William Murray (19 April 1912 – 21 September 1995) was a British educationist who created the

Ladybird Coccinellidae () is a widespread family of small beetles ranging in size from . They are commonly known as ladybugs in North America and ladybirds in Great Britain. Some entomologists prefer the names ladybird beetles or lady beetles as they ...

''Peter and Jane'' books.

Early life

He was born in

County Londonderry County Londonderry ( Ulster-Scots: ''Coontie Lunnonderrie''), also known as County Derry ( ga, Contae Dhoire), is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the thirty two counties of Ireland and one of the nine counties of Ulster. B ...

Career

He worked as a teacher. He became a headmaster at two schools in Cheltenham and a County Education Advisor for Devon. He lectured throughout Britain on the teaching of reading.

Learning to read

He published a booklet called ''Key Words to Literacy '' with the education psychologist Joe McNally from the University of Manchester. The booklet described that they had found that in the English language that children spoke, twelve words accounted for one quarter of all words, one hundred accounted for half, and three hundred accounted for three-quarters.

Ladybird

The Key Words Reading Scheme, taking his ideas, was first published in 1964, with Peter and Jane, and went on to sell over 80 million copies of the books in the series. Peter and Jane were based on the real-life children (Jill Ashurst and Christopher Edwards) of a neighbour of the books' illustrator Harry Wingfield. Martin Aitchison and John Berry also illustrated the books. He retired from teaching in 1970.

Personal life

He married Edith and they had a son, who went on to be a teacher and headmaster, and daughter. He died in Cheltenham at the age of 83.TES 1995
/ref> He lived on Leckhampton Road in

Cheltenham Cheltenham (), also known as Cheltenham Spa, is a spa town and borough on the edge of the Cotswolds in the county of Gloucestershire, England. Cheltenham became known as a health and holiday spa town resort, following the discovery of mineral s ...

References

External links

Cheltenham exhibition

History
{{DEFAULTSORT:Murray, William Early childhood education in the United Kingdom British educational theorists 20th-century British educators Literacy advocates People from Cheltenham British education writers 1912 births 1995 deaths