Willie Riley
writer, died 1961
William Riley (23 April 1866 – 4 June 1961) was an English novelist. He was born in Laisterdyke, Bradford. He wrote 39 books using the name W. Riley, mostly fiction and mostly published by Herbert Jenkins Ltd.
After an education at Bradford Grammar School he entered his father's business in textiles, but two years later the firm diversified and William led the innovative new business in the sale of magic lantern slides and equipment. The business was successful until 1914, when, with the onset of World War I, it failed: Riley then developed a second career as a writer, having already published Windyridge.
His first novel Windyridge was written as a series of weekly chapters, in the winter of early 1911, to entertain his wife and two friends, the Bolton sisters, whose parents and third sister had all recently died. He quotes himself as saying "I tell you what I'll do, I'll write a story and read each chapter to you as I go along, week by week. It may help to keep us from brooding". The story is set in the village of Hawksworth near Baildon. He completed the tale in early 1912, having paused in his writing over the summer, and was persuaded to submit it for publication.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as writer, died 1961. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
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 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15999660. VIAF identifies the subject as 36859776. The Library of Congress control number is nr2003005200. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1866, 1961, 1914 and 1911.
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This entry incorporates text from “Willie Riley” 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.