Frances Towers

FRANCES TOWERS, born in Calcutta in 1885, was the eldest of five children of a British Government telegraph engineer. She went to school in Bedford from the age of nine and between 1905-31 worked at the Bank of England, as a clerk and then as Assistant to the Supervisor. She wrote articles and entered literary competitions and spent her holidays abroad indulging her passions for Gothic architecture, Old Masters and mountains; her first short story was published in 1929. During the late 1930s 'Miss Fay', as she was known to her pupils, began teaching English and History at Southlands School, Harrow, where her sister was headmistress. Most of Frances Towers' short stories were written during the late 1940s, but she died suddenly of pneumonia on New Year's Day 1948, the year before the publication of her only book Tea with Mr  Rochester.