Joanne Rowling was born on 31 July 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire, the daughter of science technician Anne (née Volant) and Rolls-Royce aircraft engineer Peter James Rowling. Her parents first met on a train departing from King's Cross Station bound for Arbroath in 1964. They married on 14 March 1965. One of Rowling's maternal great-grandfathers, Dugald Campbell, was a Scottish man from Lamlash. Her mother's French paternal grandfather, Louis Volant, was awarded the War Cross for exceptional bravery in defending the village of Courcelles-le-Comte during World War I. Rowling originally believed Volant had won the Legion of Honour during the war, as she said when she received it herself in 2009.
Birth and family
J. K. Rowling
J. K. Rowling | Birth and family
Science technician Anne and Rolls-Royce aircraft engineer Peter James Rowling. Anne (née Volant) and Peter James Rowling. Anne and Peter James Rowling. Anne and Peter James Rowling
when did jk rowling wrote the harry potter books
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Her debut novel was written between approximately June 1990 and some time in 1995.
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who is j.k. rowling?
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A British writer and philanthropist.
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what is her full name?
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Joanne Kathleen Rowling
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who were her parents?
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Joanne Rowling was born on 31 July 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire, the daughter of science technician Anne (née Volant) and Rolls-Royce aircraft engineer Peter James Rowling. Her parents first met on a train departing from King's Cross Station bound for Arbroath in 1964. They married on 14 March 1965. One of Rowling's maternal great-grandfathers, Dugald Campbell, was a Scottish man from Lamlash. Her mother's French paternal grandfather, Louis Volant, was awarded the War Cross for exceptional bravery in defending the village of Courcelles-le-Comte during World War I. Rowling originally believed Volant had won the Legion of Honour during the war, as she said when she received it herself in 2009.
J. K. Rowling | Birth and family
Rowling's youngest child, daughter Mackenzie Jean Rowling Murray, to whom she dedicated "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince", was born on 23 January 2005. In October 2012, a "New Yorker" magazine article stated that the Rowling family lived in a seventeenth-century Edinburgh house, concealed at the front by tall conifer hedges. Prior to October 2012, Rowling lived near the author Ian Rankin, who later said she was quiet and introspective, and that she seemed in her element with children. , the family resides in Scotland.
J. K. Rowling | Remarriage and family
Although she writes under the pen name J. K. Rowling, before her remarriage, her name was Joanne Rowling. Her publishers asked that she use two initials rather than her full name, anticipating the possibility of the target audience of young boys not wanting to read a book written by a woman. As she had no middle name, she chose "K" (for Kathleen) as the second initial of her pen name, from her paternal grandmother. She calls herself Jo. Following her remarriage, she has sometimes used the name Joanne Murray when conducting personal business. During the Leveson Inquiry, she gave evidence under the name of Joanne Kathleen Rowling and her entry in "Who's Who" lists her name also as Joanne Kathleen Rowling.
J. K. Rowling | Name
Rowling's sister Dianne was born at their home when Rowling was 23 months old. The family moved to the nearby village of Winterbourne when Rowling was four. As a child, Rowling often wrote fantasy stories which she frequently read to her sister. Aged nine, Rowling moved to Church Cottage in the Gloucestershire village of Tutshill, close to Chepstow, Wales. When she was a young teenager, her great-aunt gave her a copy of Jessica Mitford's autobiography, "Hons and Rebels." Mitford became Rowling's heroine, and Rowling read all of her books. Rowling has said that her teenage years were unhappy. Her home life was complicated by her mother's diagnosis with multiple sclerosis and a strained relationship with her father, with whom she is not on speaking terms.
J. K. Rowling | Childhood
She later discovered the truth when featured in an episode of the UK genealogy series "Who Do You Think You Are?" in which she found out it was a different Louis Volant who won the Legion of Honour. When she heard her grandfather's story of bravery and discovered that the War Cross was for "ordinary" soldiers like her grandfather, who had been a waiter, she stated the War Cross was "better" to her than the Legion of Honour.
J. K. Rowling | Birth and family
Her mother's death heavily affected Rowling's writing, and she channelled her own feelings of loss by writing about Harry's own feelings of loss in greater detail in the first book.
J. K. Rowling | Inspiration and mother's death
As a child, Rowling has said her early influences included "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" by C. S. Lewis, "The Little White Horse" by Elizabeth Goudge, and "Manxmouse" by Paul Gallico.
