THIS IS THE DIARY JUNCTION - DATA AND LINKS FOR OVER 500 HISTORICAL AND LITERARY DIARISTS
PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT ALSO TO LOOK AT KIP FENN, A MAJOR NOVEL ABOUT THE 21st CENTURY
- freely available on this site
Ranfurly, Hermione ___ 1913-2001 ___
British ___ n/a
BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Hermione was brought up on her
grandfather's estate in Baglan, Wales, by apparently dysfunctional parents:
her father was a gambler and her mother a manic depressive. They separated
when Hermione was still a teenager. Her elder brother, whom she adored,
was killed in an air crash. After studying secretarial skills, she went
to Australia in 1937 and became the personal assistant to the Governor of
New South Wales. There she met Daniel Knox, 6th Earl of Ranfurly, who was
an assistant to Lord Gowrie, the Governor-General. They met again in Britain
and were married in 1939. When her husband was called up, Hermione broke
army rules by travelling out to Egypt to be with him; although, once there,
she found if difficult to find work. Whitaker, who is named in the title
of her published diaries, was her husband's butler. Hermione was expelled
from the country once, but returned, nevertheless, only to suffer when her
husband went missing. After three years in an Italian prison, Ranfurly eventually
escaped. After the war, he worked in insurance. In 1953, they went to the
Bahamas where Ranfurly served as Governor. Horrified by the lack of education
resources on the island, Hermione asked friends to send unwanted books.
Thus, she was able to launch the Ranfurly Library Service in Nassau. On
returning to London in the late 1950s, she expanded into the organisation
into Book Aid International. By 1994, it had sent an estimated 15 million
books to over 70 countries. She was awarded an OBE in 1970.
One
biography link
DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1913-1945 ___ domestic society
travel family people Egypt
WEB TEXT LINKS
one
extract
ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
To War with Whitaker: Wartime Diaries
of the Countess of Ranfurly, 1939-45
The Ugly One, The Childhood Memoirs, 1913-39
July 2005
THIS IS THE DIARY JUNCTION - DATA AND LINKS FOR OVER 500 HISTORICAL AND LITERARY DIARISTS
Please
email if you have any corrections, additions or comments. |
IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS:
1) The first line of basic information
may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different
names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or
uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown,
or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British'
a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was
compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts
were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if
they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates
and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with
caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are
only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies.
4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges,
and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising.
I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some
variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited
myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their
original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the
titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries. |