Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, or Plum to his friends, was born on October 15th, 1881 in
Guildford,
Surrey. The son of
Civil Servant he was educated at
Dulwich College,
London . He started his working life in the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank before deciding to become a full time writer.
His writing career started at the London Globe in 1902 where he worked on a column entitled 'By the Way', whilst freelancing for several other publications. In 1909 he moved to the USA, and from then onwards he spent most of his time in either America or France. In 1940, whilst living in Le Touquet, the Second World War broke out. The town was soon captured, and Wodehouse and his wife, Ethel, were shipped off to a German internment camp.
Shortly before his 60th birthday, Wodehouse was released from the camp, as was normal for men of his age, but he was not allowed to leave Germany, so he and his wife stayed at the Adlon Hotel in Berlin. Whilst there he was persuaded by a German official to make a few broadcasts to his US fans on German radio. This shouldn't have been a problem as the US was not yet at war with Germany, and Wodehouse thought that it would be a good idea to let his fans know he was alright, and he made five broadcasts. These could in no way be construed as propaganda; they were merely a sort of memoir of his time in the internments camps and even poked some fun at the Nazis.
This series of broadcasts could be heard late at night in the UK, and someone working in the British War Office became incensed at what he saw as Wodehouse apparently "offering aid and comfort" to the enemy. This caused the Ministry to force the BBC into carrying a radio broadcast attacking him as a Nazi sympathiser and comparing him to Lord Haw-Haw. Soon many others had jumped on the bandwagon in deriding Wodehouse including his previous friend A.A. Milne. The only person who was seen to stick by his side was George Orwell who wrote his essay In Defense of P.G. Wodehouse..The MI5 files on this account were finally made public in 1980, and Wodehouse was cleared of all wrongdoing, but because of this incident, Wodehouse never returned to Britain, and after the war he stayed in the USA, where he gained citizenship in 1955.
PG Wodehouse produced around a hundred books, and was responsible for the creation a whole string of characters such as Bertie Wooster and his ever-resourceful butler Jeeves, the inhabitants of Blandings Castle, including the prize porker, The Empress of Blandings, as well as penning several plays and, along with Jerome Kern, wrote over 250 lyrics for the likes of Irving Berlin, George Gershwin and Cole Porter.
In 1975 New Years Honours List, Wodehouse became a Knight of the British Empire (allowing him to attatch KBE to his name) and died on St Valentines day in the same year, at the age of 93.