Ursula Moray Williams

Ursula Moray Williams (19 April 1911 – 17 October 2006) 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.

Life

Williams was born in Petersfield, Hampshire, by ten minutes the younger of identical twins. She and her sister Barbara Árnason 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 most celebrated creations.

Williams' greatest source of ideas, however, was the house in which she spent her teenage years, North Stoneham House, a large, dilapidated mansion set in woodland north of Southampton. Events from her 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.

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 Williams 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 2011.4 April - 30 June, Ursula Moray Williams Exhibition, Winchester
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Books

* 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'' (Harrap), illustrated by Ursula and Barbara Moray Williams,
* 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'', as by Ursula John, photos by 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'' – sequel to ''The Three Toymakers''
* 1948 ''The Story of Laughing Dandino''
* 1951 ''The Binklebys at Home''
* 1951 ''Jockin the Jester'' – historical fiction
* 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'' – historical fiction
* 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'' – sequel to ''The Three Toymakers''
* 1969 ''Mog''
* 1970 ''Boy in a Barn''
* 1970 ''Johnnie Golightly and his Crocodile''
* 1970 ''The Three Toymakers''
* 1971 ''Hurricanes'' – four 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'' – sequel
* 1985 ''Spid''
* 1986 ''Grandma and the Ghowlies''
* 1987 ''Paddy on the Island''

References

Sources

* Davison, Colin (2011). ''Through the Magic Door: Ursula Moray Williams, Gobbolino and the Little Wooden Horse''. Northumbria Press. .

External links

''Independent'' obituary ''The Guardian'' obituary

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, Ursula Moray
1911 births
2006 deaths
British identical twins
People from Petersfield
English children's writers
Blind writers
English twins
English women novelists