J. K. Rowling | Influences
On 26 December 2001, Rowling married Neil Murray (born 30 June 1971), a Scottish doctor, in a private ceremony at her home, Killiechassie House, in Scotland. Their son, David Gordon Rowling Murray, was born on 24 March 2003. Shortly after Rowling began writing "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince", she ceased working on the novel to care for David in his early infancy. Rowling is a friend of Sarah Brown, wife of former prime minister Gordon Brown, whom she met when they collaborated on a charitable project. When Sarah Brown's son Fraser was born in 2003, Rowling was one of the first to visit her in hospital.
J. K. Rowling | Remarriage and family
An advertisement in "The Guardian" led Rowling to move to Porto, Portugal, to teach English as a foreign language. She taught at night and began writing in the day while listening to Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto. After 18 months in Porto, she met Portuguese television journalist Jorge Arantes in a bar and found they shared an interest in Jane Austen. They married on 16 October 1992 and their child, Jessica Isabel Rowling Arantes (named after Jessica Mitford), was born on 27 July 1993 in Portugal. Rowling had previously suffered a miscarriage. The couple separated on 17 November 1993. Biographers have suggested that Rowling suffered domestic abuse during her marriage, which was later confirmed by Rowling herself, and by her first husband, who, in an article for "The Sun" in June 2020, said he had slapped her and did not regret it.
J. K. Rowling | Marriage, divorce, and single parenthood
After working as a researcher and bilingual secretary in London for Amnesty International, Rowling moved with her then-boyfriend to Manchester, where she worked at the Chamber of Commerce. In 1990, while she was on a four-hour-delayed train trip from Manchester to London, the idea for a story of a young boy attending a school of wizardry "came fully formed" into her mind. When she had reached her Clapham Junction flat, she began to write immediately. In December, Rowling's mother, Anne, died after ten years suffering from multiple sclerosis. Rowling was writing "Harry Potter" at the time and had never told her mother about it.
J. K. Rowling | Inspiration and mother's death
Later, she started to attend a Church of Scotland congregation at the time she was writing "Harry Potter". Her eldest daughter, Jessica, was baptised there. In a 2006 interview with "Tatler", Rowling noted that, "like Graham Greene, my faith is sometimes about if my faith will return. It's important to me." She has said that she has struggled with doubt, that she believes in an afterlife, and that her faith plays a part in her books. In a 2012 radio interview, she said that she was a member of the Scottish Episcopal Church, a province of the Anglican Communion.
J. K. Rowling | Religion
Rowling later said that she based the character of Hermione Granger on herself when she was eleven. Sean Harris, her best friend in the Upper Sixth, owned a turquoise Ford Anglia which she says inspired a flying version that appeared in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets". Like many teenagers, she became interested in rock music, listening to the Clash, the Smiths, and Siouxsie Sioux, adopting the look of the latter with back-combed hair and black eyeliner, a look that she would still sport when beginning university.
J. K. Rowling | Childhood
Tindall's mother, Ursula Orange, was a novelist in the 1930s and 1940s. Ursula's father was Hugh William Orange, who received a knighthood for contributions to education in India. Hugh's father was the medical pioneer William Orange CB, MD, FRCP, LSA, second superintendent of Broadmoor Hospital.
Gillian Tindall | Family
Rowling, once a single parent, is now president of the charity Gingerbread (originally One Parent Families), having become their first Ambassador in 2000. Rowling collaborated with Sarah Brown to write a book of children's stories to aid One Parent Families. In 2001, the UK anti-poverty fundraiser Comic Relief asked three best-selling British authors—cookery writer and TV presenter Delia Smith, "Bridget Jones" creator Helen Fielding, and Rowling—to submit booklets related to their most famous works for publication. Rowling's two booklets, "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" and "Quidditch Through the Ages", are ostensibly facsimiles of books found in the Hogwarts library.
J. K. Rowling | Anti-poverty and children's welfare
Hermione Jean Granger is a Muggle-born Gryffindor, who becomes best friends with Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. J.K. Rowling states that she was born on 19 September 1979 and she was nearly twelve when she first attended Hogwarts. She is an overachiever who excels academically and is described by J.K Rowling as a "very logical, upright and good" character. J.K. Rowling adds that Hermione's parents, two Muggle dentists, are a bit bemused by their odd daughter but "very proud of her all the same." They are well aware of the wizarding world and have visited Diagon Alley with her. Hermione was originally intended to have a sister, but the planned sibling did not make an appearance in the first "Harry Potter" novel and, as Rowling noted, it "seemed too late" to introduce the character after all of that.
