Francis Meynell

Who was Francis Meynell?

Sir Francis Meredith Wilfrid Meynell was a British poet and printer at The Nonesuch Press.

He was the son of the journalist and publisher Wilfrid Meynell and the poet Alice Meynell, a suffragist and prominent Roman Catholic convert. Francis Meynell was brought in by George Lansbury to be business manager of the Daily Herald in 1913. He was held in the guard room at Hounslow Barracks as a conscientious objector in World War I. Meynell was also a socialist who supported the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War.

He was knighted in 1946. He married Alix Kilroy, a civil servant with the Board of Trade. They worked together during World War II on Utility Design, an austere and functional style. After the war they lived and farmed in a secluded part of Suffolk for many years. Their union was childless.