Ursula Moray Williams
Encyclopedia
Ursula Moray Williams was an English children's author of nearly 70 books for children. Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse
, written while expecting her first child, remained in print throughout her life from its publication in 1939.
Her classic stories often involved brave creatures who overcome trials and cruelty in the outside world before finding a loving home. They included The Good Little Christmas Tree of 1943, and Gobbolino, the Witch's Cat
first published the previous year. It immediately sold out but disappeared until re-issued in abridged form by Kaye Webb
at Puffin Books
twenty years later, when it became a best-seller.
, Hampshire
, by ten minutes the younger of identical twins. She and her sister Barbara were talented artists and for six years from the age of ten wrote and illustrated books for each other's birthdays and at Christmas.
Both were enthusiastic Girl Guides
, attending some of the movement's first camps, and some of Ursula's early books were collections of stories she had told to her own Brownie pack.
The girls were also keen riders – on hobby horses at first. To save for a pony they kept goats, selling their milk which they refused to drink themselves.
Thanks to their uncle, the publisher Stanley Unwin
, the twins visited the Alps, which later inspired some of Ursula's most vivid writing, most notably the trilogy that began with The Three Toymakers. Its final volume, The Toymaker's Daughter, was among her finest, and most moving creations.
Williams' greatest source of ideas, however, was the extraordinary house in which she spent her teenage years, North Stoneham House, a large, dilapidated mansion set in woodland north of Southampton. Events from her remarkable childhood recur repeatedly in her fiction, with North Stoneham described at greatest length in the 1941 A Castle for John-Peter and depicted in Faith Jaques’ illustrations for Grandpapa's Folly and the Woodworm-Bookworm of 1974. In many regards, her life was as remarkable and inspirational as that of her fictional heroes.
She was a friend of Puffin Books
editor Kaye Webb
, and organised riotous parties for the Puffin Club, of which she was made the first honorary member. She worked with illustrators like Shirley Hughes
, Faith Jaques and Edward Ardizzone
.
Much of her later writing included disruptive, but essentially good-hearted children, and was influenced by her work as a juvenile magistrate and as a highly-involved school governor. Locally she was greatly admired for her many acts of kindness and an instinctive Christian
faith.
Personal problems including her brother's threatened suicide, family crises, the death of her husband, the loss of an eye, and her near death to cancer, interrupted her work, but the indomitable author went on writing until the age of 80, and achieved the longest published career of any children's writer of her generation.
She married Conrad Southey "Peter" John in 1935. They lived at Hampton, near Kingston upon Thames
, then Esher
, before moving to Gloucestershire
in 1942, and Beckford, Worcestershire
, in 1945. Peter died in 1971. They had four sons, three of whom survived her. She died in 2006 at Tewkesbury
in Gloucestershire
.
Many of Williams' manuscripts and further correspondence are held at Seven Stories
, the Centre for Children's Books in Newcastle.
An exhibition, marking the centenary of her birth, opened in Winchester in April 2011.
Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse
Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse is a children's novel by Ursula Moray Williams. It was her most successful book, being frequently reprinted after its first publication in 1938. It was most recently published in 2011 by Macmillan Publishers, who also included it in the Kingfisher Modern...
, written while expecting her first child, remained in print throughout her life from its publication in 1939.
Her classic stories often involved brave creatures who overcome trials and cruelty in the outside world before finding a loving home. They included The Good Little Christmas Tree of 1943, and Gobbolino, the Witch's Cat
Gobbolino, the Witch's Cat
Gobbolino, The Witch's Cat is a children's novel written by Ursula Moray Williams. It was first published in 1942.-Plot introduction :Gobbolino is a little black kitten with one white paw, and sparkling blue eyes who was born to be a witch's cat with his pure black twin sister, Sootica...
first published the previous year. It immediately sold out but disappeared until re-issued in abridged form by Kaye Webb
Kaye Webb
Kaye Webb was a British journalist and publisher. She was editor of Puffin Books between 1961 and 1979, and in 1967 founded the Puffin Club, which she ran until 1981. As a journalist she worked on publications including Picture Post, Lilliput and the News Chronicle, and later edited the Young...
at Puffin Books
Puffin Books
Puffin Books is the children's imprint of British publishers Penguin Books. Since the 1960s it has been the largest publisher of children's books in the UK and much of the English-speaking world.-Early history:...
twenty years later, when it became a best-seller.
