AustLit

Harry Tighe, the son of state politician Atkinson Tighe, grew up in Petersham. Sent to England at seventeen due to his poor health, he enrolled at Cambridge University and his health significantly improved. Despite becoming healthy in the English climate, Tighe continued to identify himself as Australian, struggling with the conflict between his physical comfort and his affection for his homeland. At twenty-one he became a full-time writer. By the early 1930s he had written sixteen novels and had four plays produced in London. Living in Kensington, he kept a wide social circle, including many Australians. In 1932 he returned to Australia and settled in Sydney at Cremorne Point. Joining forces with Doris Fitton of the Independent Theatre, he had a number of plays produced at venues such as St James Hall and the Savoy Theatre. But the depression limited his opportunites and he returned to England where he wrote two autobiographical accounts of his life, As I Saw It (1937) and By the Wayside (1939). In the late 1930s he was awarded a silver medal by the Institute Litteraire et Artistique de France. Tighe continued to write into the 1940s, publishing The Art of Acting in 1945. He died in 1946.