Ronald Gow was an English dramatist, best known for Love on the Dole. 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 and The People of the Lake recreated life in ancient Britain, the latter produced 'with the approval of' Sir William Boyd Dawkins; The Man Who Changed His Mind was a Boy Scout adventure with a cameo from Robert Baden-Powell; The Glittering Sword was a medieval parable about disarmament. Writing occupied his spare time during his years as a schoolmaster, and he wrote several plays for the BBC. At the age of 35 he had his first professional production, in London, with Gallow's Glorious, 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. 

November 1st, 1897 in Heaton Moor  /  Died:   Apr 27th, 1993