Beatrice Chase

Beatrice Chase was the pen name of Olive Katharine Parr, born at Harrow on the Hill on 5 July 1874. She wrote novels under her own name and as Beatrice Chase from 1914.

She lived at Venton farm near Widecombe-in-the-Moor, alone until 1954. During the First World War she ran a Crusade for Moral Living. From 1930 she worked as a photographer and produced Dartmoor postcards for Raphael Tuck and Sons, and she campaigned against modern development on the moor, especially Army use.

She died at Newton Abbot Infirmary on 3 July 1955 and is buried in the churchyard at Widecombe-in-the-Moor.

Books on this site

• Through a Dartmoor Window

Portrait: ‘Beatrice Chase outside her bookshop’, published by Chapman & Son, postcard print, 1910s. NPG x25222. © National Portrait Gallery, London. Used under licence CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.