Marion Richardson

Marion Elaine Richardson (9 October 1892 – 12 November 1946) was a British educator and author of books on penmanship and handwriting.

Marion Richardson was born on 9 October 1892 in Ashford, Kent, the second daughter of Walter Marshall Richardson and his wife, Ellen.

She was the middle of three sisters, and apparently used to entertain the other two with stories after lights out in the bedroom which they shared. She often serialised these over many nights. She joined a story-writing group when still a child – her nom de plume was 'A Mere Girl'.

In the holidays, her family rented a cottage from E. Nesbit, the author who wrote 5 Children and It, and there Marion discovered and enjoyed Nesbit's collection of books.

Richardson was educated at Winchester High School for Girls, Uplands School, and Milham Ford School in Oxford. She trained to be an art teacher at Birmingham Municipal School of Arts and Crafts from 1908-1912 where she studied under Robert Catterson Smith who influenced her future work.

During her training she was a pupil teacher at Moseley School of Art, where she also worked as a Junior Assistant Teacher. From 1912 to 1923, Richardson was the art mistress at Dudley Girls High School. In 1915-1916 she published a drawing syllabus which was similar to the standard Board of Education drawing programme, but within a year she began to encourage her pupils to produce work with little instruction. She developed her own child-centred methods for teaching art which encouraged self-expression and allowed the pupils to evaluate their own work.

In 1917, her pupils' work was exhibited by Roger Fry, who brought her work to public attention. Richardson was also close to his sister, Margery Fry, who encouraged her to teach art in prisons, including Winson Green prison in Birmingham.

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