Hermione Granger | Character development
Hogwarts has to be a boarding school—half the important stuff happens at night! Then there's the security. Having a child of my own reinforces my belief that children above all want security, and that's what Hogwarts offers Harry." Her own mother's death on 30 December 1990 inspired Rowling to write Harry as a boy longing for his dead parents, his anguish becoming "much deeper, much more real" than in earlier drafts because she related to it herself. In a 2000 interview with "The Guardian", Rowling also established that the character of Wart in T. H. White's novel "The Once and Future King" is "Harry's spiritual ancestor." Finally, she established Harry's birth date as 31 July, the same as her own.
Harry Potter (character) | Concept and creation
The United Kingdom's domestic abuse commissioner Nicole Jacobs formally advised "The Sun" that it was unacceptable "to repeat and magnify the voice of someone who openly admits to violence against a partner". In December 1993, Rowling and her then infant daughter moved to Edinburgh, Scotland, to be near Rowling's sister with three chapters of what would become "Harry Potter" in her suitcase. Seven years after graduating from university, Rowling saw herself as a failure. Her marriage had failed, and she was jobless with a dependent child, but she described her failure as liberating and allowing her to focus on writing.
J. K. Rowling | Marriage, divorce, and single parenthood
Joanne Rowling ( ; born 31 July 1965), better known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British writer and philanthropist. She is best known for writing the "Harry Potter" fantasy series, which has won multiple awards and sold more than 500 million copies, becoming the best-selling book series in history. The books are the basis of a popular film series, over which Rowling had overall approval on the scripts and was a producer on the final films. She also writes crime fiction under the pen name Robert Galbraith. Born in Yate, Gloucestershire, Rowling was working as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International when she conceived the idea for the "Harry Potter" series while on a delayed train from Manchester to London in 1990.
J. K. Rowling | Introduction
Her parents are the well-known academics Derek Bok and Sissela Bok and her maternal grandparents were the Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal and the politician and diplomat Alva Myrdal, both Nobel laureates. Her paternal grandparents were distinguished Pennsylvania jurist Curtis Bok and Margaret Plummer Bok.
Hilary Bok | Family
In May 2008, bookseller Waterstones asked Rowling and 12 other writers (Lisa Appignanesi, Margaret Atwood, Lauren Child, Sebastian Faulks, Richard Ford, Neil Gaiman, Nick Hornby, Doris Lessing, Michael Rosen, Axel Scheffler, Tom Stoppard and Irvine Welsh) to compose a short piece of their own choosing on a single A5 card, which would then be sold at auction in aid of the charities Dyslexia Action and English PEN. Rowling's contribution was an 800-word "Harry Potter" prequel that concerns Harry's father, James Potter, and godfather, Sirius Black, and takes place three years before Harry was born. The cards were collated and sold for charity in book form in August 2008.
J. K. Rowling | Other philanthropic work
Her adoptive parents are Silas and Sarah Heap. Her biological parents are Milo Banda and Queen Cerys.
Jenna Heap | Family
Her parents are Ed and Page Allen and Amy and Frank Guess. She has two brothers and two sisters.
Elizabeth Guess | Personal
Her mother was directly descended from John Alden and Priscilla Alden (ascending line: Alden Spooner, Judah Paddock Spooner, Rebecca Paddock, Alice Alden, David Alden, John Alden), made famous by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Huling was graduated from the village high school. Music, languages and the periodicals of the day were studied after that date.
Caroline Augusta Huling | Early life and family
Presented in order of importance. Dolly Sydenham was the mother of Peter. Arthur Stubland was the father of Peter.
Joan and Peter | Parents and their family
They had a daughter, Jocelyn, and a son, Jonathan.
Margaret Potter | Personal life
In 1995, Rowling finished her manuscript for "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" which was typed on an old manual typewriter. Upon the enthusiastic response of Bryony Evens, a reader who had been asked to review the book's first three chapters, the Fulham-based Christopher Little Literary Agency agreed to represent Rowling in her quest for a publisher. The book was submitted to twelve publishing houses, all of which rejected the manuscript. A year later, she was finally given the green light (and a £1,500 advance) by editor Barry Cunningham from Bloomsbury, a publishing house in London. The decision to publish Rowling's book owes much to Alice Newton, the eight-year-old daughter of Bloomsbury's chairman, who was given the first chapter to review by her father and immediately demanded the next.
