Maria Bird was born Mary Edith Bird (pronounced Marie) on 24 August 1891 in

Pietermaritzburg Pietermaritzburg (; Zulu: umGungundlovu) is the capital and second-largest city in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It was founded in 1838 and is currently governed by the Msunduzi Local Municipality. Its Zulu name umGungundlovu ...

Colony of Natal The Colony of Natal was a British colony in south-eastern Africa. It was proclaimed a British colony on 4 May 1843 after the British government had annexed the Boer Republic of Natalia, and on 31 May 1910 combined with three other colonies to ...

and died in the village where she lived for most of her life,

Westerham Westerham is a town and civil parish in the Sevenoaks District of Kent, England. It is located 3.4 miles east of Oxted and 6 miles west of Sevenoaks, adjacent to the Kent border with both Greater London and Surrey. It is recorded as early as t ...

, Kent, England on 25 August 1979, aged 88. She was a descendant of

Francis Bird Francis Bird (1667–1731) was one of the leading English sculptors of his time. He is mainly remembered for sculptures in Westminster Abbey and St Paul's Cathedral. He carved a tomb for the dramatist William Congreve in Westminster Abbey and s ...

the sculptor and Colonel Christopher Bird who was Colonial Secretary at Cape Town Castle (where there is a landmark named after him in

Kirstenbosch Kirstenbosch is an important botanical garden nestled at the eastern foot of Table Mountain in Cape Town. The garden is one of 10 National Botanical Gardens covering five of South Africa's six different biomes and administered by the South A ...

, South Africa – Colonel Bird's Bath). Her mother brought her children from Natal Colony to the UK to be educated and Maria attended a Scottish convent. Following school, she studied the

Dalcroze Eurhythmics Dalcroze eurhythmics, also known as the Dalcroze method or simply eurhythmics, is one of several developmental approaches including the Kodály method, Orff Schulwerk and Suzuki Method used to teach music to students. Eurhythmics was developed ...

music and dance method under

Émile Jaques-Dalcroze Émile Jaques-Dalcroze (6 July 1865 – 1 July 1950) was a Swiss composer, musician, and music educator who developed Dalcroze eurhythmics, an approach to learning and experiencing music through movement. Dalcroze eurhythmics influenced Carl Or ...

in Dessau.Transcript from interview with Maria Bird's nephew Maria Bird helped found BBC Children's Television with her close friend

Freda Lingstrom Freda Violet Lingstrom OBE (23 July 1893 – 15 April 1989) was a BBC Television producer and executive, responsible for pioneering children's programmes in the early 1950s. She and her friend Maria Bird together created ''Andy Pandy'' and ''Flowe ...

with whom she set up Westerham Arts, the production company commissioned by the BBC to produce TV pieces including ''

The Woodentops The Woodentops are a British rock band that enjoyed critical acclaim and moderate popularity in the mid-1980s. History The band formed in 1983 in South London with an initial lineup of Rolo McGinty (vocals, guitar, formerly of the Wild Swans an ...

'' (1955), '' Bill and Ben the Flower Pot Men'' (1952) and ''

Andy Pandy ''Andy Pandy'' is a British children's television series that first appeared on BBC Television in summer 1950. Originally live, a series of 26 filmed programmes was shown until 1970, when a new series of 13 episodes was made. A revival of the s ...

'' (1950). Westerham Arts was based in Chartwell Cottage (owned by Bird and Lingstrom and subsequently bequeathed to the National Trust). It neighbours the

Chartwell Chartwell is a country house near Westerham, Kent, in South East England. For over forty years it was the home of Winston Churchill. He bought the property in September 1922 and lived there until shortly before his death in January 1965. In th ...

Estate. Maria and Freda built a shed in their garden where their puppet films were made. In addition to TV production she was a writer, narrator and musician.

References

External links

Maria Bird Biography at IMdb
1891 births 1979 deaths British television producers Educational broadcasting in the United Kingdom People from Pietermaritzburg British television writers British women television writers British composers People from Westerham British women television producers 20th-century British screenwriters Colony of Natal emigrants to the United Kingdom {{SouthAfrica-bio-stub