Cecil Street

Cecil John Charles Street (3 May 1884 – 8 December 1964), who was known to his colleagues, family and friends as John Street, began his military career as an artillery officer in the British Army. During the course of World War I, he became a propagandist for MI7, in which role he held the rank of Major. After the armistice, he alternated between Dublin and London during the Irish War of Independence as Information Officer for Dublin Castle, working closely with Lionel Curtis. He later earned his living as a prolific writer of detective novels.
Early life, education, and career.
Street was born in Gibraltar, son of General John Alfred Street, CB, of Uplands, Woking, and his second wife, Caroline (born circa 1850), daughter of Charles Horsfall Bill, of Storthes Hall, Yorkshire, and The Priory, Tetbury, Gloucestershire, head of a landed gentry family. Caroline had married comparatively late, in 1881, and her only son was born when she was thirty five. General Street, having retired from the Army at the age of sixty two just after his son's birth, died suddenly at the family home. After his father's death, Street and his mother went to live with his maternal grandparents at their house, Firlands, Woking, which was "comfortably staffed with seven domestics". Street "remained modestly circumspect" about his privileged background in later life, "familiarity with Street's life and writing" displaying his valuing of "a man's personal accomplishments over his family heritage."
Street was educated at Wellington College, Berkshire, then the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and was commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1903, subsequently transferring into the Special Reserves. Before the First World War, Street lived at Summerhill, a Regency country mansion outside Lyme Regis (later owned by A. S. Neill and run as a school, the name being subsequently used for his school at Leiston, Suffolk), where he was a shareholder in, and chief engineer for, the Lyme Regis Electric Light &amp; Power Company, Ltd. He would later serve as a Captain in the Royal Garrison Artillery, was wounded three times and won the Military Cross. As a Major, he headed a branch of British Military Intelligence and later as an Information Officer at the Headquarters of the British Administration, based in Dublin Castle.
Personal life.
In 1906, Street married (Hyacinth) Maud, daughter of Major John Denis Kirwan, of the Royal Artillery. They had a daughter, Verena Hyacinth Iris Street, who spent most of her life living with her paternal grandmother, and died in 1932 aged twenty five. The marriage was unsuccessful- his wife suffering mental imbalance and becoming a patient at a private asylum- and they were separated by the 1930s, when Street was living with Eileen Annette , daughter of civil engineer J. Edward Waller, whose father was the Irish writer John Francis Waller, of a landed gentry branch of the Waller baronets of Tipperary. They married in 1949, shortly after his first wife's death. Street and his second wife lived "a comfortable life together", living in "attractive older homes" including The Orchards, Laddingford, Kent, and elsewhere in southern and central England, including Swanton Novers, Norfolk.
Novelist.
John Street produced two long series of novels; one under the name of John Rhode, the majority featuring the academic Dr. Priestley,; another under the name of Miles Burton, the majority featuring the retired naval officer Desmond Merrion; and a third under the name Cecil Waye.
The Dr. Priestley novels were among the first after Dr Thorndyke to feature scientific detection of crime, such as analysing the mud on a suspect's shoes. Desmond Merrion is an amateur detective who works with Scotland Yard's Inspector Arnold.
Critic and author Julian Symons placed "John Rhode" as a prominent member of the "Humdrum" school of detective fiction. "Most of them came late to writing fiction, and few had much talent for it. They had some skill in constructing puzzles, nothing more, and ironically they fulfilled much better than S. S. Van Dine his dictum that the detective story properly belonged in the category of riddles or crossword puzzles. Most of the Humdrums were British, and among the best known of them were Major John Street ...". Symons' opinion has not however prevented the Rhode and Burton books becoming much sought after by collectors, and many of the early ones can command "eye-watering" high prices. Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor in their "A Catalogue of Crime" offer a different perspective to Symons, praising several of the Rhode books in particular, though they only review a small proportion of the more than 140 novels written by Street.
The only detailed account of Street's life and works has been written by Curtis Evans: "I wrote my new book, "Masters of the "Humdrum" Mystery: Cecil John Charles Street, Freeman Wills Crofts, Alfred Walter Stewart and the British Detective Novel, 1920–1961" (published by McFarland Press) in part to give a long overdue reappraisal of these purportedly "humdrum" detection writers as accomplished literary artists. Not only did they produce a goodly number of fine fair play puzzles, but their clever tales have more intrinsic interest as social documents and even sometimes as literary novels than they have been credited with having."
Bibliography.
This bibliography has been confirmed against a standard reference.
Writing as John Rhode.
Dr. Priestley novels.
Series characters: Lancelot Priestley, Inspector Hanslet and Inspector Jimmy Waghorn.
Writing as Miles Burton.
Desmond Merrion novels.
Series characters: Desmond Merrion and Inspector Henry Arnold.
Writing as Cecil Waye.
"The Perrins" novels.
Series characters: Christopher and Vivienne Perrin – 'Perrins, Private Investigators'.