Beryl Gilroy

Guyanese educator and writer (1924–2001)

Beryl Agatha Gilroy (née Answick; 30 August 1924 – 4 April 2001) was a Guyanese educator, novelist, ethno psychotherapist, and poet. The Guardian described her as "one of Britain's most significant post war Caribbean migrants."

Beryl Gilroy was born in Springlands, British Guiana on 30 August 1924 into a very large family. Her father died when she was young and she grew up in the care of her maternal grandparents as a sickly child. Both were influential: her grandfather taught her how to read and her grandmother, Sally Louisa James, was affected her deeply. She was an herbalist who managed the family smallholding. Gilroy spent a lot of time listening to woman chatting as they worked; her grandmother in particular told her folkloric tales and Guyanese proverbs. In a 1986 interview, she shared that she had to "relearn English because [she] spoke with Guyana idioms and Guyana expressions." She was eventually employed by the Inner London Education Authority in 1953, making her the first Black female teacher in London. Her first teaching job was at a poor Catholic school in Bethnal Green where her third year pupils had already been taught racist stereotypes by their parents. In her 1976 memoir Black Teacher, she recalls the children whimpering and hiding under the table when she first arrived. She stepped away from teaching between 1956 and 1968 to raise their children, Darla Jane and Paul, and to earn her master's degree in psychology. Schools had become more racially diverse during her time away; she variably estimated that between 33 and 55 different nationalities now filled the classrooms. Despite her rank, she received a lower wage than her oftentimes prejudiced colleagues. In 1980, she took an MA in education at the University of Sussex. It wasn't until the 1980s, when women were able to pursue publishing opportunities more readily, that any of her writing was legitimately read.