Britain Unlimited covers 250 Great British people and what made them famous

Who was T.S. Eliot? Poet and Dramatist. Date and Place of Birth: 26th September 1888, St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America. Family Background: Youngest of six children and son of Henry Ware Eliot, a brick manufacturer and wealthy businessman and Charlotte Champe Stearns, a teacher. Christened Thomas Stearns Eliot. Education: Mrs Lockwood's Academy, St. Louis, Missouri. Smith Academy, St. Louis, Missouri. Milton College, near Boston, Massachusetts, and Harvard University. Chronology: 1899: Brings out eight issues of his own magazine "The Fireside" whilst still at School. 1905: His poems for the "Smith Academy Record" are the earliest poems of his still surviving. 1908: Becomes interested in the Symbolists in literature and is particularly influenced by Laforgue. 1909: Studies in his final year at Harvard University under George Santayana and Irving Babbitt. 1910: Writes "Portrait of a Lady" and "Prufrock". (October) Goes to Paris after graduating, where he studies French literature at the Sorbonne. Is inspired by the work of Charles Maurras 1911: Returns to Harvard as post graduate and studies Sanskrit and Indian Religious thought. Attends lectures given by the British philosopher Bertrand Russell. 1913: Starts work on a thesis about the work of the philosopher F. H. Bradley. 1914: Arrives in Britain at the outbreak of the First World War on a traveling fellowship from Harvard. (September) Meets Ezra Pound in London. Goes to study at Oxford. 1915: At Pound's suggestion "Prufrock" is published by Harriet Munroe in "Poetry" a magazine based in Chicago. Pound also encourages Eliot to stay in England. After a whirlwind romance, in which Eliot Marries Vivien Haigh-Wood, the couple go to stay for a while with Russell, who introduces them to the Bloomsbury Group. Eliot takes up a number of positions teaching in schools and starts to write reviews for the "New Statesman" magazine in London. 1916: Though he finally finishes his Harvard thesis on Bradley he decides not to return to the U.S.A and begins working as an extra-mural lecturer part-time for the University of London. 1917: (March) Joins Lloyd's Bank (Colonial and Foreign department). (June) Becomes Assistant Editor of Harriet Shaw Weavers "Egoist". "Prufrock and other Observations" is published in this Journal. 1918: He tries to join the U.S. forces, who have now entered the war, but fails to enlist before the armistice in November. 1919: His father dies. Eliot begins to write for the "Athenaeum" magazine. (June) Poems published by the Woolf's-Hogarth press. Begins writing articles for the Times Literary Supplement in London. (October) Begins work on "He Do the Police in Different Voices" which is the forerunner of "The Waste Land". 1920: All ELiot's collected verse in print is published as "Ara Vos Prec" in Britain by John Rodker, and "Poems" in the U.S. by Knopf. Visits France and meets James Joyce. (November) Publication of his collection of essays called "The Sacred Wood". 1921: Becomes ill with the stress of his marriage and begins overworking and is told by his doctor to have an extended holiday. He goes briefly to Margate and then to Lausanne in Switzerland for therapy under Doctor Roger Vittoz. 1922: Shows "The Waste Land" to Pound in Paris on his way back to London. It is published in the "Criterion" magazine in London with the backing of Lady Rothermere and in the U.S. in "The Dial". (December) published in book form by Leonard and Virginia Woolf's publishing house. 1923: Begins working on "Sweeney Agonistes". 1924: Completes "The Hollow Men". 1925: Leaves Lloyd's Bank to become a director at Faber and Gwyer (later to become Faber and Faber). Faber's publish "Poems 1909-1925". He in turn encourages other new poets including Spender and W. H. Auden. 1926: Gives a series of Clark Lectures at Cambridge University. Begins training to enter the Church of England. 1927: (29th June) Confirmed as a member of the Church of England in secret. (November) Becomes a British Citizen. "Journey of the Magi" is published at Christmas, the first of his Ariel Poems. 