Brownie Leader and children's author
Jean Blathwayt is still
remembered by people who feel indebted to her.
I believe that her achievements
deserve recognition with a blue plaque at her former home in Budleigh,
especially in her centenary year. About £360 is needed - it's not all that much
money to acknowledge human qualities that many people would call priceless.
Would anyone like to help fund-raise?
A familiar face
This photo on a Facebook page attracted 3k
views in one day. It shows Jean
Blathwayt being presented with a quilt on her retirement in 1983 from the
Budleigh Salterton Brownie Pack.
And a famous family
Blathwayts had been
associated since the 17th century with Dyrham Park, near Bath.
Radical ideas
Jean’s great-uncle, Colonel Linley Wynter Blathwayt, and his daughter Mary were noted supporters of suffragettes. Their home at Eagle House, near Bath, was a refuge for those who had been imprisoned in the cause of demanding votes for women. The honour of planting a Nordmann fir tree in the garden of Eagle House was given to leading suffragettes.
Pictured above in the garden with a newly planted tree is
militant suffragette Elsie Howey. She was noted for leading a half-mile procession in London on 16 April 1909, from Marble Arch to the Aldwych.
Here she is, in a photo from the Illustrated London News. Dressed in armour as Joan of Arc and riding a white charger, with purple, white and green plumes on her helmet, she stirred the public’s imagination.
A passion for the environment
Jean's father, the Revd Francis Linley Blathwayt, above, was a
parson-naturalist, Rector of Melbury Osmund in
Dorset from 1916 to 1929. 22 volumes of his nature notes and dairies are kept at Dorset County Museum. It was at Melbury Osmund that Jean and her elder sister
Barbara were born.
Melbury Parish Church
Photo by T. Kerry
An inspiration
An unpublished manuscript written by Jean
Blathwayt in the 1940s records the influence of Lady Lilian Digby, above,
a neighbour living close to Melbury Osmund. Awarded MBE in 1918 for her VAD work during WW1, Lady Lilian
Digby, of nearby Lewcombe Manor, was a keen Girl Guide and District Commissioner of the area.
‘The Brownies would trail across the
fields to her lovely home to be tested for various badges,’ recalled Jean.
‘Brownie Revels were held in this good lady’s garden.’
Budleigh connections
Jean was a boarder at Copplestone House
School on Bedlands Lane, Budleigh. This school photo shows Jean at the far left of the centre row.
Her aunt, the artist, writer and GP’s wife
Joyce Dennys, was living in the town at that time. This self-portrait in pastel by Joyce Dennys is part of Fairlynch Museum's collection
The parish church of St Peter, Dyrham and Hinton
A move to Dyrham
In 1929 the Revd Blathwayt moved with his
wife Marjorie and their children to take up the living at Dyrham Rectory. Jean
became a boarder at St Mary’s School, Calne, in Wiltshire, before going on to
Wellgarth Nursery Training College in London.
The School’s magazine reported
that during the Munich Crisis of September
1938, when it was feared that war was imminent, her parents housed three
of the staff, twelve children and thirteen students at Dyrham Rectory.
Budleigh: the children's author
Francis Linley Blathwayt's grave at Dyrham
Image credit: T. Kerry
In 1953, on the death of her
father, Jean settled at ‘Sunbank’ on East Terrace in Budleigh. During WW2 she
had worked as a nursery teacher and Red Cross nurse, having started a Nursery Home for young children at
the Rectory with her sister Barbara.
Although she never married it was her experience of working with young people and her help with local Girl Guides which inspired her to become an author of children’s books.
Not all Jean Blathwayt's books were about little girls and Brownies. Jo's Neighbours has an obviously local setting, with mention of the sea, cliffs, the view of 'a train puffing along the branch line to Bridgeton' - surely Otterton - and moments of drama when a camp fire gets out of control on the Common. It was published by Lutterworth Press in 1958.
More boys' adventures with a coastal setting, and mention of 'a certain white bridge' and a place called Otterleigh. On The Run For Home was published by Macdonald & Co in 1965.
Fairlynch Museum's copy of Lucy's last Brownie challenge is inscribed in the author's handwriting 'For Katherine - to remind you of the happy time you had in the 1st Budleigh Salterton Brownie Pack, from June 1973 to July 1976. With love from your "Brown Owl"' It was published by Brockhampton Press in 1972.
Brownie Discoverers is clearly all about Brownies, but the publisher gives some useful information about the author:
'Jean Blathwayt has been in the Guide Movement since she joined the Brownies at the age of seven. She has recently retired after ten years as Guide Division Commissioner, though she still runs a Brownie Pack and is involved in church youth work.
In addition to Guiding, she enjoys walking and music - and writing, a hobby she began at school, when she made up stories in her "rough book" instead of getting on with her homework!'
Brownie Discoverers was published by Hodder & Stoughton in 1977. A total of 15 books were published between 1957 and 1977.
Budleigh’s ‘Brown Owl’
Above: ‘Brown Owl’ Jean retires from the Brownie Pack
In the early 1960s
she was involved with the Parochial Church Council and a Music and Movement group, and by
1967 was Division Commissioner for the Girl Guides.
Jean Blathwayt with local Brownies
Image credit: Mary Butler
Generations of young
people remember Jean Blathwayt’s support and friendship. ‘I have amazing
memories of her’, one former Budleigh Guide Leader recalled. ‘She was incredibly tuned in to children
of all ages.’
Her later years were affected by ill-health, leading to her death
in 1999. Jean and her sister are buried in the same grave at St Peter’s Burial
Ground in Budleigh.
I would like to record my appreciation of the helpful research into the Blathwayt family done by Trevor Kelly, Emeritus Professor at the University of Lincoln. His book Of Roseates and Rectories: The Birding Biography of The Revd Francis Linley Blathwayt was published in 2005.
Continued at http://jeanblathwayt100.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/the-jean-blathwayt-blue-plaque-appeal.html
