Alison Uttley Explained

Alison Uttley
Birth Name:Alice Jane Taylor
Birth Date:17 December 1884
Birth Place:Cromford, Derbyshire, England
Death Place:High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England[1]
Monuments:Blue plaque
Alma Mater:Manchester University
Cambridge Training College for Women
Notable Works:Little Grey Rabbit
Children:1
Awards:Honorary Doctor of Letters, Manchester University

Alison Jane Uttley (17 December 1884 – 7 May 1976), née Taylor, was an English writer of over 100 books. She is best known for a children's series about Little Grey Rabbit and Sam Pig. She is also remembered for a pioneering time slip novel for children, A Traveller in Time, about the imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots.

Life

Born in Cromford and brought up on a farm in rural Derbyshire, Alison Taylor was educated at the Lea School in Holloway and the Lady Manners School in Bakewell, where she developed a love for science that led to a scholarship to Manchester University to read physics. In 1906 she became the second woman honours graduate of the university and made a lifetime friendship with the charismatic Professor Samuel Alexander.

After university, Alison Taylor trained as a teacher at the Cambridge Training College for Women (now Hughes Hall, Cambridge). In 1908, she became the physics mistress at Fulham County Grammar School (later Fulham Cross Girls' School) in Fulham, West London – the year the school opened.[2] Around 1910 she was living at The Old Vicarage, King Street, Knutsford. In 1911 she married James Arthur Uttley. In 1914 she had her only child, John Corin Uttley, who became a public schoolmaster. James Uttley was prone to depression and drowned himself in the River Mersey in 1930. In 1978, two years after his mother's death, John Corin Uttley, too, killed himself by driving over a cliff.

From 1924 to 1938,[3] the Uttleys lived at Downs House, 13 Higher Downs, Bowdon, Cheshire, which has a blue plaque commemorating her. In 1938 she moved to Beaconsfield, also the home of children's author Enid Blyton, whom Uttley did not admire.[3] She also had a difficult relationship with the illustrator of her Little Grey Rabbit books, Margaret Tempest.[4]

Writing career

In later life Uttley said that she began writing to support herself and her son financially after she was widowed, but in fact her first book was published in 1929, before her husband's death. Uttley recorded that one inspiration was a meeting in 1927 with Professor Alexander at a painting exhibition in Altrincham, at which he confused her with another ex-student and asked if she was still writing.[3] Her first books were a series of tales about animals, including Little Grey Rabbit, the Little Red Fox, Sam Pig and Hare. She later wrote for older children and adults, particularly focusing on rural topics, notably in The Country Child (1931), a fictionalized account of childhood experiences at her family farm home, Castle Top Farm, near Cromford.

One of her most popular works is A Traveller in Time (1939). Based on the Babington Plot of Anthony Babington at Dethick, near her family home, this romance mixes dream and historical fact in a story of a 20th-century girl transported to the 16th century, becoming involved in a plot to free Mary, Queen of Scots from nearby Wingfield Manor. Uttley later lived in Beaconsfield, in a house named Thackers after the house in the book. In January 1978 BBC TV showed the five-part series A Traveller in Time based on Uttley's story. It starred a 15-year-old newcomer, Sophie Thompson, and a rising star, Simon Gipps-Kent.

Legacy

From 1924 to 1938, Uttley lived at Downs House, 13 Higher Downs, Bowdon, Cheshire, which has a blue plaque commemorating her.

In 1970 the University of Manchester awarded Uttley an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters for her literary work. In 2021, the university named one of its halls of residence Uttley House in her honour.

In 2009 Uttley's private diaries were published,[5] and she has been the subject of two biographies.[6]

Works

Novels

Short story collections

Anthologies

Memoirs and essays

Others

As editor

"Sam Pig" books

"Tim Rabbit" books

"Little Brown Mouse" books

"Little Red Fox" books

"Grey Rabbit" books

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Author's home could be lost if development approved - Get Bucks . 3 February 2017 . https://web.archive.org/web/20170204085333/http://www.getbucks.co.uk/news/local-news/authors-home-could-lost-development-6785958 . 4 February 2017 . dead.
  2. Web site: 2023-08-15 . HISTORY OF OUR SCHOOL . 2023-08-15 . 15 August 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230815153502/https://sites.google.com/fulhamcross.net/fulham-cross-girls-school/information/history-of-our-school . bot: unknown .
  3. Book: Judd, Denis . 1986 . The Life of a Country Child . Michael Joseph . 0718124499.
  4. News: . Diaries reveal dark side to Little Grey Rabbit's creator . 17 June 2009 . 30 July 2021.
  5. Book: Uttley . The Private Diaries of Alison Uttley 1932-1971 . Pen and Sword Books . 2009 . Denis Judd.
  6. Book: Saintsbury, Elizabeth . The World of Alison Uttley . 1980 . London . H. Baker . 81126666 . 0703001795 .
    177 pages, illustrated
    .

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