J. K. Rowling | "Harry Potter"
In the novels, Harry is the only child of James and Lily Potter, orphaned as an infant. Rowling made Harry an orphan from the early drafts of her first book. She felt an orphan would be the most interesting character to write about. However, after her mother's death, Rowling wrote Harry as a child longing to see his dead parents again, incorporating her own anguish into him. Harry is categorised as a "half-blood" wizard in the series, because although both his parents were magical, Lily was "Muggle-born", and James was a pure-blood. Harry's aunt and uncle kept the truth about his parents' deaths from Harry, telling him that they had died in a car crash.
Harry Potter (character) | Family tree
As a child, Rowling attended St Michael's Primary School, a school founded by abolitionist William Wilberforce and education reformer Hannah More. Her headmaster at St Michael's, Alfred Dunn, has been suggested as the inspiration for the "Harry Potter" headmaster Albus Dumbledore. She attended secondary school at Wyedean School and College, where her mother worked in the science department. Steve Eddy, her first secondary school English teacher, remembers her as "not exceptional" but "one of a group of girls who were bright, and quite good at English". Rowling took A-levels in English, French and German, achieving two As and a B and was head girl.
J. K. Rowling | Education
To avoid scandal, Charlotte raised Merle as Constance's half-sister. Constance eventually married Alexander Soares and had four other children: Edna, Douglas, Harry, and Stanislaus (Stan). Edna and Douglas moved to the UK at an early age. Stanislaus was the only child to keep his father's surname of Soares and resided in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada. Harry eventually moved to Toronto, Canada, retaining Charlotte’s maiden name, Selby. When Harry tracked down Merle's birth certificate in Indian government records in Bombay, he was surprised to discover that he was in fact Merle's half-brother, not her nephew. He attempted to visit her in Los Angeles, but she refused to see him.
Merle Oberon | Parentage
His father, Major Arthur Frayling, was a furrier. His mother, Betty Frayling, won the RAC Rally in 1952. His brother, Christopher, is a British educationalist and writer.
Nicholas Frayling | Family
The photo which was taken by a photographer using a long-range lens, was then published in a "Sunday Express" article featuring Rowling's family life and motherhood. The judgement was overturned in David's favour in May 2008. Rowling particularly dislikes the British tabloid the "Daily Mail", which has conducted several interviews with her estranged ex-husband. As one journalist noted, "Harry's Uncle Vernon is a grotesque philistine of violent tendencies and remarkably little brain. It is not difficult to guess which newspaper Rowling gives him to read [in "Goblet of Fire"]." In 2014, she successfully sued the "Mail" for libel over an article about her time as a single mother.
J. K. Rowling | Press
Jane Ormsby-Gore, a daughter of David, 5th Lord Harlech. They have two sons and a daughter together.
Jasmine Guinness | Personal life
Her uncle was the architect and writer C. H. B. Quennell, whose son, her cousin, was the writer Sir Peter Quennell.
Joan Quennell | Family
She was born Katharine Ann Johnson to Anne Cox Chambers and Louis G. Johnson. Her maternal grandfather is James M. Cox. She has a sister Margaretta Taylor, and a half-brother James Cox Chambers, from her mother's second marriage.
Katharine Rayner | Early life
His mother is the granddaughter of Jolivet's brother Alfred.
Rita Jolivet | Origins and Family
His father, Major Arthur Frayling, was a furrier. His mother, Betty Frayling, won the RAC Rally in 1952. His brother, Nicholas, was Dean of Chichester Cathedral from 2002-2014.
Christopher Frayling | Family
Bunford's parents were John Bunford (14 March 1856-10 December 1916) and Jane Bunford (Nee Andrews) (April 1857–1934) of Bartley Green, Northfield, Birmingham, UK. Her father was a metal caster.
Jane Bunford | Early life
However, she later has a son, Francis, who is born human.
Kevin and Kell | Setting
His mother was Cora Jane Brown and his father was Samuel David Johnson.
Gilbert H. Johnson | Family
Gloria Blondell's parents, Edward Joan "Ed" Blondell and Catherine "Katie" Caine, and her siblings, Edward Jr. and Joan, were all entertainers. She once said, "[S]ome member of my family has been in the theater ever since the time of Richard the Lionhearted." Her father, Levi Blustine (or Bluestein), a vaudeville comedian known as Edward Joan Blondell, was born in Poland to a Jewish family circa 1865 and died in Glendale, California on March 27, 1943. He toured for many years starring in the Blondell/Fennessy stage version of "The Katzenjammer Kids". Blondell's mother, Catherine (also known as Kathryn or Katie) Caine, was born in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, on April 13, 1884, of Irish descent.
