Crompton, Richmal

Crompton, Richmal (1890-1969), British writer for children. Crompton's actual name was Richmal Crompton Lamburn. She was born in Lancashire into an ecclesiastical family; her father was a curate-cum-schoolmaster. She read classics at Royal Holloway College, London, taking her degree in 1914, after which she taught for a time at Darley Dale, Derbyshire, where she had, herself, been educated. Her work as a teacher came to an end when she contracted poliomyelitis in 1923, whereupon she took up writing as a career.

Crompton wrote both for adults and children, but her work for adults has lost currency, while her “William” stories continue to be read and enjoyed, and have been televised. These stories have a deliciously anarchic feel to them; William and his gang, Henry, Ginger, and Douglas are constantly testing the limits of the middle-class micro-civilization they live in, with chaos as the usual, and expected, result. The establishment is represented by his parents and older siblings, and the adult world in general, and the anti-establishment by the gang of four; much of the humour stems from the discrepancy on viewpoint between these two camps whose ideas of what constitutes polite and reasonable behaviour have nothing whatsoever in common.