Ronald Oliver Felton TD (14 December 1909 – 5 February 1982 ), who wrote under the pseudonym Ronald Welch, was a Welsh novelist. He is best known for children's historical fiction. He won the 1956 Carnegie Medal from the Library Association for the year's best children's book by a British author, for Knight Crusader, the first in his so-called Carey Family series of novels.

Life

He was born in Aberavon, West Glamorgan. He was teaching at Bedford Modern School when the Second World War broke out. In 1940 he was commissioned lieutenant in the Welch Regiment, to which his pen name refers. He reached the rank of major and stayed in the Territorial Army after the war. He was for many years headmaster of Okehampton Grammar School in Devon. Welch's final work, The Road to Waterloo, not strictly speaking part of the Carey family saga but closely connected to it in terms of subject matter, remained unpublished at the time of his death. It was not until 2018 that it was discovered among his papers and published in a special edition by Smith Settle.

Carey family saga

Books

Family members

Military service

Works

Books

† indicates a book in the Carey family series

Short stories