Alison Jane Uttley Litt.D. (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 in rural Derbyshire, Alison Uttley 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.^[2]

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 County Secondary School then Fulham Cross Girls' School) in Fulham, West London – the same year the school opened its doors to the girls of Fulham.^[3] 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 later married and became a public schoolmaster.^[4] James Uttley was prone to depression and drowned himself in the River Mersey in 1930.^[2] In 1978, two years after his mother's death, John Corin Uttley, too, killed himself by driving over a cliff.^[4]

From 1924 to 1938,^[2] the Uttleys lived at Downs House, 13 Higher Downs, Bowdon, Cheshire, which now has a blue plaque commemorating her. In 1938 she moved to Beaconsfield, where she was a neighbour of Enid Blyton, whom she came to dislike,^[2] describing her as a boastful and "vulgar, curled woman". She also hated her own illustrator, 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.^[2] 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 settled 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 then rising star, Simon Gipps-Kent.

Legacy

From 1924 to 1938,^[2] Alison Uttley lived at Downs House, 13 Higher Downs, Bowdon, Cheshire, which now 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 Alison Uttley's private diaries appeared,^[5] and she has been the subject of two biographies.^[2][6]

Works

References

External links

• Alison Uttley Papers at the John Rylands Library, University of Manchester
• Biography at Derbyshire UK
• Biographies of Local People at Altrincham Local History Society
• Alison Uttley at Alison Uttley Society
• Alison Uttley at Library of Congress, with 97 library catalogue records
• Alison Uttley at IMDb