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==Second marriage and death==
==Second marriage and death==
His first marriage broke up and his wife returned to Australia with their young son, but their daughter Lillian, who later wrote under the name of Grania Brandon stayed with her father. Joyce married Ruby Oates in 1917 and his surname is given as Brandon on the marriage record. He had a son by his second wife Ruby, the writer
His first marriage broke up and his wife returned to Australia with their young son, but their daughter Lillian, who later wrote under the name of Grania Brandon stayed with her father. Joyce married Ruby Oates in 1917 and his surname is given as Brandon on the marriage record. He had a son by his second wife Ruby, the writer
Gordon Brandon. John Gordon Brandon died in [[Newbury, Berkshire]] in 1941 with surname Brandon on his death certificate.
Gordon Brandon. John Gordon Brandon died in [[Newbury, Berkshire]] in 1941 with surname Brandon on his death certificate.


==Academic study==
==Academic study==

Revision as of 14:14, 24 June 2022

John G. Brandon
Born(1879-01-01)1 January 1879
Richmond, Victoria, Australia
Died1 January 1941(1941-01-01) (aged 62)
Newbury, Berkshire, England
OccupationNovelist
NationalityEnglish-Australian
GenreDetective fiction

John G. Brandon (1 January 1879 – 1 January 1941) was an Australian-born writer known for his English crime fiction writing.[1]

Birth & family

Brandon was born John Gordon Joyce in Richmond, Victoria. He was the first son of actors John Gordon Joyce and Mary Emma Bate. His mother was known professionally as Emma Bronton.[2] His parents had married on 11 May 1878 in Melbourne and on 20 May 1895 his mother petitioned for a divorce from her husband on the grounds of desertion, drunkenness and cruelty. The Joyce's had been on tour in September 1888. Mr Joyce was discharged from the company in which they were acting, and while she went to Auckland it was arranged that he should go to Melbourne, where their two children were living with the partitioner's mother. Mrs Joyce gave him £16 to pay his expenses but he didn't go to the grandmother's house. Mr Joyce Snr had not been since nor had he in any way contributed to the support of Mrs Joyce and their children since that time. The suit was undefended and a decree nisi was granted, with costs against Mr Joyce.[3] On his mother taking a new partner the young Joyce took the name of his stepfather and became known by the surname of Brandon. When his maternal grandmother Mary Emma Bate, of Richmond, died on 20 July 1896 his mother then known as Mary Emma Brandon received an estate worth £1572.[4] His younger brother was known from the 1890s as Gordon Bate Joyce-Brandon (1880–1950)[5] but in business circles was known as Gordon Brandon.[6][7] His twice married mother, then known socially as Mrs Brandon but still by the stage name of Emma Bronton, died in London in 1915. Press reports at the time refer to her son as the English writer Jack Brandon.[8]

Australian actor

Little else is known of his younger life in Melbourne. It is said that he was a heavyweight boxer before he became a writer but there is no evidence of that. He became an actor in Melbourne and Victorian regional towns using the name of John G. Brandon. He was then stage manager for the Hawtrey Theatre Company in Sydney.

Emigrates to England

As John Gordon Joyce he married in Melbourne in 1900 and had two children, a girl and a boy. The family moved to England around 1909 and as John Gordon Joyce he and his family are listed in the 1911 English Census as living in Wandsworth with Joyce's occupation given as dramatic author. He is by then writing under his acting name of John G. Brandon. There are several newspaper reports around this time of English touring companies performing plays by Brandon in Australia.[9][10]

Writer

One of Brandon's first plays was a topical one written in 1915 on Belgium and the war entitled There Was a King in Flanders.[11]

Novelist

His novels included:

  • The Big Heart (1923)
  • Young Love (1925)
  • The Joy Ride (1927)
  • The Silent House (1928)
  • Nighthawks! (1929)
  • The Big City (1930)
  • Murder in Mayfair (1934)
  • The Yellow Mask (1935)
  • The Dragnet (1936)
  • The Secret Cargo of Chi Lee (1936)
  • Death in the Ditch (1940)
  • Gang War! (1940)
  • Murder for a Million (1942)
  • The Case of the Would Be Widow! (1950)

