Peter Llewelyn Davies

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Peter Llewelyn Davies, taken in 1917.

Peter Llewelyn Davies MC (1897-April 5, 1960) was one of the Llewelyn Davies family sons befriended by J. M. Barrie. Barrie publicly identified him as the source of the name for the title character in his famous play Peter Pan. The association would plague Llewelyn Davies throughout his life.

After Llewelyn Davies' mother died young, Barrie, who had become a friend of the family, adopted him and his four brothers (George, Jack, Michael and Nicholas). Their affectionate moniker for Barrie was "Uncle James". Llewelyn Davies, like his other brothers (apart from Jack), attended Eton College.

Llewelyn Davies was part of the generation of young men who participated in World War I. He was a Signal Officer in France and spent his fair share of time in the trenches; at one point he was hospitalized with impetigo. Llewelyn Davies ultimately won the Military Cross, but was scarred by his wartime experience.

In 1917, while still in the military, Llewelyn Davies met and began to court Vera Willoughby, which was one of the first in a series of events that would estrange him from Barrie, his guardian. Willoughby was married and a good deal older than Peter, which scandalized Barrie and caused a rift between the two.

Around this time, Llewelyn Davies suffered a series of family tragedies, beginning with the death of his brother George, who was killed in the trenches during World War I. His brother Michael drowned under suspicious circumstances at the age of 21 while at Oxford. Michael's best friend, Rupert Buxton, drowned with him — their hands were said to have been tied together — causing people to speculate that they may have been lovers.

Llewelyn Davies went on to be a publisher, and had mixed feelings about having his name associated with what he called "that terrible masterpiece". But perhaps the worst insult was being cut out of Barrie's will — instead of going to the surviving brothers, upon his death in 1937 Barrie's fortune went to his secretary, Cynthia Asquith. (In 1929, Barrie gave the copyright to Peter Pan to Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London). Some have speculated that this drove Llewelyn Davies to drink — he eventually became an alcoholic.

One of Llewelyn Davies' sons, Ruthven (b. 1933), would later write:

"My father had mixed feelings about the whole business of Peter Pan. He accepted that Barrie considered that he was the inspiration for Peter Pan and it was only reasonable that my father should inherit everything from Barrie. That was my father's expectation. It would have recompensed him for the notoriety he had experienced since being linked with Peter Pan — something he hated."

On April 5, 1960, after lingering at the bar of the Royal Court Hotel, 63-year-old Llewelyn Davies walked to nearby Sloane Square and committed suicide by throwing himself under a train as it was pulling into the station. A coroner's jury ruled he had killed himself "while the balance of his mind was disturbed". At the time of his suicide, he had been editing family papers and letters, assembling them into a document he called the Morgue. He had more or less reached the documents having to do with his brother Michael's possible suicide. Rather than complete his Morgue, he burned many of these later documents. Another factor possibly contributing to his suicide was the knowledge that his wife and all three of his sons had inherited Huntington's disease.

In the 2004 film Finding Neverland Peter Llewelyn-Davies was portrayed by young actor Freddie Highmore. Highmore won a Screen Actors' Guild award nomination for his performance.

Llewelyn Davies was married to Margaret Ruthven, and had three children with her: Ruthven, George (b. 1935) and Peter (b. 1938).