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Ursula Bloom

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Ursula Bloom
BornUrsula Harvey Bloom
11 December 1892 (1892-12-11)
Springfield, Essex, England
Died29 October 1984 (1984-10-30) (aged 91)
Nether Wallop, Hampshire, England
Pen name
  • Sheila Burns
  • Mary Essex
  • Rachel Harvey
  • Deborah Mann
  • Lozania Prole
  • Sara Sloane
Occupation
  • Novelist
  • biographer
  • journalist
GenreRomantic fiction

Ursula Bloom (11 December 1892 – 29 October 1984) was a British novelist, biographer and journalist.

Biography

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Ursula Harvey Bloom was born on 11 December 1892 in Springfield, Chelmsford, Essex, the daughter of the Reverend James Harvey Bloom, about whom she wrote a biography, Parson Extraordinary. She also wrote about her gypsy ("Diddicoy") great-grandmother, Frances Graver (born 1809), who was known as the "Rose of Norfolk", a sobriquet used by Bloom as the title of her biography. Bloom lived for a number of years in Stratford-upon-Avon, which was the subject of another book, Rosemary for Stratford-upon-Avon.[1]

She wrote her first book at the age of seven. Charles Dickens was always a dominant influence: she had read every book of his before she was ten years of age, and then re-read them in her teens. A prolific author, she wrote over 500 books, an achievement that earned her recognition in the 1975 edition of Guinness World Records.[2] Many of her novels were written under various pen names, including Sheila Burns, Mary Essex, Rachel Harvey, Deborah Mann, Lozania Prole and Sara Sloane.[3][4] She appeared frequently on British television. Her journalistic experiences were written about in her book The Mightier Sword. Her hobbies included needlework, which she exhibited, and cooking. She was a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.[5]

Ursula Bloom married twice: firstly, in 1916, to Captain Arthur Brownlow Denham-Cookes of the 24th (Queen's) London Regiment, late of the Inner Temple (son of Colonel George Denham-Cookes of the 3rd King's Own Light Dragoons and Hon. Clara, daughter of Charles Brownlow, 2nd Baron Lurgan),[6] in the face of his family's "sniffy disapproval"; his aristocratic mother was by this time a wealthy widow, of Prince's Gate, Knightsbridge.[7] Their son, George Philip ("Pip") Jocelyn, was born in 1917 (he married in 1944, Lorna Jean Iris, daughter of Charles Lawson, of Romford, and had issue).[8] Arthur died of influenza in 1918, in the final days of the war.[9] In 1925 she married Charles Gower Robinson (d. 1979), a Royal Navy Paymaster Commander; they lived at 191, Cranmer Court, London SW3.[10][11][12] She died on 29 October 1984, aged 91, in a nursing home in Nether Wallop, Hampshire.[13]

Works

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  • The Duke of Windsor
  • Victorian Vinaigrette
  • The Song of Philomel
  • The Elegant Edwardian
  • Youth at the Gate
  • Down to the Sea in Ships
  • War isn't Wonderful
  • Twilight of a Tudor
  • The Dragonfly
  • The Flight of the Falcon
  • The Ring Tree
  • The Girl Who Loved Crippen (The Story of Dr Crippen and Ethel Le Neve)
  • Parson Extraordinary (About Bloom's father, the Reverend Harvey Bloom)
  • Rosemary for Stratford-upon-Avon (Written about the town by Bloom while she was living there)
  • Rosemary for Frinton (Norfolk - UK)
  • The Rose of Norfolk (About Bloom's great-grandmother Frances Graver)
  • The Mightier Sword (About Bloom's forays into journalism)
  • Tea Is So Intoxicating (as Mary Essex)
  • The Amorous Bicycle (as Mary Essex)
  • Haircut For Samson (as Mary Essex)
  • Nesting Cats (as Mary Essex)
  • Eve Didn't Care (as Mary Essex)
  • Marry To Taste (as Mary Essex)
  • Freddy For Fun (as Mary Essex)
  • ‘’Henry's Golden Queen’’ (as Lozania Prole)

References

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  1. ^ The Rose of Norfolk, Ursula Bloom, Robert Hale and Company, 1964, p. 7
  2. ^ Guinness Book of World Records vol. 13, Sterling Publishing Co., 1975, p. 208
  3. ^ Twentieth-Century Romance and Gothic Writers, ed. James Vinson, Macmillan Publishers, 1982, p. 81
  4. ^ "Ursula Bloom (1892-1984)". www3.shropshire-cc.gov.uk. Archived from the original on 28 December 2013. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
  5. ^ Twentieth-Century Romance and Gothic Writers, ed. James Vinson, Macmillan Publishers, 1982, p. 81
  6. ^ Dod's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage of Great Britain, and Ireland for 1903, Low, Marston & Co., 1903, p. 470
  7. ^ Amidst Cheers, They Marched to War: Four Warwickshire Villages, One Century of Conflict, Hannah Spencer, Matador, 2018, p. 91
  8. ^ The Aeroplane, vol. LXVII, Temple Press Ltd, 1944, p. 292
  9. ^ Bloom, Ursula (1959), Youth at the Gate, Hutchinson, London
  10. ^ Twentieth-Century Romance and Gothic Writers, ed. James Vinson, Macmillan Publishers, 1982, p. 81
  11. ^ Who's Who: an annual biographical dictionary, 120th edition, A. & C. Black, 1968, p. 290
  12. ^ Who was Who: A Companion to Who's Who, Containing the Biographies of Those who Died, vol. 8, A. & C. Black, 1981, p. 68
  13. ^ "Ursula Bloom Dies at 91". Newcastle Journal. No. 43006. 31 October 1984. p. 2. Retrieved 4 March 2019 – via British Newspaper Archive.
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