Founders of Wat End School

by Theodora Wilson Wilson, J.R. Burgess (Illustrator)

Jane Ford and Hal Pennington find themselves as founding members of Wat End, a mixed boarding school providing an unusual education.

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1932

About the author

Born in Kendal in 1865, Theodora Wilson Wilson was the daughter of Isaac Whitwell Wilson, a committed member of the Plymouth Brethren, and his wife, Anne Bagster - herself the daughter of Bible publisher Samuel Bagster - who was the compiler of Daily Light, a collection of Bible readings still in print today. Wilson Wilson was educated at Stramongate, the Quaker school in Kendal, and then at Croyden High School, before studying music in Germany. She returned to Kendal after her time abroad, devoting herself to religious activities and social work, running a Sunday School, and starting a Girls' Evening Home for working girls. Her first novel, T'Bacca Queen, was published in 1901.

Wilson Wilson moved to London in 1909, after the death of her mother, where she wrote for magazines, and published numerous books for both children and adults. She was a committed pacifist, a member of the Labour Party, and - after her conversion, during World War I, back to the faith of her grandfathers - a Quaker. She retired to her sister's home in St. Albans in 1941, where she died.