Winnie Davin was a New Zealand teacher, community worker and editor. She was primarily known for her encouragement and promotion of New Zealand writers.
Background
She was born Winifred Gonley in Otautau, Southland to Winifred Cecilia Crowe and her husband, Michael Gonley. The family belonged to the Southland Irish Catholic community.
She met her future husband, Dan Davin, during her student years.
Dan continued his studies and in 1935 won a Rhodes Scholarship. Winnie followed him to Europe in June 1937 and they spent the summer in Italy and Paris. Winnie stayed on in Paris when Dan returned to Oxford. She studied at the Alliance française and looked for free-lance work. In 1938 they spent vacations together travelling or in Paris. They married in Oxford on 22 July that year, then savoured a final summer in Paris before the outbreak of war. Back in England, Winnie looked for more teaching. Dan joined up. Then, pregnant with the first of three daughters, and aware how little time together might be left, she became a camp follower.
Education
She studied languages and literature at the University of Otago. During her student years Winnie Gonley wrote reviews, poetry and stories. She was a member of the Literary and Dramatic Society, and in 1931 her story ‘And no more turn aside’ won first prize in the society’s short-story competition. As editor and contributor she was closely involved with the annual Otago University Review.
In 1932 Winnie Gonley trained as a teacher at Dunedin Training College.
Career
From 1933 she worked in a succession of temporary jobs in Otago and Southland schools, returning at times to Otautau to run house and shop or work in a local library.
In 1938 she took a job teaching English and Latin at a Surrey convent school.
As their daughters grew older Winnie took seasonal work marking exam papers and occasionally did indexes for OUP books. This was followed by editorial work on three short-story collections (with Dan), on the Oxford junior encyclopaedia and in the educational department of the press; then, later, part-time work on dictionaries.
In Oxford the Davins kept open house. Closing times , Dan’s collection of memoirs of friends, was appropriately dedicated ‘to W. K. D. (without whom there would have been neither friends nor book)’.