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Alberta Vickridge Collection

Archive Collection: BC MS 20c Vickridge

Details

Type of record: Archive

Title: Alberta Vickridge Collection

Level: Collection

Classmark: BC MS 20c Vickridge

Creator(s): Vickridge, Alberta()

Date(s): c.1894-1962

Language: English

Size and medium: 6 boxes; manuscript, typescript, press cuttings, and printed material.

Persistent link: https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/8623

Collection group(s): English Literature

Description

Comprises: (1) Boxes 1-3, containing 439 autograph letters written to Alberta Vickridge from many different correspondents between 19 April 1902 and 1 November 1962, all held in 138 envelopes; (2) Box 4, containing several exercise books of juvenilia, including autograph poems dating from 1894, and a volume of 'Manuscript Poems', by Alberta Vickridge, dated 1932-1933; also contains manuscript and typescript copies of various essays written by Vickridge, (3) Box 5, containing many dozens of printed poems by Alberta Vickridge, together with some editorial correspondence relating to them; and (4) Box 6, containing editorial material relating to her magazine 'The Wayfarer' between 1915 and 1928.

Biography or history

Alberta Vickridge (1890-1963), the Bradford poet and editor, was educated at Bradford Grammar School for Girls. She had nine books of poetry published in her lifetime, the first when she was just fourteen years old. Vickridge became a regular contributor to the literary journal 'The Wayfarer', and in 1916 became its editor under the pseudonym J. E. Beamsley. In 1917 she joined the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VADS) as a nurse in Torquay. After the war she published a collection of poems called 'The Sea Gazer' which included some on the topic of war. In 1924 she was awarded the bardic chair at the Southern Counties Eistedfodd for her poem, 'The Forsaken Princess', the only Yorkshire woman writer ever to be so crowned. She single-handedly mastered the craft of printing and worked from an attic in her home at Beamsley House, Frizinghall, for over thirty years editing and printing a range of limited editions. These included the quarterly literary journal, 'The Jongleur', launched in
1927, which gained a reputation nationally for the excellence of its poetry and printing quality. The final issue was published in 1956. Vickridge died in Bradford in 1963.

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