Background
Barclay claimed to have been born on 2 May 1898 at Dinapore, India, the son of Major Edmund Compston-Buckleigh, from Middlesex, England.
Barclay claimed to have been born on 2 May 1898 at Dinapore, India, the son of Major Edmund Compston-Buckleigh, from Middlesex, England.
However, there is no record of anyone with the surname Barclay or Compston-Buckleigh having attended Stonyhurst or served with the Royal Flying Corps.
Radio historian Richard Lane called him "Australian radio"s first great writer and, many would say, Australian radio"s greatest playwright ever." He claimed that after World War I he worked as a journalist in Fleet Street, London, until sacked for costing his employers £2000 in a libel suit. He then reputedly ran his own short-lived, weekly newspaper. Arriving in Australia in August 1926, he was determined to show the world that "he was the world"s greatest novelist".
On 17 December 1933 he was employed by the Australian Broadcasting Commission as a dramatist.
The first radio play Barclay wrote was An Antarctic Epic. Barclay wrote very little for the stage.
In 1934 he collaborated with Varney Monk as composer to write The Cedar Tree, a musical romance produced by F. West. Thring in Melbourne. Barclay"s wife Helene was the lyricist.
He was interred in Point Clare cemetery with Catholic rites.