Georgina Battiscombe

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Georgina Battiscombe (pseudonym Gina Harwood , born November 21, 1905 ; died February 26, 2006 ) was a British biographer.

The main focus of her works were résumés of the Victorian era . For the biography of the English clergyman John Keble , A Study In Limitations , she received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for 1963. In 1964 she was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature .

Life

Battiscombe was born Esther Georgina Harwood , the eldest daughter of George Harwood . Her father was a former pastor, Liberal MP for his hometown of Bolton , Lancashire's leading cotton spinner, writer and lawyer. In her entire family political activity had a long tradition as her father was also her maternal grandfather, Sir Alfred Hopkinson , (the first Vice Chancellor of the University of Manchester ), three of her uncles and her stepfather, John Murray (Director of the College of the University of South West England , Exeter), Member of the United Kingdom Parliament . Battiscombe himself considered a political career.

The author attended school at St Michael's School in Oxford . She then studied at Lady Margaret Hall College, Oxford University . In 1932 she married Christopher Battiscombe, a lieutenant colonel in the Grenadier Guards . The couple initially lived in Zanzibar for two years , where Colonel Battiscombe became the Sultan's secretary and his son's teacher. They then lived in Durham before moving into Windsor Castle when her husband became honorary secretary for the Society of Friends of St George’s . After leaving Windsor Castle, she lived in an apartment near the castle. She then moved to Henley-on-Thames , where she lived near her daughter. Towards the end of her eighties, she decided to start again with her adventurous trips abroad, often with her sister Ruth Harris.

Georgina Battiscombe died in 2006 at the age of 100.

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Battiscombe's best-known works were biographies: on the Victorian novelist Charlotte Mary Yonge (published 1943); Catherine, wife of Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone (1956); the English clergyman John Keble (1963); and Alexandra of Denmark (1969). She was interested in the life of Queen Alexandra, wife of Edward VII , because she suffered from the same form of hearing loss, otosclerosis , as the Queen. Battiscombe was very hard of hearing from about the age of 20 to 50. Two operations and a modern hearing aid finally compensated for this handicap. But she had, as she said, “had a better understanding of Alexandra's predicament”.

Battiscombe has also written biographies of Christina Rossetti (1965) and Lord Shaftesbury (1974), as well as other works including Two on Safari (1946); English Picnics (1949); Reluctant Pioneer: The Life of Elizabeth Wordsworth (1978); The Spencers of Althorp (1984); and Winter Song , a collection of poetry (1992).

Publications (selection)

  • Christina Rosetti . A Divided Life. Constable, London 1981, ISBN 0-09-461950-6
  • Shaftesbury . A Biography of the 7th Earl. Constable, London 1974, ISBN 0-09-457840-0
  • Queen Alexandra . Constable, London 1969, ISBN 978-0351152917
    German: Alexandra . Queen at the side of Edward VII. Translated from the English by Christian Spiel. Biederstein-Verlag, Munich 1970, ISBN 3-7642-0134-7

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Library of Congress , LCNAF Harwood, Gina July, accessed 18th, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Battiscombe, Georgina
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Harwood, Esther Georgina (maiden name); Harwood, Gina (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British biographer
DATE OF BIRTH November 21, 1905
DATE OF DEATH February 26, 2006