John Harold Hewitt (1907 - 1987)

Born 28 Oct 1907 in Belfast, Antrim, Ireland

Ancestors

Died 22 Jun 1987 at age 79 in Belfast, Antrim , Ireland

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Biography

JOHN HEWITT 1907-1987

Born at 96 Cliftonpark Avenue, Belfast, on 28 October 1907, John Harold Hewitt was a renowned poet, art historian and collector and political activist.

Hewitt worked as an employee of Belfast City Council for 29 years in the Museum, before moving to Coventry. He returned to Belfast in 1969. Describing himself as ‘a man of the left’, Hewitt had an active political life and was involved in the British Labour Party, the Fabian Society and the Belfast Peace League. He was an early advocate of the concept of ‘regionalism’ as a means of establishing personal identity, as opposed to traditional sectarian concepts based on politics or religion. He rooted his own regional identity within the island of Ireland and famously described his identity as Ulster, Irish, British, and European. Despite Ulster’s entrenched sectarianism, Hewitt reached out to all citizens in his pursuit of the arts and social justice.

In 1930 he was appointed Art Assistant at the Belfast Museum and Art Gallery. During the thirties he and his wife Roberta participated in civil rights activism and socialist policies. They were instrumental in the formation of a progressive art group, ‘The Ulster Unit’, which included John Luke, Colin Middleton and others.

DEATH AND LEGACY

John Hewitt died in Belfast on 27 June 1987. He donated his body to Queen’s University for medical research. There was no funeral, but a week later three hundred people gathered in the Lyric Theatre Belfast to remember him. John Hewitt’s personal library and literary archive was bequeathed to Ulster University.

Following this event The John Hewitt Society was established, to honour his memory and to encourage the continuing exploration of his ideas and ideals: breaking down parochialism, exclusive concepts of identity, and sectarian hostility towards the ‘other’.^[1]

Sources

1. ↑ https://www.johnhewittsociety.org/john-hewitt/

• Wikipedia: John Hewitt (poet)