Hilda Vaughan

Hilda Campbell Vaughan (married name Morgan, 12 June 1892 – 4 November 1985) was a Welsh novelist and short story writer writing in English. Her ten varied novels, set mostly in her native Radnorshire, concern rural communities and heroines. Her first novel was The Battle to the Weak (1925), her last The Candle and the Light (1954). She was married to the writer Charles Langbridge Morgan, who had an influence on her writings. Although favourably received by her contemporaries, Vaughan's works later received minimal attention. Rediscovery began in the 1980s and 1990s, along with a renewed interest in Welsh literature in English as a whole. Life Early years Vaughan was born in Builth Wells, Powys, then the county of Breconshire, into a prosperous family, as the youngest daughter of Hugh Vaughan Vaughan and Eva (née Campbell). Her father was a successful country solicitor and held various public offices in the neighbouring county of Radnorshire. She was a descendant of the 17th-century poet Henry Vaughan. Vaughan was educated privately, and remained at home until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, after which she served in a Red Cross hospital and for the Women's Land Army in Breconshire and Radnorshire. Her work brought her into contact with women living on the local farms, and would become an influence on her writing. At the end of the war she left home for London. While she was attending a writing course at Bedford College, she met the novelist Charles Langbridge Morgan. They were married on 6 June 1923 and then spent nine years in a flat in Chelsea. In December 1924, Vaughan gave birth to the couple's first child, Elizabeth Shirley.