Description:
Shows (Robert) Geoffrey Trease's (1909-1998) birthplace on right, at number 13. Author Geoffrey Trease was born 11 August 1909, son of George Albert Trease, a wine merchant, and his wife, Florence Dale, a doctor's daughter. He won a scholarship to Nottingham High School and then one to Oxford University to study classics, which he attended for only a year. For two years he did literary work in London, and then became a private school teacher. Here he met Marian Haselden Granger Boyer, a fellow teacher and they married on 11 August 1933. Trease initially struggled as a writer , but broke through as a children's author in 1934 with the publication of Bows Against the Baron, a Robin Hood story meant to show the seamy side of Merrie England, with Robin as a champion of the poor. The book sold around the world and he wrote over 100 more books, both fiction and non-fiction, including biographies of DH Lawrence and Byron. He was the first chairman of the Society of Authors children's writers group and in 1979 he became a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He died at the age of 88 on 27 January 1998.