Kirkby Malzeard & Laverton
History
Dorothy Una Ratcliffe
Dorothy was born in Surrey on the 20th April 1887, her father was George Benson Clough and her mother was Rose Emily Benson Clough (nee Russell). George was a barrister, originally from Scarborough.
Dorothy was the eldest of three sisters, the others being Winifred and Pauline, they also had a brother Hugh. Dorothy was known as Dolly and educated at a local high school, then went on to finishing schools in Germany and Paris. She and her siblings were encouraged to write poems and sketches and formed a magazine from these.
Dorothy’s marriage to Charles Frederick Ratcliffe in 1909 in Kensington, did not bode well, due to his affairs. He was the nephew and heir to a chemical magnate Edward Allen Brotherton of Wakefield. Also known as Lord Brotherton, and founder of the Brotherton Collection, a library of ancient books, scripts and documents.
Dorothy and Charles lived at Roundhay Hall, Leeds, and she helped Lord Brotherton in his political career and he later became Lord Mayor of Leeds in 1913-1914 and Dorothy was the youngest ever Lady Mayoress at the age of 26.
In 1930, after Dorothy’s Uncle Edward died, she divorced Charles and went back to her parents but later moved back to Leeds. In the 1920’s Dorothy had met Noel McGrigor Phillips and they eventually married in 1932 and settled in Temple Sowerby Manor in Cumbria. Noel was the love of her life, but suddenly died eleven years into their marriage.
Dorothy wrote plays, character sketches and poems using her married name Dorothy Una Ratcliffe and went on to publish her 49 books under that name. She also contributed greatly to the Brotherton Collection.
She spent a lot of her time in the Yorkshire Dales which inspired her in her work and became expert in the Yorkshire dialect and for a time she was president of the Yorkshire Dialect Society.
After the death of Noel McGrigor Phillips she married Alfred Charles Vowles a photographer and journalist, whom she had met back in the 1920’s walking in the hills near Kirkby Malzeard. This was the time she was living at Laverton Grange, according to the Electoral Rolls she lived there from 1922 to 1934
Dorothy and Alfred lived at Temple Sowerby Manor until 1950, when it was donated to the National Trust. It is now known as Acorn Bank. Alfred and Dorothy moved to Edinburgh.
Dorothy continued to write until she had a stroke, recovered, then had another and sadly died.
She is buried in the churchyard at Temple Sowerby, Cumbria.
Her parents George Benson Clough and Rose Emily Benson Clough’s ashes
are buried in the corner of Dallowgill Churchyard, where they wished to be interred
‘near a Yorkshire moor.’
To the Glory of God and in Memory of GEORGE BENSON CLOUGH of the Inner Temple and of Oxshott, Surrey.
Born 1854. Died 1925. Who desired to be buried near a Yorkshire moor, and also of
ROSE EMILY BENSON CLOUGH. Born 1864. Died 1937. He giveth his beloved sleep.
This Memorial was set by their beloved daughter DOROTHY UNA RATCLIFFE of
Laverton Grange and Temple Sowerby Manor, wife of NOEL Mc GRIGOR PHILLIPS
Epitaph (For my Mother) by Dorothy Una Ratcliffe
No-one had a friend more dear
Than she, whose body’s buried here.
Like a garden was her mind,
Flower-gentle, Leafy-kind.
Passer-by who never knew
This Lady, Time’s ill-treated you.
Click on the following link to read some more poems by DUR
Hope you can follow the dialect!!
Anyone have any idea who the Dallow Moor Shepherd referred to as “Dick”
might have been?
Books by DUR
The Cranesbill Caravan; Singing Rivers [Poems]; The Dales of Arcady;
Mass of the Moorlands; Up Dale; What do they know of Yorkshire?;
The Book of the Microcosm; Island-of-the-Little-Years; Nightlights;
Dale Folk: character sketches in prose and verse; Hazelthwaite Hall;
Fairings. A Yorkshire Miscellany; Equatorial Dawn; Lillilows; Gypsy Dorellia;
Mrs Buffey in Wartime; Stella and Rose’s Books: ICELANDIC SPRING;
Lapwings and Laverocks; The Shoeing of Jerry-go-Nimble; Dale Lyrics;
The Sea Microcosm; Swallow of the Sea; Dale Dramas: A Book of Little Plays;
Sheila K Douglas