Person    | Male  Born 16/4/1922  Died 22/10/1995

Sir Kingsley Amis

Categories: Literature, Poetry

Novelist and poet. Born Kingsley William Amis in Norbury. His many novels include 'Lucky Jim', 'Take a Girl Like You' and 'The Old Devils'. He also wrote six volumes of poetry, and works of non-fiction. His son by his first marraige, Martin Amis, is also a writer. His second wife was the writer Elizabeth Jane Howard. He died in St Pancras Hospital, just north of King's Cross.

It is likely that the plaque is on the house where Amis was raised but not born. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography gives his birth place as "102 South Side on the edge of Clapham Common" which we think might be what is now 1 Cavendish Parade, on the corner of the south side of Cavendish Road. Most reputable sources give Clapham as his birth place and Norbury as where he was raised, e.g. the 2020 book 'Kingsley Amis' by Richard Bradford gives "Kingsley Amis was born in a south London nursing home on 16 April 1922. He was an only child and from infant to early teenage years he lived with his parents at 16 Buckingham Gardens, Norbury SW16. His environment was comfortably suburban, lower middle class ...".

But this address also is surprising. The houses in Buckingham Gardens and in all the neighbouring streets are typical of those that made up the council estates erected between the wars.  These estates were occupied by the working class, not the lower middle. Even that description seems at odds with the wealth of the Amis grandparents.

Credit for this entry to: Alan Patient of www.plaquesoflondon.co.uk

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Sir Kingsley Amis

Commemorated ati

Sir Kingsley Amis

Sir Kingsley Amis, novelist, 1922 - 1995. Born at this address. Used Norbury ...

Read More

Other Subjects

Leonard Woolf

Leonard Woolf

Author and publisher. Born Leonard Sidney Woolf in Kensington. After working in the Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) Civil Service, he returned to Britain where he met and married Virginia Stephen. Together ...

Person, Journalism / Publishing, Literature, Sri Lanka

4 memorials
Pennsylvania Library Association

Pennsylvania Library Association

The Pennsylvania Library Association (PaLA) is the state's oldest and most diverse professional library organization serving libraries, library employees, library trustees, and Friends of the Libra...

Group, Literature, Museums / Libraries, USA

1 memorial
Stoke Newington Literary Festival

Stoke Newington Literary Festival

From their website in 2022: "Since 2010, we’ve been celebrating the area’s radical and literary history with a festival that’s become one of the most eclectic, diverse and, frankly, FUN in the lite...

Event, Community / Clubs, Literature

1 memorial
Tabard Inn

Tabard Inn

Set up by an abbot from Winchester to give his brethren somewhere to stay in London and to provide accomodation to pilgrims on their way to Canterbury, in particular Chaucer's pilgrims, who set off...

Building, Community / Clubs, Food & Drink, Literature

1 memorial
Mark Twain

Mark Twain

American writer. Born as Samuel Langhorne Clemens in Florida, a small village in Missouri; it was small then and is now non-existent.  Wrote Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Adventures of Tom Sawyer...

Person, Humour, Literature, Seriously Famous, USA

2 memorials

Previously viewed

L. S. Wise

L. S. Wise

Co-partner or employee of the South Suburban Gas Company. Served but did not die in WW1.

Person, Armed Forces

War served, WW1
1 memorial