Ruth was born Emma Thomas Ruth Pitter in Ilford, Essex, UK on 7th November 1897. However, her birth certificate records her Christian name as just being "Ruth." Her parents were George Pitter and his wife, Louisa Pitter, nee Murrell, who were both primary school teachers. Ruth was educated at the Coborn School for Girls in London.
During the First World War, Ruth was employed at the War Office from 1915 to 1917. She went on to work as an artist at a furniture company in Suffolk -Walberswick Peasant Pottery Co.
Ruth’s parents encouraged her to write poetry from an early age. In 1920, she published her first collection of poems – “First Poems” (London: Cecil Palmer, 1920) - with the help of the poet Hilaire Belloc.
Ruth was the first woman to receive the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, which she was awarded in 1955. In 1979 she was appointed appointed Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE), to honour her many contributions to English literature. In 1974, Ruth was named a "Companion of Literature", the highest honour given by the Royal Society of Literature.
After a long and very industrious life during which she published a good deal of her poems, Ruth died on 29th February 1992.
(NOTE; Prisca Coborn or Cobourne (1622-1701), the widow of a Bow brewer, left property at Bow, Stratford, and Bocking (Essex) to maintain a school for not more than 50 poor children at Bow; the boys were to learn reading, writing, and accounts, and the girls reading, writing, and needlework. The Coopers' Girls' School at 86 Bow Road was renamed Coborn School and moved to new buildings at 31-33 Bow Road, London, E 3 in 1898.)
Sources: Free BMD, Find my Past
https://www.enitharmon.co.uk/product/ruth-pitter-collected-poems/
http://sites.montreat.edu/faculty/don-king/ruth-pitter-project
https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol1/p290a
