“I’ve now read the above, and it’s an interesting piece with some nicely chosen Ballard quotations. In his notes, I see that Mr Viney is tempted to play the name game with Ballard’s stuff:

“[14] The fallen fortunes of the islanders [in _Concrete Island_] are reflected in Ballard’s appropriation of establishment names. ‘Maitland’ may well be a reference to jurist and historian Frederic William Maitland (1850-1906), whilst ‘Proctor’ might refer to astronomer and philosopher Richard Anthony Proctor (1837-1888). If this is so, then Ballard takes two eminent Victorians, who worked to uphold legal and natural law, and places them at the mercy of the twentieth century.”

Iain Sinclair, in his book on _Crash_, also showed interest in the name game, and I’m interested in it too. But it’s a dangerous game to play; and just as I took exception to Sinclair’s suggestions for the origins of “Vaughan,” so I’d argue with what Mr Viney says above.

Would Ballard really have taken the name Maitland from F. W. Maitland, the once-famous late-Victorian writer of tomes on jurisprudence? See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_William_Maitland

I believe JGB’s choice of proper names comes from the semi-forgotten mulch at the bottom of his mind, and it’s just possible that F. W. Maitland would have formed part of that mulch; but given that JGB has rarely shown any interest in the law, I think it’s unlikely. Much more likely as an inspiration to the young Ballard was this fellow:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Maitland_%28aviator%29

Ballard would have read about him as a boy. In particular, he would have read about the best-known exploit in which Edward Maitland took part — the first transatlantic flight by the airship R-34 in 1919. And looking further into _that_, I’ve discovered this delightful anecdote, which also gives us a possible source for another of JGB’s character names, “Ballantyne” (in “The Enormous Space”):

“The main upset occurred at 2.00pm on the first day. It was discovered that a stowaway had managed to creep on board the ship, and hide up in-between the girders and the gasbags inside the hull of the ship. Before starting on the voyage, it was decided that some of the members of the crew, including W.W. Ballantyne , must be left behind, the numbers being limited of necessity to thirty on the voyage. Two hours before the flight, William Ballantyne managed to climb back on board the ship, and hid himself in the darkness of the ship. He had also carried with him, the crews’ mascot, a small tabby kitten called ‘Whoopsie’. Both of these stowaways had hidden themselves. But the cramped conditions and the fact that the smell of the gas had made Ballantyne nauseous, made him give up and come out of hiding.

“The dishevelled stowaway was brought in front of Major Scott and Maitland, and it was decided that there was actually nothing they could do about it. It was agreed that had they been over land then Ballantyne would have been put overboard by parachute, but as the next landfall was in fact America, he was to stay on board. The only problem that could occur was the strain on the very limited and controlled resources. Having been quite ill for some time, he was rested on one of the hammocks, and attended to by Lieutenant Luck. When he recovered, Ballantyne was, as with traditional stowaways, made to work his passage as cook and often having to hand pump the petrol into the tanks. As to the second stowaway, Whoopsie, it was deemed that the oldest airman on board, 42 year old George Graham accepted responsibility for the cat, and Whoopsie worked her passage throughout the rest of the voyage, providing entertainment and comfort to the other crew members.”

(That’s from: http://www.aht.ndirect.co.uk/airships/r34/R34-Altanticflight.html )

As an aside: notice the Scottishness of so many of these names — Scott, Maitland, Ballantyne, Graham.

There was, of course, a famous Scottish 19th-century boys’-book writer, R. M. Ballantyne, and the young JGB is quite likely to have read at least one of his books, _The Coral Island_ (virtually all British boys read it at one time).

Still, I think the naming of both Maitland in _Concrete Island_ (and elsewhere in JGB’s fiction) and Ballantyne in “The Enormous Space” is likely to owe more to the grand real-life yarn of the dirigible R-34 — the subject, no doubt, of articles in the boys’ paper _Chums_ — than to the writings of some Victorian expert on musty legal history, or to an equally Victorian writer of boys’ books.

As for the other name Mr Viney picks out, “Proctor,” the Victorian gent he suggests seems even less likely to me as a source for Ballard’s imagination. According to this…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Anthony_Proctor

… the astronomer R. A. Proctor, who died as long ago as 1888, was a notable science popularizer in his day (I’m not sure where Viney gets “philosopher” from); so again, it’s just remotely possible that JGB had heard of him — if there were some _very old_ popular astronomy books lying around the Cathedral School or Lunghua camp in Shanghai. But, on balance, I suspect his choice of the name Proctor was for a closer-to-home reason.

“Proctors” were a well-known phenomenon at Cambridge University — they grand figures of authority. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proctor#Cambridge_University

and:

http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/offices/proctors/intro.html

In naming his down-and-out tramp figure Proctor, I think JGB was having a bit of a joke at the expense of old (and no doubt resented) authority…

– David Pringle