Jesse was an English criminologist, journalist, and author as well as one of the first female war correspondents. Born Wynifried Margaret Jesse, she was the daughter of Reverend Eustace Tennyson D'Eyncourt Jesse and Edith James and a great-niece of Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
She arrived in Cornwall in 1906 with her cousin Cicely, and moved with Dod Shaw (later Dod Procter) to Myrtle Cottage, Newlyn. Their purpose was to study with Stanhope and Elizabeth Forbes at the Newlyn School of Painting.
Jesse was to become a close friend of Elizabeth Forbes, and to be given her first chance at writing for publication with Elizabeth’s support, as editor of The Paper Chase. She later recalled, ‘nothing I wrote for it was any good.’ She went on to write several influential criminology books and novels.
She married Harold Marsh Harwood in 1918. She badly damaged her hand by catching it in an aeroplane propeller and subsequently became addicted to morphine.
