Dorothy Una Ratcliffe

Born in Sussex in 1887 and brought up in Surrey, Dorothy Una Ratcliffe became closely associated with Yorkshire and wrote many of her best-known poems in Yorkshire dialect. Often known as D.U.R., she was an author, collector, and energetic literary figure whose work ranged beyond poetry to travel writing and other books.

She is especially remembered for celebrating Yorkshire speech and countryside with warmth and vivid detail. Although she was not Yorkshire-born, she embraced the region deeply and became one of the writers most strongly linked with its dialect literature.

Ratcliffe also led a wide-ranging life as a traveler and collector of books and manuscripts, and she was connected with Acorn Bank in Cumbria, which she later gave to the National Trust. She died in 1967, leaving behind a body of work that still appeals to readers interested in regional writing, landscape, and early 20th-century literary life.