Winifred Holtby
Winifred Holtby was born at Rudston in Yorkshire in 1898. Though she passed the entrance exam for Somerville College in 1917, she chose to delay her entry and serve in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps. After graduation in 1921 she began to develop a literary career. An ardent feminist and pacifist, she also worked tirelessly for the League of Nations Union and other social causes. She published short stories, satires, poetry and acclaimed critical works, as well as six novels, the last of which was the modern classic South Riding. In the early 1930s she was diagnosed with Bright’s disease, which eventually cut tragically short her very active life. She died in 1935.
