Tessa Ransford

Teresa Mary ("Tessa") Ransford OBE (8 July 1938 - 2 September 2015)[1] was a poet, activist and the founding director of the Scottish Poetry Library.

Tessa Ransford

OBE
Born8 July 1938
Mumbai
Died2 September 2015
Edinburgh
NationalityScottish
Alma materUniversity of Edinburgh
Known forFounding director of the Scottish Poetry Library
Notable work
  • Not Just Moonshine: new and selected poems (2008)
  • Rug of a Thousand Colours (2012)
  • Don’t Mention This to Anyone (2012)
  • Made in Edinburgh
  • A Good Cause

Biography

Teresa Ransford was born in Mumbai, India on 8 July 1938. Her mother was Lady Torfrida Ransford and her father, Sir Alister Ransford, was Master of the Mint of Mumbai.[2] The family moved back to the United Kingdom in 1944,[3] finally moving to Scotland in 1948 when her father took up the position of bursar at the Loretta School in Musselburgh.[2]

Ransford was educated and boarded at St Leonard’s School in St Andrews. She was not happy and turned to books and poetry for consolation.[4] She went on to study German and Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh.[1]

In 1959, she married Iain Kay Stiven, a minister of the Church of Scotland[1][3] and the pair lived in Pakistan until 1968 with their four children. During the 1970s, Ransford started writing and publishing poems and founded the School of Poets in 1981 as a place for poets to gather on a monthly basis to support one another.[1]

Ransford produced over fifteen volumes of poetry during her lifetime.[5] T

The Scottish Poetry Library had 300 books when she started it in 1984. By the time she died, it had over 30,000.[2]

She was awarded the OBE in 2000 for services to the Scottish Poetry Library[6] and was President of Scottish PEN from 2003 to 2006.[1]

Ransford was diagnosed with cancer in 2015 and died in Edinburgh on 2 September that year.[1]

Notable works
  • Shadows from the Greater Hill (1987)
  • The Nightingale Question (2004)
  • Not Just Moonshine: new and selected poems (2008)
  • Rug of a Thousand Colours (2012)
  • Don’t Mention This to Anyone (2012)
  • Made in Edinburgh
  • A Good Cause[7]
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See also

References
  1. The new biographical dictionary of Scottish women. Ewan, Elizabeth. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 2018. p. 360. ISBN 9781474436298. OCLC 1057237368.CS1 maint: others (link)
  2. "Obituary: Tessa Ransford, poet and Scottish Poetry Library founder". www.scotsman.com. Retrieved 2019-10-30.
  3. "Tessa Ransford | Poet". Scottish Poetry Library. Retrieved 2019-10-30.
  4. "Tessa Ransford | Poet". Scottish Poetry Library. Retrieved 2020-06-02.
  5. "Tessa Ransford". www.saltiresociety.org.uk. Retrieved 2019-10-30.
  6. "Scottish Poetry Library founder dies". 2015-09-02. Retrieved 2019-10-30.
  7. "Tessa Ransford, OBE 1938-2015". The Royal Literary Fund. Retrieved 2019-10-30.
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