Hugh John Lofting (14 January 1886 – 26 September 1947) was an English author trained as a civil engineer, who created the classic children's literature character of Doctor Dolittle. It first appeared in illustrated letters to his children written by Lofting from the British Army trenches in World War I. Lofting was born in January 1886 in Maidenhead, Berkshire, to Elizabeth Agnes (Gannon) and John Brien Lofting. He was of English and Irish ancestry. His eldest brother was Hilary Lofting, who later became a novelist in Australia, having emigrated there in 1915. Lofting was educated at Mount St Mary's College in Spinkhill, Derbyshire. From 1905 to 1906 he studied civil engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts. He travelled widely as a civil engineer before enlisting in the Irish Guards regiment of the British Army in World War I. Not wishing to write to his children about the brutality of the war, he wrote imaginative letters which later became the foundation of the successful Doctor Dolittle novels for children. Seriously wounded in the war, in 1919 Lofting moved with his family to Killingworth, Connecticut. He was married three times and had three children, one of whom, his son Christopher, is the executor of his literary estate. Less