Uttley's radical youth revealed

Alison Uttley with Professor Arthur Schuster and his staff

A world famous children's author has been revealed as a young radical with the publication of a suffragette poem online for the first time.

Alison Uttley, who wrote the Little Grey Rabbit and Sam Pig stories, published 'Argument' in a University of Manchester magazine in 1904.

The poem, published under her maiden name, Alison J Taylor, is being made available by the Alison Uttley Society.

They have also published a photo of the author with her University classmates.

The photo was found in the bottom of a drawer in the University's Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences and has been digitally restored by retired Professor of Physics Robin Marshall.

It shows Uttley sat alongside the eminent Manchester physicist Professor Arthur Schuster, surrounded by his physics department staff, other University dignitaries and current and former students.

ARGUMENT At Ashburne there is a Society Which has rapidly gained notoriety, It's name I can state with propriety, "Argument" We meet after Punch on a Saturday With tea and sweet cakes we're a party gay, Instead of elicit chatting as Students may, "Argument." We talk of meetings Political And all of us soon are so critical Our speeches become analytical "Argument "The Signs of our age are Synthetical," Do you call Walt Whitman poetical?" "My theory is not hypothetical Argument." We talk of the Status of human kind Of Suffrage, and greatness of human mind Equality, love, but we always find Argument If we began all our talks at the break of day They'd continue till after the Sun's last ray As we get into bed, the last word we say Argument! A.J.T. (Alice Jane Taylor)

Also in the picture is the physicist and astronomer Arthur Stanley Eddington, who verified Einstein's new theory of gravity by observing the 1919 eclipse.

Professor Denis Judd, the president of the Society, explained that both the photo and the poem provide a unique glimpse into the early radicalism of the author.

Professor Judd, who edited Uttley's diaries from her later life for publication, said it is "good to draw the public's attention" to the items as they "tell us more about her early years."

"In her diaries, she was scornful and dismissive of her near neighbour Enid Blyton and wrote how she detested her main illustrator, Margaret Tempest.

"But these entries show an idealistic and playful side of a much younger Uttley.

"And the photograph gives a unique glimpse into early twentieth century university life."

The poem is not the only thing of interest written by Uttley in the journal, which was called Yggdrasill after the legendary Norse tree of Knowledge.

She also describes a series of wacky inventions including a vacuum cleaner used to transport students to their lectures, boots with central heating, and a teapot with an alarm which is sprung when running low.

She later put that fertile imagination to use when she launched her children's books as a means of supporting her only son John after her husband committed suicide in 1930. She went on to write more than 100 stories.

Both the Yggdrasill journal and the photograph are stored with other papers and articles from Uttley's student days in Manchester at Ashburne Hall, the hall of residence for women students where she lived from 1903 to 1906.