Meet the Beatrix Potter you didn’t know you didn’t know

By Janine Sobeck Knighton

I’ve long been interested in exploring the story of Beatrix Potter. The more I dug into her history – the severe isolation she lived in as a child, the way she connected with nature and animals, and the way she broke against barriers for women, first as a children’s author and later as a conservationist and defender of the Lake District [in North West England] – the more intrigued I became. I kept circling around this moment in 1882, the first time that she stayed in the land that would become her eventual home. She was only 16, and I knew in my gut that this moment helped define her as a person, as a writer, as an artist, and as an activist. I wanted to explore this younger Beatrix – before she became the Beatrix Potter we all know. But it wasn’t until I discovered Edith Rawnsley that the story clicked into place.

Much is written about how the vicar Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsely encouraged Beatrix to pursue publication of “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” and collaborated with her years later to save The Lake District from commercial development. In reading about Hardwicke’s marriage to Edith, I stumbled across a line that stated, “Everything that Hardwicke and Edith did they did as a couple.” And yet, as is too often the case, only his activities were recorded. I kept asking myself, “How is it that a husband and wife could do everything together, and yet the wife is rarely mentioned?”

With that question, I found the story I wanted to tell.

It’s a pivotal moment in Beatrix’s life, when she is struggling to know herself and imagine the possibilities of her future. I knew I wanted to bring Edith’s story back into the light. From the scant information available, I knew that she was also a watercolorist. Who better to understand a young artist struggling with her place in the world? 

Janine Sobeck Knighton, award-winning playwright and professor of playwriting at Utah Valley University, makes her Plan-B Theatre debut with THE BEATRIX POTTER DEFENSE SOCIETY. It receives its world premiere at Plan-B Theatre under the direction of Cheryl Ann Cluff March 27–April 13 in the Studio Theatre at The Rose. Tickets and details at planbtheatre.org/beatrixpotter