Marie Hartley (29 September 1905 – 10 May 2006) was writer or co-writer and illustrator of some 40 books on the social history of the

Yorkshire Dales The Yorkshire Dales are a series of valleys, or Dale (landform), dales, in the Pennines, an Highland, upland range in England. They are mostly located in the Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county of North Yorkshire, but extend into C ...

Life

Hartley was born into a prosperous family of wool merchants at Morley, near

Leeds Leeds is a city in West Yorkshire, England. It is the largest settlement in Yorkshire and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds Metropolitan Borough, which is the second most populous district in the United Kingdom. It is built aro ...

. She attended Leeds College of Art and then the Slade School in London, where she specialised in wood engraving. On her return to

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...

she settled in the market town of

Wetherby Wetherby ( ) is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the City of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It is close to West Yorkshire county's border with North Yorkshire and lies approximately from Leeds city centre, from ...

. During the 1930s and 1940s she set up in partnership with a local writer, Ella Pontefract, illustrating books on the Dales and Yorkshire. The two women published six books on Yorkshire life and customs before Pontefract died in 1945. Subsequently, Marie Hartley was joined by Joan Ingilby. Marie Hartley spent 75 years gathering material which related to disappearing rural traditions of Yorkshire. The women travelled across the county collecting stories, written material and artefacts, all of which they brought back to the 17th-century cottage they shared at Askrigg in Wensleydale. In the early 1970s they donated their collection to the former North Riding of Yorkshire County Council. In 1979 this gift formed the basis of the collection now housed in the Dales Countryside Museum at Hawes. They wrote the "groundbreaking" ''Life and Traditions in the Yorkshire Dales'' (1968), and ''The Old Hand Knitters of the Dales'' (1951) which showed how important knitting is. These two are considered to be classics. The archive of their documents and photographs remains in the care of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society, whose Silver Medal they won in 1993. Both were appointed MBE in 1997, and in 1999 received honorary degrees from the

Open University The Open University (OU) is a Public university, public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by List of universities in the United Kingdom by enrolment, number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate ...

. Ingilby died in 2000 aged 89.

Works

Works by or about Marie Hartley with Ella Pontefract and Joan Ingilby

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hartley, Marie 1905 births 2006 deaths English women centenarians People from Morley, West Yorkshire Alumni of Leeds Arts University Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art British travel writers Members of the Order of the British Empire Writers about Yorkshire British women travel writers