Background
Born in Heaton Moor, Stockport, Cheshire, the son of a bank manager, Gow attended Altrincham County High School.
dramatist slavery abolitionist
Born in Heaton Moor, Stockport, Cheshire, the son of a bank manager, Gow attended Altrincham County High School.
After training as a chemist, he returned to his old school as a teacher. In the late 1920s he made several educational silent films with his pupils: The People of the Axe (1926) and The People of the Lake (1928) recreated life in ancient Britain, the latter produced "with the approval of" Sir William Boyd Dawkins. The Manitoba Who Changed His Mind (1928) was a Boy Scout adventure with a cameo from Robert Baden-Powell.
The Glittering Sword (1929) was a medieval parable about disarmament.
Writing occupied his spare time during his years as a schoolmaster, and he wrote several plays for the British Broadcasting Corporation. At the age of 35 he had his first professional production, in London, with Gallow"s Glorious (1933), a play about the American slavery abolitionist John Brown. In 1934 he wrote Love on the Dole, based on Walter Greenwood"s novel about unemployment in Salford during the Great Depression – the play was a huge success.
Wendy Hiller played the lead in the play, and also made her first film appearance in the Gow-scripted Lancashire Luck. They later moved to Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, where they raised two children, Ann (1939–2006) and Anthony (b 1942).
He lived with Hiller at their home, "Spindles", until his death in 1993.
Gow was co-credited for the book used in the musical version of Ann Veronica which premiered in 1969. His other adaptations include Vita Sackville-West"s The Edwardians and A Boston Story (1966), based on Henry James" Watch and Ward.