Dick King-Smith
Dick King-Smith was the pen name of Ronald Gordon King-Smith. He was born on 27 March 1922 in Bitton, Gloucestershire, England, and died on 4 January 2011 near Bath, Somerset, England, aged 88.
He was an English writer of children’s books, producing many novels and picture books from the late 1970s to the 2000s. His best-known book is The Sheep-Pig (1983), which was turned into the movie Babe (1995) and translated into many languages.
King-Smith studied at Beaudesert Park School and Marlborough College. His father, Captain Ronald King-Smith, ran paper mills. He served in World War II with the Grenadier Guards in Italy, was badly wounded in 1944, and left the army in 1946 because of disability. He then became a farmer, a teacher at Farmborough Primary School, and finally a writer.
His first book, The Fox Busters, appeared in 1978 while he lived in Farmborough. The Sheep-Pig won the Guardian Prize in 1984. He received an Honorary Master of Education from the University of the West of England in 1999 and was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2010.
King-Smith married Myrle in 1943; they had three children. Myrle died in 2000, and he married Zona Bedding in 2001. He left a large family and is remembered for his animal stories loved by children around the world.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 08:47 (CET).