Freeman Wills Crofts

Freeman Wills Crofts was an Irish author who made his name with the “Inspector French” series of novels. He was born in Dublin though his roots are English. He went to Campbell and Methodist Colleges in Belfast and when he was seventeen he became apprenticed to Berkeley D Wise his uncle. His uncle was then a chief engineer of the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway. In 1899, he graduated from apprentice to become a railway engineer. He then moved up the ranks to become a district engineer and by the time he left the service, he was a chief assistant engineer. His first foray into writing was when he was recovering from a serious illness and had to take an extended stay away from work. During this time, he worked on “The Cask” his debut novel that was published by the London publishers Messrs. Collins. His debut novel was huge as within two decades, it had become a bestseller selling more than 100,000 copies.