Liskeard – born Charlotte Mary Matheson (c.1889 – 1937) became a popular novelist noted especially for ‘The Generation Between’ (1915), ‘Children of the Desolate’ (1916) and ‘Morwenna of the Green Gown’ (1923) whilst  ‘The Feather’ (1927) was adapted to become one of England’s first silent films.  

During World War One, she was a member of the Women’s Land Army working on the land of the Duchy of Cornwall in Stoke Climsland.  From the early 1920s, she and her husband, Stanley Threlkeld, ran the Porth Veor Manor Hotel in Newquay.  She had two children, Stephen and Felicity (pictured above left with Matheson). Matheson’s novels followed a theme of oppressed women seeking escape and give fascinating detail of the stifled life of women born into wealth. 

In The Generation Between (1915) Matheson explores sexual discrimination and feminism in early 20th century England and the conflict between women brought up to follow traditional lives and the younger generation, yet to be born, who will enjoy freedom and equality.  In ‘Children of the Desolate’  she describes the inner turmoil of one who acts by impulse and, as an act of her rejection of her controlling family, enters into a loveless marriage. ‘Morwenna of the Green Gown’ is a romance set on Dartmoor and in London and describes the consequences of another loveless marriage, her escape to London and her subsequent return to life expected of her which she had rejected.