The Children’s Books History Society Study Day on Families in Children’s Literature (Part 2)

The Children’s Books History Society Study Day

Saturday, 28th October 2023
9.30am-4.30pm

Venue:
Church Hall of the Crown Court Church of Scotland
Russell Street
Covent Garden
London
WC2B 5EZ

The theme for the Study Day is Families in Children’s Literature (Part 2).

The Study Day includes the following four talks & costs £25 per person (includes lunch):

• Brian Sibley: Tove Jansson’s Family Moomintroll: The family we’d all like to have
• Hilary Clare: Charlotte Yonge, the first writer for teenage girls
  (**Celebrating the bicentenary of the birth of Charlotte Yonge**)
  
• Howard Bailes: The Carey Family: an exploration of the novels of Ronald Welch
• Sarah Jardine-Willoughby: The Gatty Family: Close and Talented

To find out more & to book a place, please complete the booking form available here.

Speaker biographies
Brian Sibley is an author, broadcaster and screenwriter, and has written and presented numerous dramas, documentaries and features on BBC radio since 1976. He has also written numerous books, including several books on The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and on children’s writers such as C.S. Lewis. He has also contributed columns and reviews to several newspapers and magazines. He is the President of the Lewis Carroll Society, and an honorary member of the CBHS, The Magic Circle and the Tolkien Society.

Hilary Clare read Modern History at St Hugh’s College, Oxford and subsequently trained as an archivist at the University of North Wales, Bangor. After a few years working in that field she became a teacher, and later a professional genealogist. An interest is children’s books in general led to specializing in girls’ school stories, and also in the Victorian writer Charlotte Mary Yonge.

Howard Bailes encountered Ronald Welch’s wonderful books as a child and they contributed to his early fascination with history. Although he has plenty of historical and literary interests, he admits to a certain leaning towards military history, rather like Ronald himself. For some twenty years he led St Paul’s Girls’ School’s annual tour of the Great War battlefields. Howard’s PhD thesis concerned the Victorian army, on which he has published, along with articles on various topics, a book on the arts-and-crafts architect Gerald Horsley and a history of St Paul’s Girls’ School.

Sarah Jardine-Willoughby is a retired librarian who worked mainly in the University sector, first at the LSE and then for nearly twenty years at Middlesex University, and also spent few years as librarian for the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dance. She is an avid book collector of mainly children’s books including Mrs Molesworth, Charlotte Yonge, Maria Edgeworth and of course Mrs Ewing & Mrs Gatty. She is the Treasurer of the CBHS and more recently of the Charlotte M Yonge Fellowship