Caitlin Davies was born on March 6, 1964. She is an English writer, historian, reporter, and educator. She has written many books about the history of society and the history of women. Her books about history have focused on swimmers, women who were prisoners, women who committed crimes, and women who worked as private investigators.
Family and early life
Caitlin Davies was born on March 6, 1964. She is the daughter of Hunter Davies and Margaret Forster, both famous writers. Hunter Davies often wrote about Caitlin and her siblings, Jake and Flora, in a weekly column for Punch magazine during the 1970s. These writings provided details about how Caitlin and her family lived. In her early years, Caitlin was also often mentioned by Auberon Waugh in his diary for Private Eye. Waugh frequently wrote about Caitlin and encouraged her to marry Prince Charles.
Life in Botswana
Davies became connected to Botswana in 1990 when she met her husband, Ronald Ridge, a former member of the Botswana Parliament, while studying for a Master's degree in English at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. She moved to Botswana and worked as a teacher, later becoming a freelance journalist. She wrote for Botswana's first tabloid newspaper, The Voice, and later served as the editor of The Okavango Newspaper. She was arrested twice as a journalist, once for "causing fear and alarm," but was found not guilty. In 2000, she received an award from the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) for her excellent and ongoing journalistic work.
While living in Botswana, Davies wrote the novel Jamestown Blues and the historical book The Return of El Negro. She was a victim of a violent attack and rape and worked on research about domestic violence in Botswana. She helped start the group Women Against Rape (WAR) in Maun.
Return to England
After divorcing her husband, Davies returned to England with her daughter and wrote a memoir about her life called Place of Reeds (2005). For several years, she wrote articles about education and careers for The Independent. Davies has written six novels: Jamestown Blues (1996), Black Mulberries (2008), Friends Like Us (2009), The Ghost of Lily Painter (2011), Family Likeness (2013), and Daisy Belle: Swimming Champion of the World (2018).
She also wrote a non-fiction book with pictures about the swimming pools and lido on Hampstead Heath, titled Taking the Waters: a Swim Around Hampstead Heath, and a book about the social history of Camden Lock (2013). Her writing has appeared in The Sunday Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Mail on Sunday, Town and Country, and Tate Etc.
In 2015, Davies published a non-fiction book called Downstream: a History and Celebration of Swimming the River Thames. The Independent called it "a fascinating cultural history." This book led to a three-week event at the Museum of London celebrating swimming in the Thames. Her non-fiction book Bad Girls, which tells the history of Holloway Prison in north London, was longlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing in 2019.
Davies’ book Queens of the Underworld: a Journey into the Lives of Female Crooks was published in October 2021. She received a research grant from The Author’s Foundation, managed by the Society of Authors, to help write this book. Her most recent book, Private Inquiries: The Secret History of Female Sleuths, was published by The History Press in 2023.
From 2014 to 2017, Davies worked as a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of Westminster. She also worked as an RLF Fellow at the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Science Museum from 2019 to 2020. She is now a Writing Fellow at Kent & Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust.