John Finnemore
The life of novelist John Finnemore remains relatively obscure. Although he was very successful during his lifetime, his death was accompanied by few obituaries, and little is known about his life. He was born in Birmingham in 1863, at a time when the city was one of the most significant manufacturing hubs in the British Empire. His father, William, worked within what was called 'the pen trade', which involved the manufacture and distribution of pen nibs. Finnemore's mother died when he was 15, and two years later he was working as a schoolmaster, a profession he would retain for the remainder of his life.
At the age of 22 Finnemore married the schoolmistress Eliza Emily Pearson, who would later become well known as an author of Christian literature. By 1891 the pair were living in Wales, and it was here that Finnemore began to develop his career as a writer. After penning a number of books on a range of subjects towards the end of the Victorian era, Finnemore found success in the first decade of the twentieth century as a writer of school and boy scout stories, two immensely popular genres in the period. These included the six books of the Teddy Lester series, published between 1907 and 1921.
Although most of Finnemore's books were aimed at children, he wrote a variety of fiction and non-fiction works for adults, with The Secret Entrance being a work in the Edwardian genre of mystery romance, and an indicator of his versatility as a writer.
John Finnemore died of heart failure on 17 December 1915.