J L Carr was a writer and publisher, was born in the village of Carlton Miniott, near Thirsk in the North Riding of Yorkshire, the youngest among the four children of Joseph Carr, an employee of the local railway company, and his wife, Hannah Elizabeth, née Welbourn. Carr senior's alternative career as a Wesleyan lay preacher was an appreciable influence on his son's development, while the memories of his Yorkshire boyhood form the background to his best-known novel, A Month in the Country.