Enid Bagnold


Enid Algerine, Lady Jones, was a British author and playwright, today best known for the 1935 story National Velvet.

Early life

She was born in Rochester, Kent, daughter of Colonel Arthur Henry Bagnold and his wife, Ethel, and brought up mostly in Jamaica. She went to art school in London, and then worked for Frank Harris, who became her lover.

Career

During the First World War she became a nurse, writing critically of the hospital administration and being dismissed as a result. After that she was a driver in France for the remainder of the war years. She wrote about her hospital experiences in A Diary Without Dates, and about her experiences as a driver in The Happy Foreigner.
In 1920, she married Sir Roderick Jones, Chairman of Reuters, but continued to use her maiden name for her writing. They lived at North End House, Rottingdean, near Brighton, the garden of which inspired her play, The Chalk Garden.
The couple had four children. Their great-granddaughter is Samantha Cameron, wife of the former Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader David Cameron.

Death

Bagnold died in Rottingdean in 1981, aged 91, and is interred at St Margaret's churchyard there.

Other

During the Second World War, Bagnold's brother Ralph Bagnold founded the Long Range Desert Group, a precursor of the SAS.

Awards