Monica Edwards
English children's writer of the mid-twentieth century
Monica Edwards (née Monica le Doux Newton; 8 November 1912 – 18 January 1998) was an English children's writer of the mid-twentieth century best known for her Romney Marsh and Punchbowl Farm series of children's novels.
Early life
She was born in Belper, Derbyshire on 8 November 1912, the third of four children born to the Reverend Harry and Beryl Newton. The family moved to Wakefield, Yorkshire in 1919. As well as being a vicar, Harry Newton was a diocesan exorcist and often took his children with him when performing exorcisms. In 1927 the family moved to Rye Harbour in Romney Marsh, Sussex where Harry Newton remained as vicar until 1936. The young Monica Newton received a fragmentary formal education: she is known to have attended Wakefield Girls' High School between September 1920 and July 1921 and when the family were living at Rye Harbour she was sent to St Brandon's School, Bristol where she remained for just three months in 1928 before returning to Sussex. She received no further formal education.
The Mary Stanford disaster
In November 1928 Edwards witnessed the capsizing of the supposedly unsinkable Mary Stanford lifeboat in Rye Bay with the loss of all aboard.
The unprecedented mass funeral, which was attended by representatives of King George V, the Government and the Armed Services, was conducted by her father, the
Reverend Harry Newton.
Edwards knew all seventeen crew-members personally but was especially close to Charlie Southerden.
“Monica Edwards” enters the record as english children's writer of the mid-twentieth century. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Monica, Edwards and English can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Monica Edwards” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Monica, Edwards and English provides the most credible route into that argument.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6899941. VIAF identifies the subject as 79292739. The Library of Congress control number is nr2005012183. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1912, 1998, 1919 and 1927.
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This entry incorporates text from “Monica Edwards” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.