Moira Verschoyle
{{short description|Irish novelist and playwright}}
{{EngvarB|date=November 2016}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2016}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Moira Verschoyle
| other_names =
| image =
| imagesize =
| caption =
| birth_name = Moira Hamilton Verschoyle
| birth_date = 17 December 1903
| birth_place = Limerick
| death_date = 13 January 1985England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1966, 1973-1995
| death_place = Rye, East Sussex, England
| nationality = Irish
| spouse = {{marriage|Warren Chetham-Strode|1927|1974|reason=his death}}
}}
Moira Hamilton Verschoyle (17 December 1903 – 13 January 1985) was an Irish novelist and playwright.{{cite book |title= Burke's Irish Family Records|publisher=Burke's Peerage & Gentry |editor= Burke, Sir Bernard |editor-link=Bernard Burke |edition=5th |year= 1906 |pages=1165–1166 |ref=Burke |title-link=Burke's Peerage }}{{cite web |url=http://www.ricorso.net/rx/az-data/authors/v/Verscholy_M/life.htm |title=Moira Verschoyle |newspaper=Ricorso |access-date= November 30, 2016}}{{cite web |url=https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/birth_returns/births_1904/01833/1716096.pdf |title=Birth record |newspaper=Https |access-date= November 30, 2016}}
Life and career
Verschoyle was born in Limerick and raised in Castle Troy on the banks of the River Shannon, where she was privately educated by governesses. She was born into the Verschoyle family, a prominent landed family of Dutch descent, the daughter of Captain Frederick Thomas Verschoyle, who had been a 2nd Brig. South Irish Div. R.A. and was now a Land Agent, and his wife Hilda Caroline Hildyard Blair, of royal Plantagenet descent. Her grandfather was Hamilton Verschoyle. Verschoyle had an older brother Frederick and an older sister Hilda. Verschoyle worked on the London stage during and after the Second world war.{{cite book|author=J. P. Wearing|title=The London Stage 1940-1949: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=mreCBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA222 222]|date=22 August 2014|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers|isbn=978-0-8108-9306-1}}{{cite book|author=Jeffrey E. Long|title=Remembered Childhoods: A Guide to Autobiography and Memoirs of Childhood and Youth|url=https://archive.org/details/rememberedchildh00long|url-access=registration|year=2007|publisher=Libraries Unlimited|isbn=978-1-59158-174-1|pages=[https://archive.org/details/rememberedchildh00long/page/76 76]–}}{{cite book |author=The Marquis of Ruvigny and Ranieval |title=The Plantagenet Roll of the Blood Royal: The Mortimer-Percy Volume |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=uOHHuwI8tD4C&pg=PA156 156]|date=1 May 2013|publisher=Heritage Books|isbn=978-0-7884-1872-3}}
Verschoyle married Horace de Heriz Smith (later Heriz-Smith){{London Gazette |issue=33515 |date= 9 July 1929| page=4583 |endpage= |supp=}} of Bordighera, Italy, in Penang on 3 April 1922.{{cite web |url=http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/singfreepressb19220404-1.2.27 |title=Newspaper Article - WEDDINGS AT PENANG. |newspaper=The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser |date=4 April 1922 |access-date= November 30, 2016}}{{cite web |url=http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19220404-1.2.34 |title=Newspaper Article|newspaper=The Straits Times, 4 April 1922, Page 8 |access-date= November 30, 2016}} He was an experienced planter in Malaya and they divorced. She returned to the UK within a few years and he later remarried.{{cite web |url=http://www.cofepow.org.uk/pages/ships_kuala_passenger_list.pdf |title=Ship Kuala Passenger List |access-date=November 30, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161120011337/http://www.cofepow.org.uk/pages/ships_kuala_passenger_list.pdf |archive-date=20 November 2016 |url-status=dead }}
While based in Sussex Verscholye married the writer Reginald Warren Chetham-Strode on 16 July 1927 with whom she had one son, who died young.{{cite book|title=Burke's Landed Gentry Of Ireland|date= 1976|pages=1166}} Along with the novels and autobiography she produced and the work in theatre, Verschoyle also wrote articles for newspapers.{{cite book|author=Michael Pierse|title=Writing Ireland's Working Class: Dublin After O'Casey|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D5ehCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT357|date=14 December 2010|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|isbn=978-0-230-31840-3|pages=357–}} She died in January 1985 in Hastings.{{cite web |url=http://www.cliftonrfchistory.co.uk/memorial/WW1/chetham-strode.htm |title=Clifton RFC History - WW1 - Warren Chetham-Strode |access-date= November 30, 2016}}
Bibliography
- Children in Love (London: Hodder & Stoughton 1961)
- Daughters of the General (London: Hodder & Stoughton 1963)
- So Long to Wait: an Irish Childhood (London: Geoffrey Bles 1960), autobiography
- ITV play of the week- The Young May Moon (1958)
Further reading
{{cite web |url=http://www.limerickcity.ie/media/limerick%20childhood%20verschoyle.pdf |title= A LIMERICK CHILDHOOD |newspaper=Limerick city |access-date= November 30, 2016}}
References
{{Reflist}}
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Verschoyle, Moira}}