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Myers Literary Guide:
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The North-East
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MADELEINE HOPE DODDS (1885 - 1972) Dodds was born at Home House, Kells Lane, Low Fell, Gateshead. She attended Gateshead High School for Girls and went to Newnham College, Cambridge. She worked on the Durham Victoria history, contributing articles on Gateshead, Easington and Hartlepool among others. In collaboration with her sister Ruth, she wrote The Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536-7 and The Exeter Conspiracy,1538, a two-volume history begun by 1909 and published in 1915 (reprinted, 1971). In October, Dodds joined Ruth in weekend munitions work at Elswick. By 1916, she was helping her father transcribe the register of All Saints, Newcastle, but found the work dull. In 1920, she published extracts from the Newcastle corporation minute book, 1639-56 and went on to complete the final four volumes of the multi-volume history of Northumberland, writing much of it herself. The work had been in progress since the 1890s. She contributed to Archeologia Aeliana and was secretary of the Newcastle Society of Antiquaries 1941-46. Dodds had strong literary interests and published in this area also. She was an active member of the Gateshead Progressive Players from their foundation in 1929 and provided much of the money for the Gateshead Little Theatre, opened in 1943. She was also a socialist and contributed to the monthly Gateshead News (later The Gateshead Herald) of which the more politically active Ruth became editor in 1925. She continued to live at Home House after her father's death in 1929, sharing it with her sisters, Ruth and Sylvia.
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