Guthrie Wilson


Guthrie Edward Melville "Gus" Wilson was a New Zealand and Australian novelist and educator.

Early life

He was born in Palmerston North and educated at Palmerston North Boys' High School and Victoria University of Wellington, where he graduated MA with first-class honours and was a rugby blue. Then he went to Wellington Teachers' Training College. His first teaching job was at Central Primary School, Palmerston North, in 1936, which he later described as a "living death"; in Easter 1937 he went to Marlborough College.

War service

He served as a New Zealand infantry officer in the Italian Campaign of 1944–45. He was awarded the MC for the action at the Senio, citing "his leadership devotion to duty", an unusual award for a junior officer. As his unit was in reserve he did not participate in the Battle for Cassino. He was captured by the Germans and nearly shot as retaliation for the alleged killing of German prisoners; he was reported missing but his wife did not hear that he had been captured until he was released and arrived in England.

Teaching career

In 1946 he obtained a position at his old school, Palmerston North Boys' High School, where he taught English, history and Latin. In 1954 he missed out on the position of rector at the school, because of controversy about the "pornography" and "foul language" in his first novel, Brave Company. In 1956 he successfully sued the local newspaper The Manawatu Times over a "sour grapes" review of his novel Sweet White Wine which had claimed that the novel was based on his unsuccessful application for the rectorship, obtaining substantial damages of £2500.
The Wilsons then moved to Australia, where he taught at two church schools in Sydney: Newington College from 1956 to 1962, then The Scots College. He was appointed Acting Principal of Scots College from June 1965, and was appointed Principal from 1966 after an amendment to the constitution to allow an Anglican to be appointed Principal of the Presbyterian college. He held the position until his retirement in December 1979.

Writing career

At university he had contributed poems to the university literary magazine Spike and to the left-wing magazine Tomorrow, and had short stories accepted by Man Magazine in Australia, then one of the most sexually daring magazines in Australasia. His first novel, Brave Company, was an international best-seller first published in the United States, and was controversial for its explicit language. Some later novels also drew on his war experiences.
He was described as "the only substantial New Zealand novelist to emerge from the early 1950s", and in the second generation of Provincial novelists in the Provincial Period of 1935 to 1964.
He died in Sydney in 1984 of a heart attack at the age of 70. He married Madge Lorraine Svenson in 1938; they had two sons and a daughter.

Novels by Guthrie Wilson