Life
Nicholson was born in 14 St George's Terrace, a Victorian terraced house and shop in the small industrial town of Millom on the edge of the Lake District, the son of Joseph Nicholson, a gentleman's outfitter, and his wife Edith Cornthwaite (died 1919). He lived in the same house for most of his life. Nicholson was educated at Holborn Hill School and Millom Secondary School, but his education was interrupted when he needed treatment for pulmonary tuberculosis aged 16, being away for two years in a Linford, Hampshire sanatorium. He was influenced by the social and religious community around the local Wesleyan Methodist chapel, to which belonged Rosetta Sobey, who became his stepmother in 1922. He was confirmed in 1940 into the Church of England. He was married in 1956 to Yvonne Edith Gardner (died 1982), a teacher who had consulted him about a school production of his play The Old Man of the Mountains, and they began to travel extensively in Northern England, Scotland and Norway. They had no children.
His writing career stretched from the 1930s up until his death in 1987. He was published by T. S. Eliot at Faber and Faber. His works include Rock Face (1948) and the later Sea to the West (1981). He was elected to the Royal Society of Literature in 1945. He received altogether five honorary degrees from British universities, the Queen's Award for Poetry in 1977, and the OBE in 1981. He is chiefly known for his poetry but was the author of many works in other forms; novels, plays, essays, topography and criticism.
He died on 30 May 1987 in Whitehaven and is buried in St George's Churchyard, Millom.
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