Gloria Blondell | Family
Kiessling is mother of three daughters and a son.
Ann Kiessling | Background
His middle name is Potter. This was his mother's maiden name, Rhoba Potter Tallmadge.
Nathaniel P. Tallmadge | Notes
Evans's parents were Hollywood writers Dale Eunson and Katherine Albert. Her father wrote the book "The Day They Gave Babies Away", which was made into the movie "All Mine to Give" (1957). She was named after actress Joan Crawford, her godmother. Before she appeared in movies, she played Gretel In a school performance of "Hansel and Gretel."
Joan Evans (actress) | Early years
Rowling married Glen Reeves in 1951. The couple lost their second child when she was five months old in 1957; another daughter, Kim, committed suicide at the age of 18. Rowling was a practising Anglican.
Bill Rowling | Personal life
Marél von Steinling, Daughter of Johanna née Hoenning O'Carroll, artist.
Marél von Steinling | Family
Born in Ramsgate, Kent, in 1876, her parents were Josiah Austin, a Cornish naval surgeon, and Fanny (née Mann) Austin. She was educated privately by a Mrs. Louise Jopling-Rowe and Mr. Cuthbert E. Swan.
Winifred Austen | Early years and education
Joanne Rowling began studying at the school in September 1976, and her mother Anne worked as a technician in the Science department from 1978. He was often known as "Stinger" by pupils due to his last name being "Nettleship". This led to the practical joke of telling first years to ask for "Mr Stinger", which ended up with them getting in trouble. Nettleship described himself in hindsight as "a short-tempered chemistry teacher with long hair...[and a] gloomy, malodorous laboratory..". He was first questioned about his links to Rowling's character of Snape by journalists, saying: "I was horrified when I first found out.
John Nettleship | Life
The village was the childhood home, from the age of nine in 1974, of the author J. K. Rowling. She attended Tutshill Church of England Primary School before moving on at the age of eleven to the nearby Wyedean School in Sedbury. Her childhood home, Church Cottage, a mid-19th century Gothic-style Grade II listed building designed by the architect Henry Woodyer, was put up for sale in 2011. The character Severus Snape in the "Harry Potter" books was partly based on Sylvia Morgan, a teacher at her primary school, and on one of her teachers at Wyedean School, John Nettleship.
Tutshill | J. K. Rowling
R. R. Tolkien – The Wizard Father". Michael and his wife Joan had three children: Michael George Reuel (b. 1943), Joan Anne (b. 1945) and Judith (b. 1951). Royd Tolkien is the son of Michael's daughter Joan. Michael Hilary Reuel Tolkien died in 1984 from leukaemia.
Tolkien family | Michael Hilary R. Tolkien
Rowley was born in 1765 the second son of Clotworthy Rowley and Letitia (née Campbell), of Mountcampbell, Drumsna, County Leitrim, in the West of Ireland. His father was Barrister and MP for Downpatrick in the Irish Parliament. His paternal grandfather was Admiral of the Fleet Sir William Rowley, KCB.
Josias Rowley | Birth and family
J. R. R. Tolkien and his wife were among the guests. They had three sons: Thorlac Francis Samuel (born 6 January 1944), Merlin Oswald (born 2 July 1946) and Brendan Arthur Auberon (16 September 1948 – 6 December 1981).
Joan Turville-Petre | Introduction
Her parents were George and Lillian Lyttle, both Jewish immigrants. Her father was from Russia but grew up in Liverpool, England. Her mother was born in New York and her parents were Russian-Polish immigrants. At age 17, George emigrated to the US and became a successful dress manufacturer. He appreciated the opportunities from having a business but he wanted his daughters to focus on education. She has three children. Her late husband, Joseph Birman, was a physicist and a leading advocate for human rights for scientists.
Joan Birman | Family
Rowling also demanded that Coca-Cola, the winner in the race to tie in their products to the film series, donate US$18 million to the American charity Reading Is Fundamental, as well as several community charity programs. Steve Kloves wrote the screenplays for all but the fifth film; Rowling assisted him in the writing process, ensuring that his scripts did not contradict future books in the series. She told Alan Rickman (Severus Snape) and Robbie Coltrane (Hagrid) certain secrets about their characters before they were revealed in the books. Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) asked her if Harry died at any point in the series; Rowling answered him by saying, "You have a death scene", thereby not explicitly answering the question.
J. K. Rowling | "Harry Potter" films
She had three children: Margaret Jay, Baroness Jay of Paddington; Julia and Michael.
