerrie” Gibb, and though Barrie disapproved of their relationship, he let them have the Davies family house, where the youngest boys still lived during summer vacations. Gerrie, however, didn’t get along with Mary Hodgson, the boys’ nanny, and she ended up resigning. Jack had two kids, and died in 1959 of lung disease at the age of 65.

Peter was the middle son. He is the boy whom Peter Pan is named after. He was just a baby when Barrie first became friends with his older brothers. He volunteered with his brother George to fight in World War I, and won the Military Cross, but ended up with PTSD. He began a relationship with a painter/costume designer named Vera Willoughby, who was married with a daughter older than he was. He stayed with her during the war whenever he was on leave, despite both Barrie and his nanny disapproving of them. After the war, with Barrie’s help, Peter founded a publishing house that published his cousin Daphne du Maurier’s work. In 1931, he married a woman named Margaret Ruthven and had three sons. Here's a picture of Peter.



Peter didn’t like being associated with Peter Pan. When Barrie died and all of his money went to his secretary, and the copyright for Peter Pan works went to the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, Peter was upset. He and his brothers got some money, but he felt he should have gotten more. He became an alcoholic. Peter wanted “recompense…for the notoriety he had experienced since being linked with Peter Pan – something he hated,” his son later said. In 1960, Peter threw himself under a train, committing suicide. It wasn’t Peter Pan alone that drove him to death, but he just found out that his wife and all three of their sons had Huntington’s disease, which is a sickness that kills your brain cells until you die.

Michael was the fourth Llewelyn Davies boy. His youngest brother described him as “the cleverest of us, the most original, the potential genius”. He was born three years after Barrie befriended his family, and was very close to Barrie. Michael went to Eton just like four of his brothers, but he had a hard time adjusting and wrote letters to “Uncle Jim” (Barrie) every day. He had nightmares too, but he made lots of friends and did well especially at art and poetry. Michael studied at the University of Paris and then at Oxford, where he became friends to Rupert Buxton. They hung out all the time, both at school and during holidays. Rupert was a poet too, and he was one of Michael’s friends that Barrie actually liked (apparently he wasn’t a fan of the others). One of Michael’s friends later said that he and Rupert were not just friends but boyfriends.

 

 

Just before he turned 21, Michael and Rupert drowned together in a pool of water a few miles from Oxford. Some speculate that they died in a suicide pact. The water was deep but calm, and Rupert was a good swimmer, though Michael was not. Their bodies were discovered “clasped together”, and the coroner said that Michael drowned accidentally and Rupert drowned trying to save him. Still, Michael’s brothers and Barrie both said that suicide was likely what had happened.

 

 

Nico (Nicholas) was the youngest of the brothers. He was not born yet when Barrie met his family, but later on the character of Michael Darling got the middle name Nicholas in his honor. Nico lived through the deaths of his parents and two of his brothers died when he was a child. Nevertheless, he lived the longest of all the brothers, marrying Mary James and having a daughter. He worked for his brother’s publishing firm, Peter Davies Ltd, and died in 1980 at his home in Kent. Here's a picture of him below dressed as Peter Pan.


 And that's all I've got for this time. I am always taking suggestions of what kinds of topics I can cover next, feel free to let me know if you have any cool ideas by replying to this email!