Learning about Enid Bagnold

Do you know anything about Enid Bagnold? Well, she was a British author and playwright who lived from October 27, 1889 - March 31, 1981. She, perhaps, is best known for her 1935 story National Velvet, which was made into a 1944 film starring Elizabeth Taylor.

Bagnold was a nurse during World War I and is the great-grandmother of Samantha Cameron, wife of the United Kingdom's Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader David Cameron.

An interesting point to note is that while Bagnold was born in Rochester, Kent in England, she was raised partly in Jamaica.

Records of her life mention that she spent about three years of her childhood in Jamaica, but little is known about where exactly she was living and when she left.

What is known, is that she was daughter of Colonel Arthur Henry Bagnold and when she left Jamaica she attended the Walter Sickert art school in London. She then worked with Frank Harris who was also her first lover.

In 1920, she married Sir Roderick Jones (chairman of Reuters), but continued to use her maiden name for her writing. The couple had four children.

Lady Jones, as she was later known, died at Rottingdean in 1981 and is buried at St Margaret's Church.