Audrey Callaghan | Personal life
J. K. (Joanne) Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, was Head Girl in 1982. Her mother, Anne Rowling, had worked there as a technician in the Science Department from 1978. During July 2006, the school library was dedicated to J. K. Rowling. Although she has made it clear that she did not always enjoy her time at Wyedean, citing teachers and loneliness, her website states that she and her sister "both loved their school days" there. She has stated that the character of Professor Snape was partly based on a chemistry master who taught at the school, understood to be John Nettleship.
Wyedean School | Notable alumni
She was a member of the first graduating class at Vassar College.
Gladwyn Kingsley Noble | Parents
In October 2010, she was named the "Most Influential Woman in Britain" by leading magazine editors. Rowling has supported multiple charities, including Comic Relief, One Parent Families, and Multiple Sclerosis Society of Great Britain, as well as launching her own charity, Lumos.
J. K. Rowling | Introduction
Muggle-born is the term applied to wizards and witches whose parents were Muggles. J.K. Rowling has said they are second-most common of the three types of blood status wizards, numbering about 25% in the Wizarding community. They are often believed to be descended from Squibs who married Muggles, and the dormant magical gene may resurface after a couple of generations. Harry Potter's mother, Lily Evans, and his best friend, Hermione Granger, were Muggle-born. Unlike children of Wizarding families who get a Hogwarts acceptance letter from an owl, a Hogwarts employee will usually hand-deliver the letter to Muggle-borns in order to meet the Muggle parents and explain.
Fictional universe of Harry Potter | Muggle-born
You do not have the right to decide what everyone else's children are exposed to. So that's how I feel about it". "Practicing Wiccans think I'm also a witch", Rowling told "Entertainment Weekly" in 2000. "I'm not."
Religious debates over the Harry Potter series | Rowling's response
These include Muggle parents of magical children, such as Hermione Granger's parents, the Muggle Prime Minister (and predecessors), the Dursley family (Harry Potter's unsupportive non-magical and only living relatives), and the non-magical spouses of some witches and wizards.
Muggle | Usage in "Harry Potter"
Her mother was the barrister Theodora Llewelyn Davies.
Jane Wynne Willson | Biography
His parents John Jelley (ca.1847 – 6 June 1912) and Elizabeth Stevenson Jelley (ca.1849 – 31 March 1929) had four children:
James Jelley | Family
He is married to Terry Hennersdorf Rowling, they have two children, and live in Dallas, Texas. They met when they were both studying for bachelor's degrees in business at the University of Texas at Austin.
Robert Rowling | Personal life
She was the middle child of three daughters born to Robert Hall, a proof reader, and his wife, Mabel (née Steadman), a nurse. She attended Ealing girls' school (West London), and the Guildford College of Technology (in Surrey).
Di Ellis | Family
His father was William Dilling. Dilling was married and had children.
Walter J. Dilling | Life
Born in New York City, Collyer chose to use her mother's maiden name when she decided to pursue acting. Her father was Clayton Heermance, an attorney in New York.
June Collyer | Early life
Rowling has named civil rights activist Jessica Mitford as her greatest influence. She said "Jessica Mitford has been my heroine since I was 14 years old, when I overheard my formidable great-aunt discussing how Mitford had run away at the age of 19 to fight with the Reds in the Spanish Civil War", and claims what inspired her about Mitford was that she was "incurably and instinctively rebellious, brave, adventurous, funny and irreverent, she liked nothing better than a good fight, preferably against a pompous and hypocritical target". Rowling has described Jane Austen as her favourite author, calling "Emma" her favourite book in "O, The Oprah Magazine".
J. K. Rowling | Influences
Rowlings is a surname of English and Irish origin. Notable people with the surname are:
Rowlings | Introduction
Mabel Tolkien, born Suffield (1870 – 14 November 1904) was the mother of J. R. R. Tolkien. Her parents, John Suffield and Emily Jane Sparrow, lived in Stirling Road, Birmingham and owned a shop in the city centre. The Suffield family had a business in a building called Lamb House since 1812. From 1812 William Suffield ran a book and stationery shop there; Tolkien's great-grandfather, also John Suffield, was there from 1826 with a drapery and hosiery business. Her husband Arthur Tolkien's death in South Africa in 1896 left her and their two young sons without a source of income.
Tolkien family | Mabel Tolkien
Gilbert's mother came from a large family around Brentford, London. Her father was William Lestocq.
