Dr Esmé Ross-Langley born 26 August 1919 in Guisborough

Guisborough

Guisborough is a market town and civil parish within the unitary authority of Redcar and Cleveland and the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire, England....

, Yorkshire

Yorkshire

Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

, was a British writer made a major contribution to the social evolution of women in Britain. She is best known as the founder of the Minorities Research Group

Minorities Research Group

The Minorities Research Group was the first organisation to openly advocate the interests of lesbians in the United Kingdom. It was founded by four women who got together in response to an article that was published in the magazine "Twentieth Century"...

 and Arena Three (magazine)

Arena Three (magazine)

Arena Three was a British monthly publication founded by Esme Langley and Diana Chapman in 1963. It was written by and for homosexual women and published by the Minorities Research Group from 1963 to 1972.-See also:* in * Lesbian feminism...

. She died on 20 August 1991 in St Albans

St Albans

St Albans is a city in southern Hertfordshire, England, around north of central London, which forms the main urban area of the City and District of St Albans. It is a historic market town, and is now a sought-after dormitory town within the London commuter belt...

 City Hospital; of complications following a stroke.
She was the only child of Ivy George and spent a happy and active childhood in Preston, Lancashire. She especially enjoyed cycling and swimming;
a childhood hero was Johnny Weismuller in the Tarzan

Tarzan

Tarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungles by the Mangani "great apes"; he later experiences civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer...

 films.
At school Esmé loved languages, English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 in particular;
she learned Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

, French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 and German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

and wanted to study Greek

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

 too
but there were no classes available to her at the time.
Later she studied
Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

, Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

,
Swahili

Swahili language

Swahili or Kiswahili is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Mozambique Channel coastline from northern Kenya to northern Mozambique, including the Comoro Islands. It is also spoken by ethnic minority groups in Somalia...

 and Chichewa;
just before her final illness, at the age of 72, she was studying
Russian

Russian language

Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

.
After passing her Matriculation

Matriculation

Matriculation, in the broadest sense, means to be registered or added to a list, from the Latin matricula – little list. In Scottish heraldry, for instance, a matriculation is a registration of armorial bearings...

 (University entrance) in 1935
Esmé abandoned formal education and at the age of 16 moved to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

,
found a boyfriend and through necessity learned how to live a frugal life.
Esmé served in the Auxiliary Territorial Service

Auxiliary Territorial Service

The Auxiliary Territorial Service was the women's branch of the British Army during the Second World War...

 (ATS) during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

,
teaching typing and shorthand.