Barry Unsworth

Barry Unsworth FRSL (10 August 1930 – 4 June 2012) was an English writer known for his historical fiction. He published 17 novels, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times, winning once for the 1992 novel Sacred Hunger.

Biography

Unsworth was born on 10 August 1930 in Wingate, a mining village in County Durham, England, to a family of miners. His father first entered the mines at age 12 and ordinarily Unsworth would have followed him as a miner. However when his father was 19, he travelled to the United States for a few years and on returning to Britain entered the insurance business and thus began moving his family up the economic ladder and out of the mines. "He rescued my brother and me from that long chain of continuity that happens in mining villages," Unsworth said.

He graduated from the University of Manchester in 1951, and lived in France for a year teaching English. He also travelled extensively in Greece and Turkey during the 1960s, lecturing at the University of Athens and the University of Istanbul. His novels about fin-de-siecle Ottoman Empire, The Rage of the Vulture and Pascali's Island, were inspired by these experiences. He published his first novel in 1966, his second novel, The Greeks Have a Word For It, was an outgrowth of his teaching experience in Athens.

Unsworth

Coordinates: 53°33′27″N 2°16′48″W / 53.5574°N 2.2801°W / 53.5574; -2.2801

Unsworth is a residential area of the Metropolitan Borough of Bury, in Greater Manchester, England. The population of the Bury ward at the 2011 census was 9,492. It is about 7 miles (11 km) north of the city of Manchester and 4 miles (6.4 km) south of Bury.

Toponomy

Unsworth derives from the Old English Hund a personal name and worth an enclosure. It was recorded in 1291 as Hundeswrth and as Undesworth in 1322.

History

After the Norman conquest in 1066, Unsworth was part of the Pilkington estate before passing into the hands of the Earls of Derby in the 15th century.

In the hearth tax collected in 1666, Unsworth had 40 hearths with no house having six.

Unsworth and Castle Brooks were sources of water for local industries such as bleach and dye works, there was also clay for brickworks. During the Industrial Revolution farming, cotton mills, print-works and bleach-grounds provided employment for its inhabitants. Cotton mills operating in the late 19th century were Worthington and Company whose Victoria Mills contained 220 looms producing ticking, nankeens, linen and drills and the Unsworth Finishing Company.