Humphrey Lestocq | Family
J. K. Rowling has repeatedly denied that her books lead children into witchcraft. In an interview with CNN in 1999, she said, I absolutely did not start writing these books to encourage any child into witchcraft. I'm laughing slightly because to me, the idea is absurd. I have met thousands of children and not even one time has a child come up to me and said, "Ms Rowling, I'm so glad I've read these books because now I want to be a witch." In an interview on the "Donny & Marie Show" in 1999, Rowling said that "You have a perfect right, of course, as every parent does, and I'm a parent, to decide what your child is exposed to.
Religious debates over the Harry Potter series | Rowling's response
James C. and Martha C. (Pulliam) Quayle were the parents of Dan Quayle, who served as the 44th Vice President of the United States from 1989 to 1993.
Nina Mason Pulliam | Marriage and family
His parents were Warren and Margery Bessey.
Warren H. Vinton | Introduction
Row Lewis is originally from the Island of Grenada, born to her Trinidadian mother Yvonne, and her Grenadian/Vincentian father, Raymond. She is the fourth of seven children. Row currently resides in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Row Lewis | Personal life
Her father was poet and professor . Michel Zink and Anne Zink are her siblings.
Odile Favaron | Personal life
Gool was the daughter of Dr. Abdullah Abdurahman and his wife Helen James Potter. She married Dr. A. H. Gool, with whom she had three children: Marcina, and medical doctors Rustum and Shaheen.
Zainunnisa Gool | Family
She is a thirteenth-generation granddaughter of Pocahontas and John Rolfe of Jamestown, Virginia. Through these family lines, she is also related to actors Glenn Strange and Guy Rolfe.
Fiona Kelleghan | Personal life
She wrote in many cafés, especially Nicolson's Café (owned by her brother-in-law), and the Elephant House, wherever she could get Jessica to fall asleep. In a 2001 BBC interview, Rowling denied the rumour that she wrote in local cafés to escape from her unheated flat, pointing out that it had heating. Rowling stated that she wrote in cafés because coffee was available without her breaking the flow of writing, and that taking her baby out for a walk helped her to fall asleep.
J. K. Rowling | Marriage, divorce, and single parenthood
King was born in Dublin, the second of four children. Her father Ronan is an accountant and mother Edel is a volunteer teacher. She attended St. Brigid's Girls School in Cabinteely and St Joseph of Cluny Killiney. She trained at the Gaiety School of Acting, Dublin.
Joanne King | Private life
They are the parents of two daughters.
Jean Hundertmark | Introduction
Watling was born at Loughton, Essex, the daughter of actors Jack Watling and Patricia Hicks (1919–2011). Her brother Giles and her half-sister, Dilys, are also actors.
Deborah Watling | Early life
These writing efforts may have been a literary inspiration to both her father Sterling and her aunt Jessica.
Arielle North Olson | Family
Kleppner's mother grew up in New Jersey. Kleppner refers to her as a "delightful woman in every sense - widely read, had a wonderful sense of humor, and, sort of made our home a happy place." Kleppner's father was Otto Kleppner, founder of an advertising agency.
Daniel Kleppner | Parents
The mother was Edith Mary Johanne Brandt. Eva was adopted by Anton and Anne Margrethe Christensen but knew that Jack Joyce was her father.
Jack Joyce | Personal life and death
The seven-year period that followed saw the death of her mother, birth of her first child, divorce from her first husband, and relative poverty until the first novel in the series, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", was published in 1997. There were six sequels, of which the last was released in 2007. Since then, Rowling has written several books for adult readers: "The Casual Vacancy" (2012) and—under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith—the crime fiction "Cormoran Strike" series. In 2020, her "political fairytale" for children, "The Ickabog", was released in instalments in an online version. Rowling has lived a "rags to riches" life in which she progressed from living on benefits to being named the world's first billionaire author by "Forbes".
J. K. Rowling | Introduction
She lives in Cambridge with her husband and two children. Her paternal grandmother was born Barbara Lodge, youngest of the six daughters of the physicist Sir Oliver Lodge. On her paternal grandfather's side, she is a great great great grand daughter of Joseph Jackson Lister, pioneer of the compound microscope and father of Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister.
Fiona Godlee | Personal life
His mother was Janetta Aylward (known as Netta), an actress whom Roger met in Paris; the two returned to London together. They had an intermittent relationship, and three years later, in 1895, she gave birth to a son, Peter, then Joe a year later, and Nancy in 1899. According to Joe's maternal Aunt Bunny, Peter's birth, and likely all of them, were "accidents." She told him, "Your father happened to have run out of French letters that day," (when Peter was conceived). His father set up a household with his mother starting in 1903, after which the children saw him more regularly.
