Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson was born in England on October 11, 1847 to Thomas James and Christiana (Weller) Thompson. Alice and her sister Elizabeth received their education from their father and were brought up primarily in the English countryside and Italy. Alice was encouraged to write poetry by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, to whom she was introduced by family friend Aubrey de Vere. Alice became a poet, and Elizabeth became a painter.

In 1868, Alice was received into the Catholic Church at St. George's, Worcester. Her mother had converted, and her sister and father eventually did as well. A devout Catholic, Meynell's faith was of central importance to her life and work.

Alice Meynell’s first book of poetry, Preludes (1875) featured illustrations by Elizabeth. The work was well-received by such literary figures as Tennyson, de Vere, Christina Rosetti, and John Ruskin. Shortly thereafter, she met and married Wilfrid Meynell, a journalist and admirer of her work. They had eight children, one of whom died infancy. While raising their family, Meynell continued to write and to assist Wilfrid with the editorial responsibilities of the Weekly Register and Merry England. Subsequent books of her poems included Poems (1893), Later Poems (1902), Collected Poems of Alice Meynell (1913) and the posthumous Last Poems (1923).

Alice Meynell contributed to the Pall Mall Gazette, National Observer, Spectator, and Tablet as a reviewer, critic, essayist, and columnist. An accomplished art critic, she also wrote for the Magazine of Art and Art Journal. She was the author of seven collections of essays, including The Rhythm of Life (1893), and numerous prefaces to works by noted literary figures, including William Blake, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and William Wordsworth.

Alice Meynell died on November 27, 1922.

Sources:

Badeni, June. "Meynell [née Thompson], Alice Christiana Gertrude (1847-1922), Poet and Journalist." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Wilfrid Meynell was born in Newcastle-on-Tyne, Yorkshire on November 17, 1852. His family was Quaker, but at the age of eighteen Wilfrid converted to Catholicism and moved to London to pursue a career in journalism. Meynell used the psydonnym John Oldcastle for many of his writings. He also wrote poetry, contriubing verses to Emily Priestman's Simple Tales (1873), and began working in publishing under William Lockhart.

Wilfrid Meynell married the Catholic poet Alice C. Thompson in 1877. They had eight children, one of whom died infancy. In 1880, the Meynells undertook their first, short-lived, publishing enterprise, The Pen, to which both contributed. Not long after, Wilfrid was made editor of church-sponsored The Weekly Register (edited 1881-1899). It was also during this period that the couple launched Merry England (1883-1895), the liberal Catholic literary magazine that placed them at the center of a prominent, mainly Catholic, literary circle that included George Meredith, Coventry Patmore, and Francis Thompson. Wilfrid also directed the publishing house Burns & Oates, and authored biographies of Cardinals Manning (c. 1885) and John Hentry Newman (1890) and of Brittish Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (1903).

The Meynells sponsored Catholic poet Francis Thompson, offering friendship, financial support, and publishing his works. After Thompson’s death in 1907, Wilfrid managed his literary estate and dedicated himself to promoting Thompson’s legacy.

In his later years, Wilfrid resided at the family estate at Greatham, Sussex, continued to promote the works of Alice Meynell and Francis Thompson, and contributed regularly to the Dublin Review and The Tablet. Wilfrid Meynell died in November 1948, at 96 years of age.

Sources:

Leslie, Shane. “In Memorium.” The Tablet. London, Saturday, 30 October 1948.

Meynell, Viola. Francis Thompson and Wilfrid Meynell. London: Hollis and Carter, 1925.

Messbarger, P. R. "Meynell, Alice C. and Wilfrid." In New Catholic Encyclopedia. Detroit, MI: Gale, 2003. Gale In Context: Biography (accessed September 19, 2023).

"Wilfrid Meynell." In Merriam Webster's Biographical Dictionary. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1995.

Writer, journalist, and book collector. Everard Henry Edward Manning Meynell was born in 1882 in London, England to Wilfrid and Alice (Thompson) Meynell. Everard wrote biographies, including Corot and His Friends (Methuen & Co., 1908) and The Life of Francis Thompson (Burns & Oats, 1913). He served in the British Army during World War II. Everard Meynell died in 1926, just four years after his mother's death.

Sources:

"Meynell, Everard." Who Was Who. Oxford University Press, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U200335.

Francis Meredith Wilfrid Meynell was born on May 12, 1891 in London, England to Wilfrid and Alice (Thompson) Meynell, the youngest of seven surviving children. Francis Thompson was Francis Meynell's godfather. Meynell attended Trinity College, Dublin, from 1908 until 1910 or 1911. He married three times: Hilda Saxe, 1914 (one daughter, Cynthia); Vera Mendel, 1925 (one son, Benedict); and Alix Hester Marie Kilroy, 1946 (no children).

