Helen Lyndon (Goff) Travers OBE (1899 - 1996)

Pamela (Goff) Travers OBE was born in the Colony of Queensland (1859-1900)

Pamela (Goff) Travers OBE has Irish ancestors.

Pamela (Goff) Travers OBE is Notable.

Helen Lyndon (Goff) Travers OBE was born on the 9th of August 1899, at Maryborough, Colony of Queensland, Australia.^[1][2] She was a daughter of Travers Robert Goff (1863 - 1907) and Margaret Agnes (Morehead) Goff (1874 - 1928).^[3] Her preferred name was Pamela. Whilst born in Australia, Pamela considered herself Irish.

Her siblings were...

1. Barbara Ierne (Goff) Moriarty (1902 - 1979)^[4]
2. Cecily Margaret Goff (1905 - 1987)^[5]

The family moved to Allora in Queensland in about 1905, where Pamela attended Allora Public School, her father the local bank manager.

After her father's death in 1907 Helen moved with her mother and two younger sisters to live with her great-aunt, Helen Morehead Christina Saraset, (“Aunt Sass,” known to Helen as “Ellie”) in Bowral, New South Wales.^[6] She attended a local grammar school until the age of ten, then was sent to Normanhurst boarding-school in Sydney. Her writing was first published as a teenager, and she also worked briefly as a professional Shakespearean actress with the Alan Wilkie Shakespearian Touring Company.

In 1924 she left for London, where she published poems in the Irish Statesman. In the mid-1920s she travelled to Fontainebleau, France, where she became a disciple of Russian occultist George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, and to Switzerland to pursue the teachings of psychologist Carl Gustav Jung. In 1934, she moved from London to Sussex with friend Madge Burnand.

In the 1930s, in England she worked as a drama critic for the New English Weekly and published poetry and travel essays, including her book Moscow Excursion (1934). She took as her pseudonym the name Pamela Lyndon Travers, usually in the form P. L. Travers. She had her first literary success in 1934 when the first of eight Mary Poppins books was published.

Travers travelled to New York City during World War II while working for the British Ministry of Information.^[7] During this time she published I Go by Sea, I Go by Land (1941), She also travelled west and stayed on a number of Navaho, Hopi, and Pueblo reservations. She privately published books Aunt Sass (1941), Ah Wong (1943), and Johnny Delaney (1944) which were new year's gift books for family and friends.

In 1945 Travers returned to England and for the next twenty years continued to publish novels, essays, and lectures. The Fox at the Manger, a Christmas story, appeared in 1962.

After years of contact, Walt Disney obtained the rights from her for a film adaptation of Mary Poppins, and the "Mary Poppins" film premiered in 1964. In 2004, a stage musical adaptation of the books and the film opened in the West End; it premiered on Broadway in 2006. A film based on Disney's efforts to persuade Travers to sell him the Mary Poppins film rights was released in 2013: "Saving Mr. Banks".

At the age of 40, Travers adopted a baby boy from Ireland whom she named Camillus Travers. He was the grandchild of Joseph Maunsell Hone (1882-1959), W. B. Yeats' first biographer, who was raising his seven grandchildren with his wife. Camillus was unaware of his true parentage or the existence of any siblings until the age of 17.

From 1965 to 1977 Travers lived in the USA, working as writer-in-residence at three colleges. She continued to publish essays and novels, including Friend Monkey (1971), About the Sleeping Beauty (1975), and Two Pairs of Shoes (1980).

Travers was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1977 New Year Honours, for her contribution to literature.^[8]

In 1978 she received an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Chatham College in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

From 1976 until her death Pamela was contributing editor to the American journal Parabola: the Magazine of Myth and Tradition, Her last published book was What the Bee Knows: Reflections on Myth, Symbol and Story (1989), a collection of articles originally written for Parabola.

Pamela died on the 23rd of April 1996, in her home, at 29 Shawfield Street, Chelsea, London, England.^[1][2] There is a plaque to P.L. Travers located in the Garden of Remembrance, at St Mary's Churchyard in Twickenham, Greater London, England.^[9] According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, the final place for her ashes is unknown, at her request.

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} England and Wales Death Registration Index 1837-2007, Helen Lyndon Goff, Apr 1996.
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1} England and Wales Death Registration Index 1837-2007, Pamela Lyndon Travers, Apr 1996.
3. ↑ Queensland BMD Birth registration: Name: Helen Lyndon Goff; Birth date:09/08/1899; Mother's name:Margaret Agnes Morehead; Father/parent's name:Travers Robert Goff; Registration details:1899/C/7847link
4. ↑ Queensland BMD Birth registration: Name: Barbara Ierne Goff; Birth date:13/04/1902; Mother's name:Margaret Agnes Morehead; Father/parent's name:Travers Robert Goff; Registration details:1902/C/5782.link
5. ↑ Queensland BMD Birth registration: Name: Cicely Margaret Goff; Birth date:21/07/1905; Mother's name:Margaret Agnes Morehead; Father/parent's name:Travers Robert Goff; Registration details:1905/C/3969.link
6. ↑ Nate Pedersen, Real Life Inspration for May Poppins Revealed.
7. ↑ "Vermont, St. Albans Canadian Border Crossings, 1895-1954," database with images, FamilySearch : 16 August 2019), Pamela Travers, 1924-1952; citing M1463, Soundex Index to Canadian Border Entries through the St. Albans, Vermont, District, 1895-1924, 91.
8. ↑ Wikipedia contributors, "1977 New Year Honours," , Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia,(accessed June 19, 2021).
9. ↑ Find A Grave: Memorial #27842116, memorial page for P.L. Travers (9 Aug 1899–23 Apr 1996), Find a Grave Memorial no. 27842116, citing St Mary's Churchyard, Twickenham, London, Borough of Richmond upon Thames, Greater London, England.

• Alton, Anne Hiebert, "Goff, Helen Lyndon [pseuds. P. L. Travers, Pamela Lyndon Travers] (1899–1996)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press (accessed via State Library of New South Wales eresources, 19 June 2021)
• Wikipedia contributors, "P. L. Travers," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, (accessed June 19, 2021).
• Travers, P.L. (1906–1996), Encyclopedia.com
• "New York, New York Passenger and Crew Lists, 1909, 1925-1957," database with images, FamilySearch: 12 March 2018), Pamela Travers, 1936; citing Immigration, New York, New York, United States

See also:

• Ashfield Park: Mary Poppins, in Sydney Daily blog, accessed 2019.