David Linnell

David Linnell is the great grandson of the artist John Linnell (1792-1882) friend and patron of William Blake. David Linnell was born in Bulawayo in what was then Southern Rhodesia where his father worked for the Standard Bank of South Africa. On the retirement of his father in 1935 the family returned to England. David was educated at St. George's School, Harpenden and then went on to train as an actor at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London where he met his wife Rosemary. After National Service he spent several years in repertory and he and Rosemary spent a year as co-directors of the Elmira Little Theatre, Elmira N.Y. After returning to England he worked for the Religious Drama Society of Great Britain organising a tour of their professional company to parishes around England. He then became a copywriter in advertising for ten years before joining the Inner London Education Authority as Manager and Administrator of the Curtain Theatre, the Authority's Educational Drama Centre, where he worked until the disbandment of the Authority in 1989 when he took early retirement. He then spent three years researching and writing a biography of his great grandfather based on the wealth of material in the family archives.