Enid Bagnold

Enid Algerine Bagnold, Lady Jones, CBE (27 October 1889 – 31 March 1981) was a British author and playwright known for the 1935 story National Velvet.

Enid Bagnold

CBE
Bagnold in the 1910s
Born
Enid Algerine Bagnold

(1889-10-27)27 October 1889
Rochester, Kent, England
Died31 March 1981(1981-03-31) (aged 91)
Spouse(s)
​
​
(m. 1920; died 1962)​
FamilyRalph Bagnold

Early life

Enid Algerine Bagnold was born on 27 October 1889 in Rochester, Kent,[1] daughter of Colonel Arthur Henry Bagnold and his wife, Ethel (née Alger), and brought up mostly in Jamaica. Her older brother was Ralph Bagnold. She attended art school in London, and then worked as assistant editor on one of the magazines run by Frank Harris, who became her lover.[2]

Career
Enid Bagnold Age c. 25 by Maurice Asselin

During the First World War she became a nurse; she wrote critically of the hospital administration, and was dismissed as a result. After that she was a driver in France for the remainder of the war years. She wrote about her hospital experiences in A Diary Without Dates,[3] and about her experiences as a driver in The Happy Foreigner.[4][5]

On 8 July 1920, she married Sir Roderick Jones,[6] chairman of Reuters, but continued to use her maiden name for her writing. They lived at North End House, Rottingdean, near Brighton (previously the home of Sir Edward Burne-Jones), the garden of which inspired her play The Chalk Garden. The Joneses' London house from 1928 until 1969, seven years after Sir Roderick's death, was No. 29 Hyde Park Gate, which meant that they were the neighbours for many of those years of Winston Churchill and Jacob Epstein.

The couple had four children. The eldest was Laurian, who illustrated two of Bagnold's books at a tender age. Their great-granddaughter is Samantha Cameron, wife of the former Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader David Cameron.[7]

Death

Bagnold died on 31 March 1981 from bronchopneumonia.[8] She was cremated at Golders Green.[9]

Awards
  • Arts Theater Prize for Poor Judas (1951)[10]
  • Award of Merit Medal for The Chalk Garden (1956)[10]
  • Prize from the Academy of Arts and Letters for The Chalk Garden (1956)[10]

Works
Part of the former home of Enid Bagnold in Rottingdean
  • A Diary Without Dates (1917)
  • The Sailing Ships and other poems (1918)
  • The Happy Foreigner (1920)
  • Serena Blandish or the Difficulty of Getting Married (1924)
  • Alice & Thomas & Jane (1930). Illustrated by Laurian Jones
  • National Velvet (1935). Illustrated by Laurian Jones
  • The Door of Life (1938)
  • The Squire (1938), republished in 2013 by Persephone Books
  • Lottie Dundass (1943, play)
  • Two Plays (1944)
  • The Loved and Envied (1951)
  • Theatre (1951)
  • Poor Judas (1951, play)
  • Gertie (1952 play)
  • The Girl's Journey (1954)
  • The Chalk Garden (1955, play)
  • The Last Joke (1960, play)
  • The Chinese Prime Minister (1964, play)
  • A Matter of Gravity (original title Call Me Jacky; 1967, play)
  • Autobiography (1969)
  • Four Plays (1970)
  • Poems (1978)
  • Letters to Frank Harris & Other Friends (1980)
  • Early Poems (1987)

References

Citations
  1. Sebba 1987, p. 9.
  2. Drabble, Margaret (31 May 2008). "Upstairs, downstairs". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 December 2021.
  3. A Diary Without Dates
  4. The Happy Foreigner
  5. Profile: "A Celebration of Women Writers", upenn.edu; accessed 28 September 2014.
  6. Sebba 1987, p. 104.
  7. Clarke, Melonie; Gumley-Mason, Helena (26 November 2013). "Samantha Cameron's Sari Diplomacy". The Lady. Archived from the original on 25 May 2014. Retrieved 25 May 2014.
  8. Sebba 1987, p. 264.
  9. Sebba 1987, p. 265.
  10. [Commire, Anne (1971). Something About the Author. Gale Research Inc. p. 17. ISBN 978-0-8103-0050-7.]

Bibliography

Further reading
Library resources about
Enid Bagnold
By Enid Bagnold
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