Life
Williams was born in PetersfieldPetersfield
Petersfield can refer to any of the following places:*Petersfield, Hampshire, a market town in England*Petersfield, Jamaica, a small town in the parish of Westmoreland*Petersfield, Manitoba, in Canada*Petersfield, an area of Cambridge, England...
, Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
, by ten minutes the younger of identical twins. She and her sister Barbara were talented artists and for six years from the age of ten wrote and illustrated books for each other's birthdays and at Christmas.
Both were enthusiastic Girl Guides
Girl Guides
A Guide, Girl Guide or Girl Scout is a member of a section of some Guiding organisations who is between the ages of 10 and 14. Age limits are different in each organisation. It is the female-centred equivalent of the Scouts. The term Girl Scout is used in the United States and several East Asian...
, attending some of the movement's first camps, and some of Ursula's early books were collections of stories she had told to her own Brownie pack.
The girls were also keen riders – on hobby horses at first. To save for a pony they kept goats, selling their milk which they refused to drink themselves.
Thanks to their uncle, the publisher Stanley Unwin
Stanley Unwin
Stanley Unwin may refer to:* Stanley Unwin , South African-born comedic writer and performer* Stanley Unwin , British publisher, founder of George Allen and Unwin...
, the twins visited the Alps, which later inspired some of Ursula's most vivid writing, most notably the trilogy that began with The Three Toymakers. Its final volume, The Toymaker's Daughter, was among her finest, and most moving creations.
Williams' greatest source of ideas, however, was the extraordinary house in which she spent her teenage years, North Stoneham House, a large, dilapidated mansion set in woodland north of Southampton. Events from her remarkable childhood recur repeatedly in her fiction, with North Stoneham described at greatest length in the 1941 A Castle for John-Peter and depicted in Faith Jaques’ illustrations for Grandpapa's Folly and the Woodworm-Bookworm of 1974. In many regards, her life was as remarkable and inspirational as that of her fictional heroes.
She was a friend of Puffin Books
Puffin Books
Puffin Books is the children's imprint of British publishers Penguin Books. Since the 1960s it has been the largest publisher of children's books in the UK and much of the English-speaking world.-Early history:...
editor Kaye Webb
Kaye Webb
Kaye Webb was a British journalist and publisher. She was editor of Puffin Books between 1961 and 1979, and in 1967 founded the Puffin Club, which she ran until 1981. As a journalist she worked on publications including Picture Post, Lilliput and the News Chronicle, and later edited the Young...
, and organised riotous parties for the Puffin Club, of which she was made the first honorary member. She worked with illustrators like Shirley Hughes
Shirley Hughes
Shirley Hughes is an English author and illustrator. She has written more than fifty books which have sold more than 11.5 million copies, and illustrated over two hundred. She currently lives in London....
, Faith Jaques and Edward Ardizzone
Edward Ardizzone
Edward Jeffrey Irving Ardizzone, CBE, RA was an English artist, writer and illustrator, chiefly of children's books.-Early life:...
.
Much of her later writing included disruptive, but essentially good-hearted children, and was influenced by her work as a juvenile magistrate and as a highly-involved school governor. Locally she was greatly admired for her many acts of kindness and an instinctive Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
faith.
Personal problems including her brother's threatened suicide, family crises, the death of her husband, the loss of an eye, and her near death to cancer, interrupted her work, but the indomitable author went on writing until the age of 80, and achieved the longest published career of any children's writer of her generation.
She married Conrad Southey "Peter" John in 1935. They lived at Hampton, near Kingston upon Thames
Kingston upon Thames
Kingston upon Thames is the principal settlement of the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames in southwest London. It was the ancient market town where Saxon kings were crowned and is now a suburb situated south west of Charing Cross. It is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the...
