Benn, June 1930-2006
(June Mary Barraclough, June Wedgwood Benn)

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born December 2, 1930, in Brighouse, Yorkshire, England; died of lymphoma, March 25, 2006. Educator and author. Benn was a foreign languages teacher and former governor of the London School of Economics who, later in life, turned to writing popular novels. Completing undergraduate work in languages at Somerville College, Oxford, in 1952, she went on to earn a postgraduate degree in education at the University of London three years later. Benn then set out on a career of teaching Spanish, French, and German at the grammar school and secondary level in London during the late 1950s and 1960s. After marrying in 1959, she did less teaching for a time until the 1970s, when she was a lecturer in education and governor at theUniversity of London. Always wanting to be a writer, Benn initially released some academic titles, including a translation of the Marquis de Condorcet's Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind (1955) and an anthology she coedited titled The Woman's View (1967). It was not until the mid-1980s that she began fulfilling her dream as a novelist with titles such as The Heart of the Rose (1986) and A Time to Love (1989). She continued writing into the 32 new century, releasing such novels asEmma Eliza (2002), The Ways of Love (2003), and Family Circle (2004). Her last work of fiction was 2005's Deadly Grief.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Times (London, England), April 20, 2006, p. 68.