Page "Clerihew" Paragraph 12

The form was invented by and is named after Edmund Clerihew Bentley.

When he was a 16-year-old pupil at St Paul's School in London, the lines about Humphry Davy came into his head during a science class.

Together with his schoolfriends, he filled a notebook with examples.

The first use of the word in print was in 1928.

Clerihew published three volumes of his own clerihews: Biography for Beginners ( 1905 ), published as " edited by E. Clerihew "; More Biography ( 1929 ); and Baseless Biography ( 1939 ), a compilation of clerihews originally published in Punch illustrated by the author's son Nicolas Bentley.