1929: Death of his mother. 1930: Publication of "Ash Wednesday". 1933: Gives the Page-Barbour lectures at the University of Virginia afterwards published as "After Strange Gods". 1933: Separates from his wife Vivien after his return from the U.S.A. and settles in Kensington, London with Father Cheetham, the Vicar of St. Stephens. 1934: Becomes a Church Warden at St. Stephens. His play "The Rock" is performed in London by an amateur cast. Joins the editorial board of the magazine "New English Weekly". 1935: His play "Murder in the Cathedral" is performed at Canterbury. 1938: Publication of "Essays Ancient and Modern" and collected Poems 1909-1935". Vivien Eliot is sent to Northumberland House private mental hospital, in Finsbury Park, London amid controversial circumstances. 1939: First performance of "A Family Reunion" in London. Eliot gives the Boutwood Foundation lecture series at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge which are published in book form as "The Ideas of a Christian Society". Publication of "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats". which was influenced by Edward Lear and showed an entirely different side to his character. (September) At the beginning of the Second World War he becomes an Air Raid Warden in Kensington 1940: Publication of East Coker. (June) Gives the Yeats Memorial Lecture in Dublin. Joins the Editorial Board of "Christian Newsletter". (September) survives the Blitz in London. (October) Moves to Shamley Green in Surrey to live out the rest of the war. 1941: Publication of "Dry Salvages". 1942: Publication of "Little Gidding", named after the Huntingdonshire home of Nicholas Ferrar the leader of a Seventeenth Century religious community. 1943: East Coker, etc are published in Canada as "The Four Quartets" and then later in Britain. 1945: End of the Second World War. 1946: Moves to a flat with John Hayward in Carlyle Mansions on the Chelsea Embankment. Begins to make frequent trips to the continent and the U.S.A. 1947: Death of Vivien Eliot in mental hospital. 1948: (January) Awarded the Order of Merit. (November) Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. 1949: Publication of his play "The Cocktail Party" and it is given it's premiere at the Edinburgh Festival. 1950: The play is successful in London and then New York and Eliot appears on the cover of Time Magazine. 1952: A televised performance of "The cocktail Party" draws a huge audience. 1953: "The Confidential Clerk" is first produced at the Edinburgh Festival. 1956: Lectures to 14,000 people in the baseball stadium of the University of Minnesota on "The Frontiers of Criticism". 1958: "The Elder Statesman" is first produced at the Edinburgh Festival. 1959: Gives up being a Church Warden at St. Stephen's Church, Kensington. Written Works: 1917: "Prufrock and Other Observations". 1920: "The Sacred Wood". "Poems". 1922: "The Waste Land". 1924: "Homage to John Dryden". 1925: "Poems 1909-25". 1928: "For Lancelot Andrews". 1929: "Dante". 1930: "Ash Wednesday". 1932: "Selected Essays 1917-32". "Sweeney Agonistes". 1933: "The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism". 1934: "After Strange Gods". "The Rock". 1935: "Murder in the Cathedral". (Play) 1936: "Essays Ancient and Modern". 1939: "The Idea of a Christian Society". "The Family Reunion". (Play) "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats." 1940: "East Coker". 1941: "Burnt Norton". "The Dry Salvages". 1942: "Little Gidding". 1943: "Four Quartets" published (Contains East Coker, Burnt Norton, The Dry Salvages, and Little Gidding) 1948: "Notes towards he Definition of Culture". 1949: "The Cocktail Party". (Play) 1953: "The Confidential Clerk". (Play) 1958: "The Elder Statesman". (Play) Marriage: 26th June 1915 to Vivien Haigh-Wood, the daughter of a painter and landowner, at Hampstead Registry Office. 10th January 1957 to Valerie Fletcher, his secretary, at St. Barnabas's Church Kensingston, London. Places of Interest: LONDON: British Library. SOMERSET: East Coker. Date and Place of Death: 4th January 1965, London, England. Age at Death: 76. Site of Grave: St. Michael’s Church, East Coker, Somerset, England.