Elizabeth Clark (author)
Annette Elizabeth Clark (14 May 1875 – 21 April 1972) who was known to her family as Nettie, was a story-teller of children's stories, a lecturer in the craft of storytelling and the author of ten collections of children's stories published during her lifetime. Her stories were broadcast on the BBC children's programmes. Early life Elizabeth Clark was born in 1875 the eldest of six children to Reverend William Maitland Clark and Annette Laura Clark in Hartlebury where her father was headmaster of Hartlebury Grammar School. Four years later the family moved to another school in Hampstead and then, in about 1883, to Kingsgate House in Winchester to establish a boys' preparatory school. They lived at Kingsgate House until 1904 when it was sold to Winchester College. While at Kingsgate House Elizabeth Clark along with her sisters were some of the earliest pupils at the (then) Winchester High School for Girls (now St Swithun's). Her father subsequently became vicar of Kilmeston, east of Winchester. As the eldest daughter in a Victorian/Edwardian vicarage, she was expected to assist her parents in the life of the parish. She gradually became aware of her latent gift as a storyteller as she began to capture the interest of the village children by telling them fairy stories. She became determined to make storytelling her life's work and left home to live in London. In 1915 she was invited to give regular Story-hours at the then newly formed Play-Centres. The following year she gave a course of lectures at the West Ham and District Education Centre. The photograph above is taken from a promotional pamphlet she put out which quoted favourable press reviews, including an article that appeared in the Evening Standard: Miss Elizabeth Clark is an idealist. Her stories are related with a sympathetic understanding of what a child wants to know ... She can carry the children with her not only into the well-known world of Grimm and Anderson but along routes of old saga for which East and West are alike responsible. After the First World War In 1919 the London County Council appointed her to give a course of lectures to London teachers which she continued to give twice a year for more than ten years. Meanwhile, she was lecturing to an increasing number of students in the University Training Centres in Scotland. In 1931 she was invited by the Executive of the National Girl Scouts of the USA to lecture at their conferences in the East and Mid-West. After a tour of two months, she returned to England following which she gave a talk at a Luncheon Club in Hull on storytelling in America. The following appeared the Hull Daily Mail: As I write I cannot help still thinking of the delightful way of story-telling which is possessed by Miss Elizabeth Clark, who spoke at the Women's Luncheon Club, Hull, on the art of story-telling in America. I remembered her as soon as she began, and the fact that she had