Alice Maud Head

Life

Head was born to very strict parents in Notting Hill in 1886. She felt that her parents were not happy and her father felt that most things that made you happy were sinful. She was educated at North London Collegiate School for Girls and her mother took her to get a job as a typist on the magazine Country Life. Employed to type she was allowed to write short articles which fell in with her ambition to be a journalist. By the age of 22 she was an editor of Woman at Home for another publisher.

Head was chosen to create a version of the American Good Housekeeping magazine for the British market. Head created a number of dummy issues before she felt it was ready.

Head was thrust into notability when William Randolph Hearst decided to promote Head to be the managing director of Good Housekeeping. He had never met her. She was allegedly the highest paid woman in Europe. She would deputise for Hearst making decisions on his behalf about not just editing but also buying for him St Donat's Castle, expensive art objects and three giraffes for his zoo. Head remained in charge until 1939.

Head died at her flat in Kensington.in 1981.

In 1941 she left the Hearst organisation to become the editor of Homes and Gardens. In 1942 she returned to Country Life as director. She retired in 1949.