Winifred holtby biography

Winifred Holtby (23 June 1898 – 29 September 1935) was an English novelist and journalist, now best known for her novel South Riding, which was posthumously.
Winifred volunteered as an army nurse during the First World War, before going on to Oxford, where she graduated with a degree, and it is here.
She wrote the great 1930s Yorkshire novel South Riding, foresaw 'mansplaining' and called for a new personal pronoun for women – all in a tragically short life.

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Holtby, Winifred (1898–1935)

English journalist, novelist, dramatist, and social reformer who, during the 1920s and early 1930s, campaigned for women's rights and pacifism and was a major orator for the unionization of black workers in South Africa. Name pronunciation: HOLT-bee. Born Winifred Holtby in Rudstone in Yorkshire, England, on June 23, 1898; died of kidney failure, aged 37, in London, England, on September 25, 1935; buried in her native Rudstone; daughter of Alice (Winn) Holtby (first woman alderman elected by the East Riding County Council) and David Holtby (a farmer); attended Queen Margaret's School, Scarborough; Somerville College, Oxford (1917–21), interrupted during the First World War by her activity in London as a Voluntary Auxiliary Nurse (VAD), 1916–17, and in France as a hostel-forewoman in the Signal Unit of the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC), 1918–19; never married; no children.

Wrote extensively for English newspapers and periodicals; served as director of the feminist periodical Time and Tide (1926–35); was a public speaker for equal-rights

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Holtby, Winifred 1898-1935

PERSONAL: Born June 23, 1898, in Rudstone, Yorkshire, England; died of kidney disease September 29, 1935, in London, England; daughter of David (a farmer) and Alice (a philanthropist and member of East Riding City Council) Holtby; companion of Vera Brittain, beginning 1921. Education: Somerville College, Oxford, B.A., 1921.

CAREER: Part-time tutor and lecturer for Six Points Group and Open Door Council, early 1920s; active in Friends of Africa organization from 1926, and South African Industrial Commercial Workers' Union; lecturer for League of Nations, South Africa, 1926; contributor, from 1924, and director, from 1926, Time and Tide, London. Good Housekeeping, London, literary critic, 1933-35; feature writer for Radio Times, London, and Schoolmistress (journal of the National Union of Women Teachers). Military service: Women's Auxiliary Army Corps Signals Unit, Huchenneville.
AWARDS, HONORS: James Tait Black memorial prize, 1937, for South Riding.

WRITINGS:

My Garden and Other Poems, Brown (London, England), 1911.
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Review: The Clear Stream – A Life of Winifred Holtby by Marion Shaw
Her pre-war feminist masterpiece South Riding has never been out of print, but Winifred Holtby can nevertheless be considered a criminally undervalued author. Marion Shaw, a professor of English, has done an excellent job of raising awareness for this exemplary woman in her revealing biography The Clear Stream.
Winifred Holtby was the daughter of a well-to-do farmer in Rudston in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Her mother, Alice, was the first woman alderman (a respected office in local politics) in this district, and the character of Mrs Beddows in South Riding is partly based on Holtby's mother. Winifred attended a girls' school whose headmistress she found so fascinating that she immortalised her as Sarah Burton, a determined young lady who strives to educate young women and empower them to "seize the day." Not for Winifred was the conventional married life of her sister Grace, who tragically died in childbirth. Winifred volunteered as an army nurse during the First World War, before going on to Oxford, whe