Ursula Bloom

Ursula Harvey Bloom was born on 11 December 1892 in Springfield, Chelmsford, Essex, the daughter of the Reverend James Harvey Bloom, about whom she wrote a biography, Parson Extraordinary. She also wrote about her gypsy ("Diddicoy") great-grandmother, Frances Graver (born 1809), who was known as the "Rose of Norfolk", a sobriquet used by Bloom as the title of her biography. Bloom lived for a number of years in Stratford-upon-Avon, which was the subject of another book, Rosemary for Stratford-upon-Avon.[1]

She wrote her first book at the age of seven. Charles Dickens was always a dominant influence: she had read every book of his before she was ten years of age, and then re-read them in her teens. A prolific author, she wrote over 500 books, an achievement that earned her recognition in the Guinness Book of World Records.[2] Many of her novels were written under pseudonyms, including Sheila Burns, Mary Essex, Rachel Harvey, Deborah Mann, Lozania Prole and Sara Sloane.[3][4] She appeared frequently on British television. Her journalistic experiences were written about in her book The Mightier Sword. Her hobbies included needlework, which she exhibited, and cooking. She was a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.[5]

Ursula Bloom married twice: firstly, in 1916, to Captain Arthur Brownlow Denham-Cookes of the 24th (Queen's) London Regiment, late of the Inner Temple (son of Colonel George Denham-Cookes of the 3rd King's Own Light Dragoons and Hon. Clara, daughter of Charles Brownlow, 2nd Baron Lurgan),[6] in the face of his family's "sniffy disapproval"; his aristocratic mother was by this time a wealthy widow, of Prince's Gate, Knightsbridge.[7] Their son, George Philip ("Pip") Jocelyn, was born in 1917 (he married in 1944, Lorna Jean Iris, daughter of Charles Lawson, of Romford, and had issue).[8] Arthur died of influenza in 1918, in the final days of the war.[9] In 1925 she married Charles Gower Robinson (d. 1979), a Royal Navy Paymaster Commander; they lived at 191, Cranmer Court, London SW3.[10][11][12] She died on 29 October 1984, aged 91, in a nursing home in Nether Wallop, Hampshire.[13]

• The Duke of Windsor
• Victorian Vinaigrette
• The Song of Philomel
• The Elegant Edwardian
• Youth at the Gate
• Down to the Sea in Ships
• War isn't Wonderful
• Twilight of a Tudor
• The Dragonfly
• The Flight of the Falcon
• The Ring Tree
• The Girl Who Loved Crippen (The Story of Dr Crippen and Ethel Le Neve)
• Parson Extraordinary (About Bloom's father, the Reverend Harvey Bloom)
• Rosemary for Stratford-upon-Avon (Written about the town by Bloom while she was living there)
• Rosemary for Frinton (Norfolk - UK)
• The Rose of Norfolk (About Bloom's great grandmother Frances Graver)
• Tea Is So Intoxicating (as Mary Essex)
• The Amorous Bicycle (as Mary Essex)
• Haircut For Samson (as Mary Essex)
• Nesting Cats (as Mary Essex)
• Eve Didn't Care (as Mary Essex)
• Marry To Taste (as Mary Essex)
• Freddy For Fun (as Mary Essex)
• ‘’Henry's Golden Queen’’ (as Lozania Prole)