My mother, Mary Bride Nicholson, who has died aged 86, had a deep and long-lasting relationship with Dartington Hall, home of the Dartington Hall Trust, which was founded by Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst in 1925 and supports projects in the fields of the arts, social justice and sustainability.
The daughter of one of the founders of Dartington Hall school, John Nicholson Wales, she was educated there and was later secretary to the trust’s chairman as well its archivist. In 1930, John and his wife, Peggy (nee Robbins), left for London so that he could study for a degree at the London School of Economics. Mary Bride was born in the capital, their second daughter.
Four years later the family moved back to Dartington, John to teach at the school and Peggy to become the matron. Mary Bride attended the school with her sister, Shirley.
Mary Bride grew up during a whirlwind of construction at Dartington Hall, alongside the arts, music, dance and philosophy and the personalities (many fleeing Nazi persecution) who contributed to the excitement and fervour that was the Elmhirsts’ vision for the Dartington Experiment. It made my mother independent and adventurous.
After training as a secretary, she moved to London in 1951, taking up roles at the Council of Industrial Design and the US embassy. Then in 1956, with $50 in her pocket, she went to New York on a cargo boat. She soon found work as personal assistant to the director general of the British Information Services.
Once back in Britain, Mary Bride took the decision to become a single mother, a difficult path at that time. Without financial support she returned to Dartington, where I was born in 1962. Six weeks later she was offered the post of Dorothy Elmhirst’s personal secretary, a role in which she served until Dorothy’s death in 1968. She went on to become Maurice Ash’s personal secretary during his time as chairman of the Dartington Hall Trust, before serving as archivist and keeper of the Trust’s collection of paintings and ceramics.
Mary Bride had grown up singing with her mother in the choir at Dartington founded by Imogen Holst. In 1982 she became a founder and chair of the Dartington community choir, which is still going strong. She was also secretary of the Elmgrant Trust, a charity founded by the Elmhirsts.
My mother wrote about her life in her memoir, A Life at Dartington. She is survived by me, my wife and our son.
