J. B. Priestley
John Boynton Priestley was born in 1894 in Bradford, a city in the north of England, in what he famously described as an "ultra respectable" suburb, perhaps not too dissimilar from Brumley, the aspiring middle-class town in which the Birlings of An Inspector Calls reside. He studied at a grammar school, after which he spent some time working as a junior clerk in a wool office.
In 1914, he joined the army and served during World War I in the Duke of Wellington's Regiment, 10th...