Stanley Unwin (7 June 1911 Pretoria, South Africa - 12 January 2002 Dantre Hospital, Daventry, Northamptonshire ), born in Pretoria, South Africa, sometimes billed as Professor Stanley Unwin, was more than just a British comedian and comic writer. He was an inventor of his own language, "Unwinese," referred to in the film Carry On Regardless as "gobbledegook".
His parents emigrated from the United Kingdom to South Africa in the early 1900s. Stanley was born in Pretoria in 1911. His father died in 1914, and his mother arranged for the family to return to the United Kingdom. By 1919, he had been sent to a children's home in Cheshire.
In the 1930s, he married Frances and they had a son and two daughters over the next few years.
His early career and training introduced him to wireless and radio communication, and this, coupled with work in the BBC's War Reporting Unit from c. 1944 was ultimately to prove to be a conduit into the media.
Stanley Unwin died in 2002 in Daventry, England. He is buried in the churchyard at Long Buckby, Northamptonshire with his wife, who pre-deceased him. Their gravestone has the epitaph, "Reunitey in the heavenly-bode - Deep Joy".
His work is thought to have been a significant influence on the two books written by John Lennon in 1964/5 – John Lennon In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works.
Sir Stanley Unwin (1884-1968) was a British publisher, founder of the George Allen and Unwin house in 1914. This published serious and sometimes controversial authors like Bertrand Russell and Mahatma Gandhi.
He lived for some years in Handen Road in Lee in south-east London.
In 1936 J. R. R. Tolkien submitted The Hobbit for publication, and Unwin paid his ten-year-old son Rayner Unwin a few pence to write a report on the manuscript. Rayner's favourable response prompted Unwin to publish the book. Once the book became a success Unwin asked Tolkien for a sequel, which eventually became The Lord of the Rings.
Unwin was also said to have influenced comedians such as Spike Milligan, Peter Cook (I), Freddie Starr and the Monty Python crew.
Found fame by twisting words into a nonsense language, which he called Unwinese, on radio and later on TV.
Was the first live action star of a Gerry Anderson (I) production, when he doubled for his Supermarionation puppet character in "Secret Service, The" (1969). The character, incidentally, was even given the name Stanley Unwin!
