Greenwood, Walter

(British, 1903–74)

Walter Greenwood was born in Salford, Lancashire, and experienced at first hand much of the hardship described in his most famous work, Love on the Dole (1933). This social documentary novel tells the story of the young members of the Hardcastle family, whose hopes and aspirations are destroyed by unemployment and poverty. It is one of the most vivid and moving fictional representations of the 1930s Depression in Great Britain. Greenwood himself co-adapted the novel into a play, and it was subsequently filmed in 1941. His next novel, His Worship the Mayor (1934), looks at corruption in local government. Greenwood spawned a generation of novelists who developed social deprivation as a theme.

John Braine, Alan Sillitoe, Barry Hines  SA