Iris Birtwistle

Born near Blackburn, Lancashire on 29 May 1918, second of the eight children of a cotton-mill owner.[4] Her brother Col. Michael Albert Astley Birtwistle was a High Sheriff of Lancashire. Her younger sister is the poet and non-fiction writer Angela Kirby, and she was a cousin of race horse trainer Monica Dickinson (née Birtwistle, the mother of Michael Dickinson). She was educated at the Convent of the Holy Child Jesus, Mayfield, Sussex, and the Reimann School of Art[5] in London. During the Second World War, she enlisted as an officer in the Wrens.[6]

Throughout her life her she wrote poetry, which in the 40s, 50s and 60s appeared in many of the major journals and other well known publications, including: Poetry Review, The New English Weekly, The Fortnightly, The Spectator, The Tablet and The Times Literary Supplement. She was admired by leading writers of her day such as T. S. Eliot, Robert Graves, and Muriel Spark (who credited Birtwistle with her conversion to Catholicism).[7]

In the 50s she adopted three sons and settled in Walberswick, Suffolk, where she opened the first of her unique art galleries. The novelist, Jennifer Lash (aka Jinni Fiennes) lived with her there for a while, and was introduced to her husband Mark Fiennes by Birtwistle.[8] There Birwistle championed the Royal Academicians Mary Potter, Mary Newcomb, Jeffrey Camp and Philip Sutton.[9] She also nurtured young talent, and sold early work of a young David Hockney.[10] In the late 60's and early 70's she had a small gallery in Aldeburgh.[11]

Although she continued to write poetry all her life, from the 60s onwards being increasingly absorbed by her family and her galleries she wrote less and less. Her last poem was written in 1999 to celebrate the marriage of her friend the singer Nick Cave to the model Susie Bick.[12]

In the 1970s she moved to Burnham Deepdale Norfolk where she opened the last of her successful, if eccentric, galleries, Deepdale Exhibitions. This she ran until her death despite increasing loss of sight from hereditary glaucoma, which rendered her blind for the last 15 years of her life.

Although a collection of her work had been completed before her death, When Leaf and Note are Gone was finally published posthumously by Buff Press in 2008, edited by the poets Anne Stewart and Angela Kirby (Birtwistle’s youngest sister). The introduction was by the writer and poet Derek Stanford.

Birtwistle remained a devout Roman Catholic all her life[13][14] and died on 20 June 2006, aged 86.

• Muriel Spark, The Biography, Martin Stannard, W.W. Norton & Co, (2009) ISBN 978-0-2978-5778-5
• Curriculum Vitae: A Volume of Autobiography, Muriel Spark. Constable (1992) p. 192 ISBN 978-0094696501
• Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life, Hermione Lee, Random House (2014) ISBN 978-0-0995-4659-7
• Catholicism - An Introduction: Teach Yourself, Peter Stanford, Hachette UK (2010) ISBN 978-1-4441-3103-1
• Time and Concord: Aldeburgh Festival Recollections, Wake-Walker, Jenni, Autograph (1997) p. 122-123 ISBN 978-0-9523-2651-9
• The Reimann School: A Design Diaspora, Yasuku Suga, Artmonsky Arts (2014) p. 50 ISBN 978-0-9573-8753-9
• Why I Am Still a Catholic: Essays in Faith and Perseverance, Peter Stanford, Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd (2005) ISBN 978-0-8264-8577-9
• Inside the Forties: Literary Memoirs, 1937-57, Derek Stanford, Sidgwick & Jackson Ltd (1977) p. 188 ISBN 978-0-2839-8215-6

• Obituary by Peter Stanford in The Guardian
• Obituary by Magdalen Evans in The Independent
• Obituary in The Times
• Lundy, Darryl. Iris Mary Birtwistle in The Peerage
• Copsey, Tony. Iris Mary Birtwistle in Suffolk Painters