Malachi Whitaker: The often overlooked Yorkshire writer who 'fills a gap in English literary history'

“I was coming back from a trip to Yorkshire and I started laughing out loud,” recalls Valerie, who grew up in Ilkley but these days lives in the Italian Alps. “It was the first story I’d ever read that sounded like something about my granny and grandad or great aunties and uncles. I thought who is this writer? She’s brilliant.”

The author in question was Malachi Whitaker. Between 1929 and 1949, the Bradford-born daughter of a bookbinder published five volumes of short stories and a memoir with London firm Jonathan Cape. The BBC aired over 50 broadcasts of her tales, but her work, says Valerie, has not always received the attention it deserves. Valerie is intent on changing that. She wants to see Whitaker’s stories become more widely read and the author more widely recognised for her contribution to the English literary world.

Valerie has been working with Boiler House Press, part of the University of East Anglia Publishing Project, on re-publishing Whitaker’s 1939 memoir as part of its Recovered Books series. Spanning the years 1937 and 1938, And So Did I is Whitaker's witty account of daily life with her manufacturer husband and two adopted children in a historic manse in Wrose, Bradford. Valerie has written the afterword for the book, which is due out later this month, to coincide with 130 years since Whitaker’s birth.

Valerie will be talking about Whitaker and her writing at Ilkley Literature Festival in October, before then giving a lecture for Cambridge Literature Online later next month. She says: “I’m hoping that Malachi Whitaker is regarded as an important literary figure in English literature, that she becomes more widely read and known by the public – not just in Yorkshire – and that her work is studied in universities and other institutions and is taken seriously.

"Because I believe that her work does fill a gap in English literary history...having had a working class, lower middle class, upbringing in Bradford...Unlike almost all the other women inter-war writers who were born into relatively wealthy, or very wealthy, upper middle class and even aristocratic families, she comes from a completely different place in society, which is actually the bulk of society. So she’s able to write about ordinary people authentically.”

Whitaker was born Olive Marjorie Taylor, in Wrose, Bradford, the eighth of 11 children. At 13, she left school and went to work for her father in his book bindery. In 1917, she married Leonard Whitaker, who was working in the Royal Engineers in France and the couple went on to live in various areas of the Bradford district.

It was from here, in the mid-1920s that Whitaker started to publish short stories. Her memoir And So Did I was mostly written at Bolton Old Hall, in Wrose. When it was first published, Whitaker was, after years of poverty, experiencing success as a writer and her husband was the prosperous co-owner of a textile factory. But war was looming and Whitaker was also worried about her ability to continue writing - and her memoir explores finding meaning in a troubled and transient world.

“It’s a bit like how do I treasure this moment when I’m so worried about what’s going to happen in the world?,” Valerie explains. “So it’s very relevant to today.” “Because it’s not written as a classic cradle to grave autobiography, it was almost a bit ahead of its time,” she adds, noting how Whitaker looks backward and forward in time, reflecting on different periods of her life. “It’s quite modernist in the way it is structured.”

Valerie, a former fashion and travel journalist, began her research into Whitaker whilst travelling back and forth to Yorkshire to care for her late parents a decade ago. The West Yorkshire Archive Service held materials relating to Whitaker’s life and work and Valerie also managed to track down her children with the view to learning about and writing an article on Whitaker. Things then took off from there.

Working with Whitaker’s family, Valerie, who is aged in her sixties, staged a commemorative event about the author at Ilkley literature Festival in 2015, to mark 120 years since her birth. She wrote the afterword to The Journey Home and Other Stories, a collection of Whitaker’s work published in 2017 by Persephone Books, and in 2019 she worked with Bradford Civic Society and the city’s council on a blue plaque being installed at Whitaker’s birthplace.

Two years later, sat at her father’s bedside in Yorkshire in the latter hours of his life, she decided to apply for a PHD to research Whitaker’s life and works. She began doing so at the University of Huddersfield but says she transferred to Salford due to funding changes. For her thesis, Valerie, who previously studied English Language and Literature at Oxford University and later taught English, will be presenting the first part of Whitaker’s life, from her birth to when she started publishing. She then hopes to continue with the rest of Whitaker’s biography.

“It’s a bit of an obsession for me really. I’m really pleased with the way things have grown and the interest there is in Malachi,” says Valerie, who is Literary Executor of Whitaker’s estate, working closely with her family. “Her life and work still really speaks to people and fills in a gap...My aim now is to get the biography out there but also to have all of her work in print.”

- And So Did I by Malachi Whitaker is due to be published on September 30. Valerie Waterhouse will be at Ilkley Literature Festival on October 12. For tickets, visit ilkleyliteraturefestival.org.uk