Occupation Novelist Period 1922–1969 | Name Elinor Brent-Dyer Role Author | |
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Born Gladys Eleanor May Dyer
6 April 1894 ( 1894-04-06 ) Genre Adventure, School stories Died September 20, 1969, Redhill, United Kingdom Books The School at the Chalet, The Chalet School in Exile, Jo of the Chalet School, The Chalet School ‑ Two Book, The Chalet School and Jo | ||
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.
Biography
Elinor M. Brent-Dyer was born Gladys Eleanor May Dyer on 6 April 1894. She was the only daughter of Eleanor Watson Rutherford and Charles Morris Brent-Dyer. She had a half-brother, Charles Arnold Lloyd Dyer, from her father's first marriage to Helen May Arnold. Several accounts have declared at this point that Charles Arnold "never lived with his father", but he is shown on the census with him living in Fanshawe Street, Southampton in 1891 and in Brownhill Road, Lewisham in 1901.
When Elinor was three years old, her father abandoned his family, which by then included his second son, Henzell. Elinor's father moved in with another woman who had been a servant at his lodgings in 1901, bore him another namesake son, Morris, and in 1911 was living with him as Mrs Dyer.
Elinor was educated in her birthplace town of South Shields. She claimed in later interviews to have attended Dame Allan's School but this can only have been briefly (though she may have taught there for a short time). After finishing her education, she attended City of Leeds Training College and returned to teach in her hometown. It was around this time that she adopted the name Elinor Mary Brent-Dyer.
In 1922, she published her first book – Gerry Goes to School, which became the first of the La Rochelle titles.
She was received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1930.
In 1933, Elinor and her mother moved to Hereford. For a while, Elinor was a commuting governess, but she eventually opened her own school in Hereford – the Margaret Roper School. This school was closed in 1948. Elinor then devoted all her time to writing.
In 1964 Elinor moved to Redhill. She died there in 1969, and her final book was published posthumously the same year.