The Improbable Puritan: A Life of Bulstrode Whitelocke

Ruth Spalding (1913–2009) was a British actor, director, and author known for her multifaceted career in theater, education, and historical biography. She founded the Oxford Pilgrim Players during World War II, co-led the Rock Theatre Company with her husband Terence O'Brien, and later served as General Secretary of the Association of Headmistresses while writing BBC programs and plays under the pseudonym Marion Jay. Her notable nonfiction work, The Improbable Puritan: A Life of Bulstrode Whitelocke (1975), won the Whitbread Biography Award, and she edited Whitelocke's diary and compiled biographies of his contemporaries, published by the British Academy.com