People like Ruby Ferguson

Ruby Constance Annie Ferguson (née Ashby writing as RC Ashby; 28 July 1899 – 11 November 1966), was a British writer of popular fiction, including children's books, romances, and mysteries. She is best known today for her Jill books, a series of Pullein-Thompsonesque pony books for children and young adults.

Ferguson was born in Hebden Bridge and raised in Reeth, North Yorkshire. Her father was the Reverend David Ashby, a Wesleyan minister, and Ferguson herself later became a lay officer of the Methodist church. She received her education at Bradford Girls Grammar School and then at St Hilda's College at the University of Oxford, where she read English from 1919 to 1922, gaining a normal BA and, a few years later, the Oxford MA.