Ronald Welch


Ronald Oliver Felton TD, who wrote under the pseudonym Ronald Welch, was a Welsh novelist. He is best known for children's historical fiction. He won the 1956 Carnegie Medal from the Library Association for the year's best children's book by a British author, for Knight Crusader, the first in his so-called Carey Family series of novels.

Life

He was born in Aberavon, West Glamorgan, and educated at Berkhamsted School and Clare College, Cambridge, where he read history. He was teaching at Bedford Modern School when the Second World War broke out. In 1940 he was commissioned lieutenant in the Welch Regiment, to which his pen name refers. He reached the rank of major and stayed in the Territorial Army after the war. He was for many years headmaster of Okehampton Grammar School in Devon.
Welch's final work, The Road to Waterloo, not strictly speaking part of the Carey family saga but closely connected to it in terms of subject matter, remained unpublished at the time of his death. It was not until 2018 that it was discovered among his papers and published in a special edition by Smith Settle.

Carey family saga

Books

Family members

Works

Books

  • The Black Car Mystery
  • The Clock Stood Still
  • The Gauntlet
  • Knight Crusader † —winner of the Carnegie Medal
  • Sker House
  • Ferdinand Magellan
  • Captain of Dragoons †
  • "The Long Bow"
  • Mohawk Valley †
  • Captain of Foot †
  • Escape from France †
  • For the King †
  • Nicholas Carey †
  • Bowman of Crécy †
  • The Hawk †
  • Sun of York
  • The Galleon †
  • Tank Commander †
  • Zulu Warrior
  • Ensign Carey †
  • The Road to Waterloo †
† indicates a book in the Carey family series

Short stories

  • "The Kings Hunt", Swift Annual 1963
  • "The Joust", Miscellany Five, edited by Edward Blishen
  • "The King's Hunt", Thrilling Stories of the Past for Boys, edited by Eric Duthie

    Critical reception

Pamela Cleaver describes Ronald Welch as the best children's writer on military history and battles, adding that he does not glorify war but makes it clear that discomfort, wounds and death are as much a part of it as comradeship and adventure. She characterizes his books as "extremely well-researched, full of authentic detail and always excitingly plotted".