Elizabeth de Beauchamp Goudge was born in Wells on 24th April 1900. She was the only child of Reverend Henry Goudge and his wife Ida de Beauchamp Collenette, who came from Guernsey. Henry Goudge was Vice Principal of Wells Theological College and they lived in Tower House (also known as The Rib) in St Andrew Street. Elizabeth was taught at home by a governess.
In 1911 Henry Goudge accepted the job of Principal at Ely Theological College and the family moved to Ely. Elizabeth boarded at Grassendale School in Southbourne, Bournemouth and later studied at the art school at University College Reading.
In 1923 Henry Goudge was appointed Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford University and the family moved to Oxford. Henry bought a bungalow in Barton-on-Sea in Hampshire, as his wife was unwell and unhappy in Oxford and Mrs Goudge spent the summers there. Elizabeth worked as a handicraft teacher in Oxford, but she began writing plays, poems and later novels in her spare time.
Elizabeth's first novel to be published was Island Magic, which was inspired by her childhood holidays with her grandparents in Guernsey. It was published by Duckworth in 1934. In 1936 A City of Bells, which was set in Wells, was published. Towers in the Mist, which was published in 1938, was set in Oxford.
Henry Goudge died suddenly at Barton-on-Sea in 1939 and Elizabeth and her mother moved to a bungalow in Marldon, Devon, where they lived for the next 12 years. In 1944 Green Dolphin Country was published. This novel was made into a film called Green Dolphin Street in 1947. In 1946, Elizabeth Goudge's most famous children's novel, The Little White Horse was published. It won the Carnegie Medal for children's fiction in 1947.
After her mother's death in 1951, Elizabeth moved to Rose Cottage, Dog Lane, Peppard Common near Henley-on-Thames. She continued to write novels for adults and children. Her final novel, Child from the Sea was published in 1970. Her autobiography, Joy of the Snow, was published in 1974. Elizabeth Goudge never married and she lived in Rose Cottage with her female companion Jessie Munroe until her death on 1st April 1984.
A blue plaque on Rose Cottage was unveiled in 2008. There is also a blue plaque on Tower House/The Rib in Wells.
