Dame Una Pope-Hennessy | |
|---|---|
 Grave in the Friary Churchyard of St Francis and St Anthony, Crawley, 2017 | |
| Born | Una Constance Birch (1875-04-21)21 April 1875 |
| Died | 16 August 1949(1949-08-16) (aged 74) |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation(s) | Writer, historian, biographer |
Dame Una Constance Pope-Hennessy,DBE (néeBirch; 21 April 1875 – 16 August 1949) was a British writer, historian, and biographer. She was the daughter ofSir Arthur Birch, and married Major (later Major-General)Richard Pope-Hennessy in 1910.
During theFirst World War, she was a member of theCentral Prisoners of War Committee. For this work, she was appointedDame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 1920 civilian war honours. Her two sons were both notable in their own right:James Pope-Hennessy was a writer andSir John Pope-Hennessy an art historian.
She died in 1949 and is buried alongside her husband atFriary Church of St Francis and St Anthony, Crawley.
Pope-Hennessy's early published works were historical studies of jades andsecret societies. Her first biographies were onAnna Van Schurman andMadame Roland. In 1929 she publishedThree English Women in America, charting American experience ofFrances Trollope,Fanny Kemble andHarriet Martineau. It became one of her best known works, and so did her biographical study ofEdgar Allan Poe, published in 1934. Other widely read biographies followed. In 1940 she published a biography ofAgnes Strickland, and the exhaustive biography ofCharles Dickens was published in 1945.[1]
In 1938 Pope-Hennessy published an account of her visit toLeningrad during theStalin reign inThe Closed City. Her final two books were translations,A Czarina's Story andCanon Charles Kingsley both published in 1948 a year before her death.[2]
Pope-Hennessy's books, usually published asUna Birch, included:
