Phyllis Bentley: novelist of Yorkshire life

Contemporary Review, Feb, 1997 by Eric Ford

There are some novels which make a major impact on the contemporary literary scene when published and for a time thereafter, yet, half a century or so later, both the book and its author appear to be forgotten, except, perhaps, by those who were impressed by it at the time. This has been the fate of Phyllis Bentley's Inheritance which, published in March 1932, ran through no fewer than twenty three impressions between then and 1946.

Set in the heart of the West Riding and its textile industry, it is the regional novel par excellence but that alone can hardly explain the remarkable appeal it made to so wide a readership. There had been regional novels before, not least the Wessex books of Thomas Hardy, so that there must have been some element in Bentley's approach to her locality which set her apart.

Certainly, her West Riding credentials are immaculate. She was born in Halifax on 19 November 1894, the daughter of parents, both of whom had long-standing family associations with the local textile industry. Her father had been a junior partner in a textile manufacturing concern, which, according to the 1895 local Directory, operated some 200 looms, producing coatings. Later, with her elder brother Norman, he started E.J. Bentley & Co., engaged in the finishing stages of the wool industry. Her mother was the daughter of a representative of a large textile manufacturing concern, with a long background in textiles. Phyllis was, therefore, thoroughly steeped in the Yorkshire wool textile ethos from her earliest years while, apart from brief intervals, she spent almost the whole of her life in Halifax.

Surprisingly, perhaps, she always contended that a novelist should remain in his or her native town, whilst making frequent excursions to the metropolis. This, she believed, enables the writer to see the beginning, middle and end of countless stories including what happens to families during a quarter of a century and the inauguration, bloom, decay or transformation of many a local feud or cause.

Her views were further developed in her frank, perceptive and, at times, intensely moving autobiography, O Dreams O Destinations (1962), where she also explains that her family was 'essentially proper, essentially respectable, essentially middle-class.' Her education matched this criterion, starting with attendance at a local kindergarten, followed by another private school, a short period at the Halifax High School for girls before entering Cheltenham Ladies' College, whence she obtained an external London BA.

For a time she taught in a large school in North London (where she admits she was 'an appalling failure') and, with more success at Heath Grammar school in Halifax. She undertook this as a contribution to the First World War effort, later playing a more definite part by working in London for the Ministry of Munitions. Two decades later, during the Second World War, she was to work for the American Division of the Ministry of Information.

It was during the First World War, however, that she composed four allegorical stories, to form a volume entitled The World's Bane which T. Fisher Neurin agreed to publish if she would meet the costs. The book appeared in July 1918, received reviews which 'though tiny were quite good' and sold 113 of the 750 copies printed. In view of things to come, this example of what is today disparagingly described as 'vanity publishing' must surely be regarded as a case for the defence!

In 1918, she returned to Halifax to lead the carefree life of post-war young people of her day, until she began to feel the need to do 'something useful' and undertook voluntary work at the new Halifax Child Welfare Clinic. This brought her, for the first time, into contact with the low-paid members of society whose 'thin, sallow, fretful children' had a great influence on her life, not least as a writer, as evidenced in many of her novels. She also acted as secretary to the After-Care Committee of the Halifax Council of Social Welfare.

Meanwhile, she had been working intermittently on Environment (1922), a novel based on the life of a West Yorkshire girl, which she had started as long ago as 1915 and which, after numerous rejections and revisions was eventually published by Sedgwick & Jackson in 1922. The reviews were quite encouraging but no more than 500 copies in all were sold. Another novel Cat in-the Manger, issued by the same publisher in 1923, sold only 360 copies.

Despite this slender contribution to the West Riding literary scene, the Secretary of the Bradford Mechanics' Institute invited her to lecture on the English Regional novel. 'I perceived for the first time that I myself was a practitioner of the regional novel,' she wrote. One must award a posthumous accolade to the prescience of that secretary in noting the nascent gifts of the lecturer of his choice.

Her lecture was a success and was to start her off on a life-long career as a' lecturer which took her all over the United Kingdom, the United States and elsewhere. More immediately, it led her to consider her own attitude to her role as a regional writer. As she was to write later in her autobiography: 'Unconsciously at first, but afterwards with deliberate intention, I have written a series of novels, fifteen in all and three volumes of short stories, presenting the life of the men and women of the West Riding textile trade from the sixteenth century to the present day.' She further developed her ideas on the subject in a valuable study The English Regional Novel (1942).