Francis Meynell was a typographer, book designer, and publisher. After leaving Trinity College, he worked for his father at Burns & Oates Ltd. as head of design, 1911-1913. He then founded and designed for Pelican Press, launched sometime between 1914-1916. He became the director and assistant editor of the Daily Herald in 1918, and founded Nonesuch Press, where he was also the designer and director, 1923-1975. While running Nonesuch, Meynell also served as a columnist for News Chronicle (1934); was a director of the Mather & Crowther Ltd. advertising agency (1939-1960); and a director for Bodley Head Ltd. (1960-1975). He published his autobiography, My Lives with Random House in 1971.

Meynell was a member of the Art Workers Guild, the Society of Typographer Designers (president, 1958-1962), the Poetry Society (vice-president), and the Savile Club. He also participated as the British Broadcasting Corporation Brains Trust (London) chair, 1942-1943; H.M. Stationery Office honorary typography advisor, 1945-1966; Cement and Concrete Association, director-general, 1946-1958; Royal Mint (London) member of advisory council, 1954-70; and the Royal College of Art member of council, 1959-1961.

Francis Meynell was named Royal Designer for Industry by the Royal Society of Arts in 1945; knighted in 1946, and honored with a D.Litt. from the University of Reading in 1964.

Francis Meynell died on July 9, 1975 in London.

Sources:

"Francis (Meredith Wilfrid) Meynell." Contemporary Designers. Detroit, MI: Gale, 1997.

"Francis Meredith Wilfrid Meynell." Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2007.

Viola Mary Gertrude Meynell, often called Prue or Prudie by her family, was born on October 15, 1885 to Wilfrid and Alice (Thompson) Meynell. Viola grew up with six brothers and a sister, in the literary environment of the Meynell household. Among the visitors to the Meynell home were George Meredith, Coventry Patmore, and Francis Thompson. Her upbringing was decidedly Catholic, as her parents were converts to Catholicism, and she was given a Catholic education at the Convent of Our Lady of Sion in London. More than the rest of her siblings, Viola aspired to become an author like her mother who enjoyed a considerable amount of fame for her poetry, essays, criticism, and novels.

Viola's first novel Martha Vine: A Love Story of Simple Life (1910) was published anonymously, but the novel received strong reviews and compliments from such writers as Wilfrid Scawen Blunt and Alfred Noyes anyway. Over the next 46 years, Viola authored numerous novels and memoirs, including a memoir of her mother, Alice Meynell (1928), and one of the friendship between "The Hound of Heaven" poet and her father, Francis Thompson and Wilfrid Meynell (1952). She served as editor for several collections of letters of various publishing figures, including Sidney Cockerel and J.M. Barrie, and edited theLove Poems of John Donne (1923), published by her brother's publishing company Nonesuch Press. She also wrote introductions for Oxford University Press editions of George Eliot's Romola (1913) and Felix Holt: The Radical (1913) and Melville's Moby Dick (1925).

Viola married in 1922, the same year her mother died. Her marriage to John Dallyn, a farmer neither literary nor Catholic, was apparently not happy. The couple had a son, Jacob, in 1923. Although in her later years Meynell struggled with a debilitating illness, she remained productive as a writer, publishing her last novel Ophelia in 1951. When she died in October 1956, she was remembered for her graciousness, sense of humor, and "the intense moral seriousness of her fiction."

Source: Raymond N. MacKenzie, Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 153: Late-Victorian and Edwardian British Novelists, First Series The Gale Group, 1995. pp. 204-215.

1878 Sebastian (“Bastian”) Henry Tuke Meynell born 19 October.

1880 Monica (“Monnie”) Mary Eve Meynell born 24 March.

1882 Everard Henry Edward Manning Meynell (“Cuckoo”) born 4 February.

1884 Madeline (“Dimpling”) Mary Eve born 22 May.

1885 Viola (“Prue”/“Prudie”) Mary Gertrude Meynell born 15 October.

1887 Vivian Meredith Meynell born 3 March but dies on 13 August.

1890 Olivia (“Lobbie”/ “Beelie”) Mary K. Meynell born 9 March.

1891 Francis Meredith Wilfrid Meynell born 12 May.

Dates taken from "A Chronology of Alice Meynell 1847-1922" The Selected Letters of Alice Meynell: Poet and Essayist. Edited by Damian Atkinson. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK.