Mary Patricia Willcocks

Mary Patricia Susan Willcocks (known as M. P. Willcocks; 17 March 1869 – 22 November 1952) was an English teacher, writer, translator, lecturer, and suffragist. During her lifetime, she was described as a "leading Devon novelist", and deserving of a place in the "front rank" of Britain's authors.

Personal life Mary Patricia Susan Willcocks was born near Ermington, Devon, on 17 March 1869, the daughter of John Willcocks and Sarah Hensleigh. Growing up on a farm, rural settings would influence many of her later works. She worked as a teacher in Edinburgh and Leamington Spa, continuing to teach until after the first two of her novels had been published.

Moving there after the publication of her first novel in 1905, Her last book, written in her eighties, was a biography of François Rabelais, titled The Laughing Philosopher (1950).

Death and legacy Willcocks died in Exeter on 22 November 1952, aged 83, and was buried in the Higher Cemetery. The Western Morning News noted that though "physically frail" in later years, "her intellect remained keen and penetrating to the end".

In 2023, Exeter Civic Society erected a plaque for Willcocks at her former home, 88 Pennsylvania Road.

Select bibliography

Widdicombe (1905) Wingless Victory (1907) A Man of Genius: A Story of the Judgment of Paris (1908) The Way Up (1910) Wings of Desire (1912) The Sleeping Partner (1919) Between the Old World and the New: Being Studies in Literary Personality from Goethe and Balzac to Anatole France and Thomas Hardy (1925) The Laughing Philosopher (1950)