Jon Godden

Jon Godden
Born	Winsome Ruth Key Godden August 1906 Assam, India
Died	1984
Occupation	Novelist
Nationality	English
Notable works	The House by the Sea
Spouse	Roland Oakley
Relatives	Rumer Godden

Winsome Ruth Key Godden (August 1906 – 1984) was an English novelist who wrote under the name Jon Godden. She was born in Assam, India, and was the elder sister of the better-known novelist Rumer Godden.

The eldest of four daughters of Arthur Leigh Godden, an agent for a British Steamer Company in what is now Bangladesh, and Katherine Norah Hingley, Jon Godden spent almost all of her childhood and much of her adult life in India. She and her sister Rumer were sent to England for their education at the ages of 7 and 6, but the outbreak of World War I caused their parents to arrange their travel to Narayanganj, to which their father had been transferred from Assam while they were abroad. They remained there until Jon was 13, the experience later forming the basis of Two Under the Indian Sun, an autobiographical work jointly written by Jon and her sister Rumer.

Although all four of the Godden daughters were interested in writing, Jon and Rumer were serious about it from an early age. In addition, Jon revealed substantial artistic talent, winning a gold medal intended for adult entrants at an art exhibition in Gulmarg, in Kashmir. Her parents were advised by the professional who had judged the exhibition that she had a future as an artist and that they should eventually send her to The Slade in London. Jon's abilities and good looks, as well as her position as the eldest daughter in the Godden family, meant that she exercised great emotional power over her younger siblings throughout her life and that she was always regarded within the family as the most talented sister, if not the most productive.

In 1920, the Goddens returned to England—Arthur Godden only temporarily, since he had to return to his position in India—and settled in Eastbourne. The children were enrolled in a series of schools, beginning with a High Anglican convent boarding school, where they were not a good fit, having been privately tutored by an aunt in India. They also had difficulty adjusting to a less lavish lifestyle than they had enjoyed under the British Raj. In 1925, however, now in their late teens (and Jon, though having studied at a provincial art school, apparently having given up on any plans to become a professional artist), Jon and Rumer traveled back to India, where Jon fell in love with Nigel Baughan, an employee of Imperial Tobacco. She became engaged to Baughan, but he could not immediately marry, owing to the terms of his employment (common for young British bachelors in India at the time). However, the couple married in secret during a leave that Baughan took in England. The marriage was revealed only on his premature death back in India in 1930. Marriage recorded in the July–September quarter 1929 in the Bridport district (ref 5a 948)

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