Elinor m brent dyer biography
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After her step-father's death in 1937, EBD continued to live with her mother and various lodgers, until her mother died in 1957
When did she die?
- 20 September 1969 in Redhill, Surrey - where her final years were spent.
Friends of Elinor’s who knew her after his death were unaware that she had had a brother. Several times a year, flowers are sent to the grave, and many members take photographs of it for the FOCS magazine, and now the website (these are always appreciated and if you do take a photograph please e-mail it).
The first book in the series, The School at the Chalet, was published in 1923.
Although she was raised as an Anglican, she converted to Roman Catholicism in 1930.
In 1933, Brent-Dyer and her mother moved to Hereford, where Brent-Dyer was employed as a governess in Peterchurch. In 1938, she opened her own school, the Margaret Roper School, but it closed in 1948.
She was a keen musician and a practising Christian, converting to Roman Catholicism in 1930, a major step in those days.
In the early 1920s Elinor spent a holiday in the Austrian Tyrol at Pertisau am Achensee, which she was to use so successfully as the first location in the Chalet School series.
Her father left the family when she was three years old, and her mother remarried in 1913. She is buried in Redstone Cemetery, and in 1994 (her centenary year) members of FOCS subscribed for a headstone for her grave. Her mother, Nelly, did remarry in 1925. However, she became a teacher and set up the Margaret Roper School in Hereford between 1938 and 1948.
She was originally from the industrial north-east of England, and grew up there in a modest house, without garden or inside sanitation.
- As a child, she attended a local private school; and on her eighteenth birthday began a teaching career that eventually spanned 36 years. Her father had been married before and had a son, Charles Arnold, who was never to live with his father and stepmother.
There are also family, historical, adventure and animal stories; a cookery book, and four educational geography-readers. Thanks to Gemma Muncy who provided this image in October 2022.
Elinor M. Brent-Dyer (1894 - 1969)
Elinor M. Brent-Dyer (6 April 1894 – 20 September 1969) was a children's author who wrote more than 100 books during her lifetime, the most famous being the Chalet School series.
Early life and education
Brent-Dyer was born Gladys Eleanor May Dyer on 6 April 1894, in South Shields.
She taught a variety of subjects at both state and private schools, and ran a Girl Guide group. Between 1938 and 1948 she had 14 books published while between 1948 and 1958 there were 38 published
Was Elinor Brent-Dyer's family like the Maynards?
- She only had one younger brother, Henzell, and he died when he was 17.
Elinor Brent-Dyer was born Gladys Eleanor May Dyer in South Shields on 6 April 1894, the only daughter of Eleanor (Nelly) Watson Rutherford and Charles Morris Brent Dyer. She then dedicated all of her time to writing.
Following her mother's death in 1957, Brent-Dyer moved to Redhill to live with Phyllis Matthewman, who was also a children's novelist.
Her career as a teacher took her all over and included a wide variety of state and private schools, as well as spending two years acquiring a teaching qualification.
- Many of the schools were situated in the north-east, but Elinor's teaching also took her to Middlesex, Bedfordshire and Hampshire and finally to Hereford, where she lived from 1933 to 1964.
- Elinor was not really suited to being a headmistress, being far too erratic and flamboyant in temperament.
Her father eventually went to live with another woman by whom he had a third son, Morris. You can contribute to this article on Wikipedia.
The life and times of Elinor M. Brent-Dyer
If you have ever wondered about the person who wrote over a hundred books, including the 58 Chalet titles, wonder no more!
Helen McClelland, Elinor's official biographer, wrote in 1994:
- Elinor M Brent-Dyer (1894 - 1969) published over 100 books, but there is no doubt that she is remembered today mainly for her Chalet School series.