Phyllis Matthewman (née Barton) (19 January 1896 – 1979), British writer of children's books, mostly boarding school stories, and adult fiction.
Matthewman was born in Leeds, the elder daughter of Thomas Barton, an insurance manager, and Ada Mary (née Pollard). She had a sister, Joyce. In 1930, she married Sydney Matthewman, a literary agent, who ran,[1][2][3] or whose father ran the Swan Press in Leeds.[4] They had no children. In 1964, her long-time friend Elinor Brent-Dyer was persuaded to leave the unmanageably large Victorian villa at which she had previously run a school in order to live with the Matthewmans, which she did until her death in 1969. After first living together as tenants in half of a house called Albury Edge, at Redhill, Surrey, they bought a house together, Gryphons, also at Redhill, in 1965.[5] Phyllis's aunt, who knew the Dyer family, had introduced them in childhood. Sydney Matthewman served as Brent-Dyer's agent.[6][7][8][9][10]
