Watercolour

1903–1922

Two or three books a year with the editor Norman Warne

“The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin” and “The Tailor of Gloucester” followed “Peter Rabbit” in 1903 — both also began as picture letters to the Moore children. Working with the editor Norman Warne, Beatrix published two or three little books a year — 23 in all in that format, the last, in 1922, being “Cecily Parsley’s Nursery Rhymes”; the royalties gave her a degree of independence, though she still lived with her parents.

1905–1909

Learning to farm: a tenant, sheep and Castle Farm

The tenant farmer John Cannon and his family stayed on to run the farm while Beatrix made improvements and learned the techniques of fell farming and livestock; the following year she added sheep. To protect her boundaries she turned to the Hawkshead solicitors W. H. Heelis & Son and, with William Heelis acting for her, bought adjoining pasture — in 1909 the 20 acres of Castle Farm across the road from Hill Top.

1905–1913 · Education

governance

summer 1912

William Heelis proposes

By the summer of 1912 William Heelis, the solicitor with whom Beatrix handled the affairs of her farms, had proposed and she had accepted; she did not tell her parents at once, and they again disapproved, since Heelis was only a country solicitor.

15 October 1913

Marriage to William Heelis and the move to Near Sawrey

On 15 October 1913, at St Mary Abbots in Kensington, the 47-year-old Beatrix married William Heelis and moved with him straight to Near Sawrey, to Castle Cottage, the renovated farmhouse on Castle Farm. Hill Top remained a working farm but was remodelled to house the tenant family and her private studio and workshop.