J. R. Ackerley | Family and education
Starr's parents were Charles Edward Starr and Emma ("née" Grant). She had two half sisters, and her father died when she was a child.
Frances Starr | Early years
They had two children, Rupert Crawshay-Williams and Gillian. Joyce next married Drysdale Kilburn; they had a son, Nicholas Kilburn.
Huxley family | John Collier (son-in-law)
At age 19, Kiessling met with her birth mother, Joann, who had told her that her biological father was a serial rapist as well as "Caucasian and of large build".
Rebecca Kiessling | Early life
Their father, Frederick Strafford Thwaites Vokes (1816-1890), was a theatrical costumier and wigmaker who owned a shop at 19 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden. Their mother Sarah Jane Biddulph "née" Godden (1818-1897) was the daughter of Welsh-born strolling player Will Wood and his actress wife.
Rosina Vokes | Introduction
She has two children with her ex-husband, composer Philip Glass: Juliet (b. 1968) and Zachary (b. 1971).
JoAnne Akalaitis | Family
Her Great Aunt's Karina and sister the world famous Eve - were renowned contortionists. Siobhan's late Father, Donald Hewlett was a famous TV star from Jimmy Perry & David Crofts hit shows "It Ain't Half Hot Mum" and "You Rang, M'Lord?". Siobhan's Mother, Therese McMurray was a child star and lead in the first live hospital show 'Emergency Ward 10'.
Siobhan Hewlett | Family
Joanne Rowling, together with her parents and sister, moved to the house in 1974 when she was aged nine. The house was sold by the Rowling family in 1995, and then sold again in 2011. The owner, Julian Mercer, said of the house in 2011: "J. K. Rowling would have been here in her formative years and could have taken inspiration from the cottage. The architecture is very Hogwarts-like. It has vaulted ceilings, stone windows and oozes gothic spirit." Features inside the house include an under-stairs cupboard, reportedly similar to the one in which Rowling's character Harry Potter is forced to live, and a trapdoor to a cellar.
Church Cottage, Tutshill | J. K. Rowling
Esther was the daughter of Caleb Ward and Mary (née Drake) Ward. Together, they were the parents of:
John Paulding | Personal life
Her parents were Irish landowner Edmund Maghlin Blood (1815, Brickhill, Co. Clare – 1891, Chelsea, London) and Mary Amy Fergusson (1815, Leixlip, Co. Kildare – 8 October 1899, Chelsea, London) who had married in 1851. The Blood family had held estates in County Clare since the reign of Elizabeth I. Edmund and Mary produced three children: Neptune William (born 7 July 1853), Mary Beatrice (born c. 1855) and Gertrude Elizabeth.
Gertrude Elizabeth Blood | Early life
He is the son of David Benedictus, although they did not meet until Maugham was seventeen. He was brought up in New Zealand by his mother, Lynne Joyce Maugham, and his adoptive father, Alan Barker.
Jolyon Maugham | Early life
Hambly was born in San Diego, California and grew up in Montclair, California. Her parents, Everett Edward Hambly Jr. and Florence Elizabeth (Moraski) Hambly, are from Fall River, Massachusetts; and Scranton, Pennsylvania (respectively). She has an older sister, Mary Ann Sanders, and a younger brother, Everett Edward Hambly, III. In her early teens, after reading J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings", she affixed images of dragons to her bedroom door. She became interested in costumery from an early age, and has been a long-time participant in Society for Creative Anachronism activities. In the mid-1960s, the Hambly family spent a year in Australia.
Barbara Hambly | Early life and education
Daughter of Colonel John Hawdon Lascelles, of the King's Royal Rifle Corps, OBE, she and her husband, Robert Fearnley-Whittingstall, of a landed gentry family formerly of Watford and Hawkswick, Hertfordshire, have two children: Sophy and Hugh, the celebrity chef. They have six grandchildren.
Jane Fearnley-Whittingstall | Personal life
Sir John died a year after her birth, but the fact that Kat wrote to Cromwell in 1536 mentioning her father in the present tense suggests he isn't her father, unless an unknown stepfather is meant. If Kat "was" the child of Sir John Champernowne, then her niece was Joan Champernowne, who married Sir Anthony Denny, Groom of the Stool and most trusted servant to King Henry VIII.
Kat Ashley | Parentage