She was born Mary Gladys Meredith in 1881 at Leighton Lodge in the
Shropshire village of
Leighton, where she was baptised at
St Mary's parish church, 8 miles (13 km) southeast of
Shrewsbury. Her father, George Edward Meredith, a private schoolteacher, inspired his daughter with his own love of literature and the local countryside. Mary explored the countryside around her childhood home and developed a sense of detailed observation and description, of both people and places, which later infused her poetry and prose. At the age of one year, she moved with her parents to
Much Wenlock, where they lived at a house called The Grange outside the town. Mary was taught by her father, then sent to a
finishing school for girls at
Southport in 1895. Her parents moved the family again in Shropshire, north to
Stanton upon Hine Heath in 1896, before settling in 1902 at
Meole Brace, now on the outskirts of
Shrewsbury. At the age of 20, she developed symptoms of
Graves' disease, a
thyroid disorder that resulted in bulging protuberant eyes and throat
goitre. It caused ill health throughout her life and probably contributed to her early death. This affliction resulted in her being empathic with the suffering. She is considered to have created a fictional counterpart in the disfiguring
harelip of Prue Sarn, the heroine of
Precious Bane. Webb's first published writing was a five-verse poem, written on hearing news of the
Shrewsbury rail accident in October 1907. Her brother, Kenneth Meredith, so liked the poem and thought it potentially comforting for those affected by the disaster that, without her knowledge, he took it to the newspaper offices of the
Shrewsbury Chronicle, which printed the poem anonymously. Mary, who usually burnt her early poems, was appalled before learning that the newspaper had received appreciative letters from its readers. On 12 June 1912, Webb married Henry Bertram Law Webb (1885-1939), a teacher, at Meole Brace's Holy Trinity parish church. At first, he supported her literary interests. They lived for a time in
Weston-super-Mare, before moving back to Mary's beloved Shropshire, where they worked as
market gardeners until Henry secured a job as a teacher, first at
Chester, then at the
Priory Grammar School for Boys in Shrewsbury. The couple lived briefly in Rose Cottage in Hinton Lane and then at The Nills in the village of
Pontesbury between the years 1914 and 1916, during which time she wrote
The Golden Arrow. Her time in the village is celebrated by the eponymously named
Mary Webb School and Science College. The publication of
The Golden Arrow in 1917 enabled them to move to
Lyth Hill,
Bayston Hill, a place she loved, where they bought a plot of land and built Spring Cottage. In 1921, they bought a second property at
Hampstead Grove in London, in the hope that by being in the city, she could achieve greater literary recognition. This, however, did not happen, although she won the
Prix Femina Vie Heureuse for
Precious Bane in 1926. By 1927, she was suffering increasingly bad health, her marriage was failing, and she returned to Spring Cottage alone. She died at
St Leonards-on-Sea, aged 46. She was buried in Shrewsbury, at the General Cemetery in Longden Road. ==Legacy==