Born at The Manse,
Robin Hood's Bay,
Fylingdales, near
Whitby in the
North Riding of Yorkshire, Colwell was the third daughter of
Methodist minister Richard Harold Colwell and his wife Gertrude (née Mason). After her education at
Penistone Grammar School, she obtained a scholarship and studied librarianship at
University College London. She had become interested in the idea of a children's library at an early age but the UCL course (then the only one of its kind in the country) did not cover the subject. After leaving college she worked at
Bolton Library in Manchester before obtaining the new post of Children's Librarian for the
Hendon Urban District in North London in October 1926. Hendon Free Library had come about largely due to the efforts of
Sarah Bannister who was a district councillor. After mostly providing schools with "book cupboards" Colwell built the children's collection (2,000 volumes) from scratch. In 1937 Colwell and
Ethel Hayler founded the Association of Children's Librarians, which would ten years later evolve into the Youth Library (now group) Section of the
Library Association. She would go on to fight for librarians to be included in judging in the
Carnegie Medal and
Kate Greenaway Medal. In 1965 she was made an MBE. In 1967 she left Hendon, and for a while lectured at
Loughborough University. ==Death and legacy==