short story The Bowmen, origin of the legend of the Angels of Mons, published in The Evening News (London) 29 September. Elsie J. Oxenham's children's novel Girls of the Hamlet Club, first in the Abbey Series. Robert Tressell's socialist novel The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (posthumously, 23 April). First issue (of two) of the Vorticist literary magazine BLAST edited by Wyndham Lewis published in June. The Times Literary Supplement published separately for the first time in March. In fiction The action of John Buchan's novel The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915) and Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes story His Last Bow (1917) are both set on the eve of World War I. Births 7 January – Edwin La Dell, artist (died 1970) 8 January – Norman Nicholson, poet (died 1987) 9 January Derek Allhusen, equestrian (died 2000) Christian O'Brien, geologist (died 2001) 13 January – Ted Willis, television dramatist and author (died 1992) 15 January – Hugh Trevor-Roper, Baron Dacre of Glanton, historian (died 2003) 20 January – Roy Plomley, radio broadcaster, producer, playwright and novelist (died 1985) 22 January – Syd Hartley, English association football player (died 1987) 4 February – Ida Lupino, actress, director and writer (died 1995) 5 February – Alan Hodgkin, scientist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (died 1998) 9 February – Helen Brotherton, conservationist (died 2009) 12 February – Alison Munro, civil servant and headmistress (died 2008) 13 February – Derek Gardner, artist (died 2007) 19 February – Henry Thomas Davies, lifeboatman (died 2002) 20 February – Peter Rogers, film producer (died 2009) 24 February – Ralph Erskine, architect (died 2005) 25 February – John Arlott, cricket commentator and writer (died 1991) 27 February – Pat Fillingham, test pilot (died 2003) 10 March – Michael Torrens-Spence, pilot (died 2001) 12 March – Frank Soo, English footballer and manager (died 1991) 13 March – Olaf Pooley, actor and screenwriter (died 2015) 14 March – Bill Owen, actor (died 1999) 22 March – Donald Stokes, industrialist (died 2008) 2 April – Alec Guinness, actor (died 2000) 5 April – Sheila Callender, physician (died 2004) 7 April – Arthur Hezlet, admiral and historian (died 2007) 12 April – Frances Macdonald, artist (died 2002) 14 April – Michael Maclagan, historian (died 2003) 22 April – C. H. Sisson, writer and poet (died 2003) 26 April – Charlie Chester, comedian (died 1997) 28 April – Philip E. High, science