Series

His Patrick Aloysius McCarthy series included:

  • Red Altars (1928) aka The Secret Brotherhood
  • The Black Joss (1931)
  • West End (1933)
  • The One-Minute Murder (1934)
  • The Riverside Mystery (1935)
  • The Case Of The Withered Hand (1936)
  • Death Tolls the Gong (1936)
  • CID (1936)
  • Murder at the Yard (1936)
  • The Pawnshop Murder (1936)
  • The Snatch Game (1936)
  • The Bond Street Murder (1937)
  • Death in Downing Street (1937)
  • The Hand of Seeta (1937)
  • The Mail-van Mystery (1937)
  • Murder in Soho (1937)
  • Bonus for Murder (1938)
  • The Cork Street Crime (1938)
  • The £50 Marriage Case (1938) aka The £250 Marriage Case
  • Finger-prints Never Lie (1939)
  • The Frame Up (1938)
  • The Mark of the Tong (1938)
  • The Night Club Murder (1938)
  • The Regent Street Raid (1938)
  • The Crooked Five! (1939)
  • Death On Delivery (1939)
  • Mr Pennington Comes Through (1939)
  • Mr Pennington Goes Nap (1940)
  • A Scream in Soho (1940)
  • Yellow Gods (1940)
  • The Death in the Quarry (1941)
  • The Espionage Killings (1941)
  • Mr Pennington Barges In (1941)
  • The Blue-Print Murders (1942)

The following in his Patrick Aloysius McCarthy series were published posthumously and were actually written by his son Gordon Brandon.

  • Death in Jermyn Street (1942)
  • Death Comes Swiftly (1942)
  • Mr Pennington Sees Red (1942)
  • The Transport Murders (1942)
  • Death in D Division (1943)
  • Death in Duplicate (1945)
  • Candidate for a Coffin! (1946)
  • M for Murder (1949)
  • The Corpse Rode On (1952)
  • Murderer's Stand-in (1953)
  • The Call Girl Murders (1954)
  • Death of a Greek (1955)
  • Murder on the Beam (1956)
  • Death of a Socialite (1957)
  • The Corpse from the city (1958)
  • Murder in Pimlico (1958)
  • Death Stalks in Soho! (1959)

His Sexton Blake series included:

  • The Survivor's Secret (1933)
  • The Taxi Cab Murder (1933)
  • The Tragedy of the West End Actress (1933)
  • The Case of the Gangster's Moll (1934)
  • The Championship Crime (1934)
  • The Chinka s Victim (1934)
  • The Glass Dagger (1934)
  • Murder on the Stage (1934)
  • The Mystery of the Three Cities (1934)
  • On the Midnight Beat (1934)
  • Under Police Protection (1934)
  • By Order of the Tong (1935)
  • The Case of the Murdered Commissionaire (1935)
  • The Downing Street Discovery (1935)
  • Murder in Y Division (1935)
  • The Red Boomerang (1935)
  • The Case of the Night Club Queen (1936)
  • Dead Man's Evidence (1936)
  • The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1936)
  • Murder on the Fourth Floor (1936)
  • The Mystery of the Murdered Blonde (1936)
  • The Mystery of the Three Acrobats (1936)
  • The Victim of the Thieves' Den (1936)
  • The Bond Street Raiders (1937)
  • The Crime in the Kiosk (1937)
  • The Diamond of Ti Lingo (1937)
  • The Man from Italy (1937)
  • The Melbourne Mystery (1937)
  • The Mystery of the Murdered Sentry (1937)
  • The Mystery of X20 (1937)
  • The Spy from Spain (1937)
  • The Tattooed Triangle (1937)
  • The Victim of the Secret Service (1937)
  • The Clue of the Tattooed Man (1938)
  • The False Alibi (1938)
  • Murder on the High Seas (1938)
  • The Mystery of the Dead Man's Wallet (1938)
  • The Mystery of the Murdered Ice Cream Man (1938)
  • The Mystery of the Street Musician (1938)
  • The Pigeon Loft Crime (1938)
  • The Roadhouse Mystery (1938)
  • Fatal Forgery (1939)
  • The Great Taxi Cab Ramp (1939)
  • The Gunboat Mystery (1939)
  • In the Hands of Spies (1939)
  • The Man from Singapore (1939)
  • The Man with Jitters (1939)
  • Murder on the Ice Rink (1939)
  • The Mystery of the Green Bottle (1939)
  • The Black Swastika (1940)
  • Crook's Cargo (1940)
  • On Ticket of Leave (1940)
  • The Riddle of the Dead Man's Bay (1940)
  • The Riddle of the Greek Financier (1940)
  • The Terror of the Pacific (1940)
  • Under Secret Orders (1941)[12]

