Sam Hanna Bell Samuel Beckett John Hewitt Bernard (Barney) Hughes James Joseph Magennis VC Frances Elizabeth Clarke Stewart Parker William Carleton Rosamond Praegar

John Stewart (1906 - 1994):
Academic and writer


Michael Innes

John Innes Mackintosh Stewart was a distinguished scholar in his academic field, which was English Literature, and had a parallel career as writer of detective fiction, for which he used as a pseudonym "Michael Innes". Mackintosh was for several years a lecturer in English at Queen's University, Belfast.

He was born in Edinburgh and educated at Edinburgh Academy and Oriel College, Oxford, where he graduated with first class honours in English Language and Literature in 1928. In 1930 he was appointed lecturer in English at the University of Leeds, and from 1935 until 1945 was Jury Professor of English in the University of Adelaide. During the journey to Australia to occupy this chair he wrote a detective novel, Death in the President's House, which on publication proved a popular success and was published in the United States (though with a different title). This novel introduced the most famous of his detective characters, Inspector Appleby, who would appear in a series of novels following his career path to being head of the Metropolitan police. In 1945 he was appointed Lecturer in English at Queen's University, Belfast, during which time he produced his first book of literary criticism, Character and Motive in Shakespeare as well as, in his pseudonymous rôle, From London Far, a thriller about extensive post-war art theft conspiracies, What Happened at Hazelwood, a country-house murder mystery, and A Night of Errors, one of his Appleby novels. He was also invited to contribute to a BBC radio series, Imaginary Conversations, produced by a well-known writer of the time, Rayner Heppenstall (who had served briefly in the army during the war in Northern Ireland). Stewart would continue radio work through his career. From 1948 until 1973 he was at Christ Church, Oxford, as a Student (that is, Fellow) and tutor in English.

Other scholarly work included a commentary on John Florio's translation of Montaigne's Essays; and studies on individual writers such as Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling and Joseph Conrad. His list of non-academic publications, including radio scripts and much under his own name, was certainly extensive. His son, Michael James Stewart, who became a highly distinguished political economist, attended Campbell College, Belfast.



Born: 30 September 1906
Died: 12 November 1994
Richard Froggatt
Acknowledgements:

Wesley McCann

Bibliography:

TW Moody & JC Beckett: Queen’s Belfast 1845-1949: The History of a University; Brian Walker & Alf McCreary: Degrees of Excellence: The Story of Queen’s Belfast 1845-1995, (Belfast, Institute of Irish Studies, 1994); Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; Who’s Who 1990