Gavin Maxwell - Biography

Biography

Maxwell was the youngest son of Lieutenant-Colonel Aymer Maxwell and Lady Mary Percy, fifth daughter of the seventh Duke of Northumberland. His paternal grandfather, Sir Herbert Maxwell, was an archaeologist, politician and natural historian.

Maxwell was raised in the tiny village of Elrig, near Port William, in Wigtownshire, south-western Scotland, where the surname "Maxwell" is very common. Maxwell's relatives still reside in the area and the family's ancient estate and grounds are in nearby Monreith.

Maxwell's education took place at a succession of preparatory and secondary schools, including St Cyprian's School – where he found encouragement for his interest in natural history – and Stowe School. In The Rocks Remain, he relates how family pressure then led him to take a degree in Estate Management at Hertford College, Oxford, where he spent his time pursuing sporting and leisure activities instead of studying. He cheated his way through the intermediate exams but passed the final examinations honestly, having crammed the entire three-year course in six weeks.

During World War II, Maxwell served as an instructor with the Special Operations Executive. After the war, he purchased the Isle of Soay off Skye in the Inner Hebrides, Scotland. According to his book Harpoon at a Venture (1952, since republished under various titles), bad planning and a lack of finance meant his attempt to establish a basking shark fishery there between 1945-48 proved unsuccessful. He became a close friend of Elias Canetti.

In 1956, Maxwell toured the reed marshes of Southern Iraq with explorer Wilfred Thesiger. Maxwell's account of their trip appears in A Reed Shaken By The Wind, later published under the title People of the Reeds. It was hailed by the New York Times as "near perfect".

Maxwell next moved to Sandaig (which he called Camusfeàrna in his books), a small community opposite Eilean Iarmain on a remote part of the Scottish mainland. This is where his "otter books" are set. After Ring of Bright Water (1960), he wrote The Rocks Remain (1963), in which the otters Edal, Teko, Mossy and Monday show great differences in personality. The Rocks Remain is a sequel to Ring of Bright Water, as it demonstrates the difficulty Maxwell was having, possibly as a result of his mental state, in remaining focused on one project and the impact that had on his otters, Sandaig, and his own life.

In 1966, he traveled to Morocco with a companion, tracing the dramatic lives of the last rulers of Morocco under the French. His account of the trip was published as Lords of the Atlas: The Rise and Fall of the House of Glaoua 1893-1956. During the Moroccan Years of Lead, the regime there considered his book subversive and banned its importation.

In The House of Elrig (1965), Maxwell describes his family history and his passion for the calf-country, Galloway, where he was born. It was during this period that he met ornithologist Peter Scott and the young Terry Nutkins, who later became a children's television presenter. Privately homosexual, Maxwell married Lavinia Renton (née Lascelles) on 1 February 1962. The marriage lasted little more than a year and they divorced in 1964. According to the article on Maxwell in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, several young men derived much benefit from relationships with him.

In 1968, Maxwell's Sandaig home was destroyed by fire and he moved to the lighthouse cottage of Eilean Bàn (White Island), another island he owned off the coast of Skye. He invited John Lister-Kaye to join him on Eilean Bàn and help him build a zoo on the island and work on a book about British wild mammals. Lister-Kaye accepted the invitation, but both projects were abandoned when Maxwell died from cancer later that same year.

Eilean Bàn now supports a pier of the Skye Bridge built during the 1990s. Despite modern traffic a hundred feet or so above it, however, the island is a commemorative otter sanctuary and houses a museum dedicated to Maxwell. Another memorial is a bronze otter erected in the grounds of Port William Golf Course.

According to Douglas Botting, Maxwell suffered from bipolar disorder throughout his life. Maxwell's literary agent was Peter Janson-Smith, who was also agent for James Bond author Ian Fleming.