Second marriage and death

His first marriage broke up and his wife returned to Australia with their young son, but their daughter Lillian, who later wrote under the name of Grania Brandon stayed with her father. Joyce married Ruby Oates in 1917 and his surname is given as Brandon on the marriage record. He had a son by his second wife Ruby, the writer Gordon Brandon and a daughter Jean. John Gordon Brandon died in Newbury, Berkshire in 1941 with surname Brandon on his death certificate.

Academic study

John Arnold from the School of Languages, Literature, Cultures and Linguistics at Monash University has written about the careers of the Australian expatriate writers, John Gordon Brandon and Robert Coutts Armour, better known as Coutts Brisbane, bringing them to a current Australian readership.[13]

References

  1. ^ John G. Brandon 1879–1941 Great War Theatre Retrieved 15 January 2022.
  2. ^ "Dramatic". Australian Town and Country Journal. Vol. XXXV, no. 907. New South Wales, Australia. 28 May 1887. p. 19. Retrieved 15 January 2022 – via National Library of Australia.
  3. ^ "DIVORCE COURT". The Argus (Melbourne). No. 15, 257. Victoria, Australia. 24 May 1895. p. 3. Retrieved 15 January 2022 – via National Library of Australia.
  4. ^ "Wills and Bequests". Table Talk. No. 590. Victoria, Australia. 16 October 1896. p. 2. Retrieved 21 January 2022 – via National Library of Australia.
  5. ^ "Family Notices". The Australasian. Vol. XXVIII, no. 735. Victoria, Australia. 1 May 1880. p. 25. Retrieved 21 January 2022 – via National Library of Australia.
  6. ^ "OLD XAVERIANS IN SYDNEY". The Catholic Press. No. 830. New South Wales, Australia. 16 November 1911. p. 43. Retrieved 15 January 2022 – via National Library of Australia.
  7. ^ "BUSINESS MAN DIES, AGED 70". The Daily Telegraph. Vol. XV, no. 268. New South Wales, Australia. 1 February 1951. p. 11. Retrieved 15 January 2022 – via National Library of Australia.
  8. ^ "MUSICAL AND DRAMATIC NOTES". The West Australian. Vol. XXXI, no. 4, 016. Western Australia. 13 February 1915. p. 9. Retrieved 15 January 2022 – via National Library of Australia.
  9. ^ "THE NATIONAL AMPHITHEATRE". The Daily Telegraph. No. 10129. New South Wales, Australia. 13 November 1911. p. 7. Retrieved 20 January 2022 – via National Library of Australia.
  10. ^ "NATIONAL AMPHITHEATRE". The Age. No. 17826. Victoria, Australia. 6 May 1912. p. 8. Retrieved 20 January 2022 – via National Library of Australia.
  11. ^ Gateways to the First World War Retrieved 15 January 2022.
  12. ^ Fantastic Fiction Retrieved 15 January 2022.
  13. ^ John Arnold — Monash University John G. Brandon and ‘Coutts Brisbane’: Two Australian contributors to Sexton Blake and inter-war popular fiction Retrieved 20 January 2022.
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