, then Esher
Esher
Esher is a town in the Surrey borough of Elmbridge in South East England near the River Mole. It is a very prosperous part of the Greater London Urban Area, largely suburban in character, and is situated 14.1 miles south west of Charing Cross....
, before moving to Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....
in 1942, and Beckford, Worcestershire
Worcestershire
Worcestershire is a non-metropolitan county, established in antiquity, located in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire" NUTS 2 region...
, in 1945. Peter died in 1971. They had four sons, three of whom survived her. She died in 2006 at Tewkesbury
Tewkesbury
Tewkesbury is a town in Gloucestershire, England. It stands at the confluence of the River Severn and the River Avon, and also minor tributaries the Swilgate and Carrant Brook...
in Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....
.
Many of Williams' manuscripts and further correspondence are held at Seven Stories
Seven Stories
Seven Stories the national centre for children's Books in the United Kingdom is based in the Ouseburn Valley, Newcastle upon Tyne, close to the city's newly regenerated quayside...
, the Centre for Children's Books in Newcastle.
An exhibition, marking the centenary of her birth, opened in Winchester in April 2011.
Principal bibliography
- 1931 Jean-Pierre
- 1932 For Brownies: Stories and Games for the Pack and Everybody Else
- 1933 Grandfather
- 1933 The Pettabomination
- 1933 The Autumn Sweepers and Other Plays
- 1934 Kelpie, the Gipsies' Pony
- 1934 More for Brownies
- 1935 Anders & Marta
- 1935 Adventures of Anne
- 1936 Tales for the Sixes and Sevens
- 1936 Sandy on the Shore
- 1936 The Twins and Their Ponies
- 1937 The Adventures of Boss and Dingbatt (with Conrad Southey John)
- 1937 Elaine of La Signe
- 1937 Dumpling
- 1938 Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse
- 1939 Peter and the Wanderlust (later called Peter on the Road)
- 1939 Adventures of Puffin
- 1940 Pretenders; Island
- 1941 A Castle for John-Peter
- 1942 Gobbolino, the Witch's Cat
- 1943 The Good Little Christmas Tree
- 1946 The Three Toymakers
- 1946 The House of Happiness
- 1948 Malkin's Mountain
- 1948 The Story of Laughing Dandino
- 1951 The Binklebys at Home
- 1951 Jockin the Jester
- 1953 The Binklebys on the Farm
- 1955 Grumpa
- 1955 Secrets of the Wood
- 1956 Goodbody's Puppet Show
- 1957 Golden Horse with a Silver Tail
- 1958 Hobbie
- 1958 The Moonball
- 1959 The Noble Hawks (U.S. title: The Earl's Falconer)
- 1959 The Nine Lives of Island MacKenzie
- 1963 Beware of This Animal
- 1964 Johnnie Tigerskin
- 1964 O for a Mouseless House
- 1965 High Adventure
- 1967 The Cruise of the Happy-Go-Gay
- 1968 A Crown for a Queen
- 1968 The Toymaker's Daughter
- 1969 Mog
- 1970 Boy in a Barn
- 1970 Johnnie Golightly and his Crocodile
- 1971 Hurricanes (4 volumes of short stories for backward readers)
- 1972 A Picnic with the Aunts
- 1972 Castle Merlin
- 1972 The Kidnapping of My Grandmother
- 1972 Children's Parties (and Games for a Rainy Day)
- 1973 Tiger Nanny
- 1973 The Line
- 1974 Grandpapa's Folly and the Woodworm-Bookworm
- 1975 No Ponies for Miss Pobjoy
- 1978 Bogwoppit
- 1981 Jeffy, The Burglar's Cat
- 1982 Bellabelinda and the No-Good Angel
- 1984 The Further Adventures of Gobbolino and the Little Wooden Horse
- 1985 Spid
- 1986 Grandma and the Ghowlies
- 1987 Paddy on the Island
Sources
- Davison, Colin (2011). Through the Magic Door: Ursula Moray Williams, Gobbolino and the Little Wooden Horse. Northumbria Press. ISBN 978-0-85716-007-2.