Ursula Owen was born Ursula Margaret Sachs in Oxford, England, to Emma Boehm and Werner Sachs, a chemical engineer who became managing director of a multinational company dealing with non-ferrous metals.
16 Facts About Ursula Owen
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Ursula Owen's parents were German Jews, and her mother had travelled from Berlin to Oxford to give birth to Ursula, before returning to Germany.
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Ursula Owen was educated at Putney High School and from there went to St Hugh's College, Oxford University, where she studied medicine and took a BA in Physiology.
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Ursula Owen then moved into the social sciences, taking a Graduate Diploma at Bedford College in London, and working for some years as a social worker and researcher into mental health issues.
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In 1974, Ursula Owen became a founder director of Virago Press.
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Ursula Owen remained on Virago's board until the company was sold to Little, Brown and Company in 1996.
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In 1990, Ursula Owen was appointed director of the Paul Hamlyn Fund and cultural policy advisor to the Labour Party.
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Paul Hamlyn 8.
Ursula Owen relaunched the magazine, increasing its sales and media profile.
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Ursula Owen was a founder trustee of Free Word, a centre for literature, literacy and free expression in London.
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Free Word was conceived in 2004, and Ursula Owen took it through from an idea to concrete reality, finding the funding from Norwegian foundation Fritt Ord to buy a building for the centre in Farringdon Road.
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Ursula Owen is on the board of the Southbank Centre and English Touring Opera.
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Ursula Owen has been a governor of Parliament Hill Field School, on the board of the New Statesman and the committee of the Royal Literary Fund.
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Ursula Owen has lived in Egypt, Lebanon and the United States.
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Ursula Owen is the editor of the anthology Fathers: Reflections by Daughters and Whose Cities, published by Penguin in 1991.
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Ursula Owen was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2020.
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Ursula Owen was married to historian Roger Owen, whom she had met at Oxford, and they adopted their daughter Kate, although they split up 18 months later.