Mabel A. Pratt (1899-1986), née Wreford, was born in Perth, Western Australia in 1899. She was educated at Perth Methodist Ladies College and moved to London with her family in 1920. She attended Hetherley's Art School where she met Charles Pratt. They married in 1927 and after a few years in Luton they settled in Oxford. They had three children, of whom two survived, Margaret and Roger. Mabel toured England extensively by bicycle often camping or staying in youth hostels. She recorded her holidays in words and pen-and-ink sketches and later, watercolours, in her 'Sketching Journals'. When her husband Charles retired in 1965 they moved to Perth, Western Australia, where their two children had already settled. Her husband died in 1976 and she died in 1986.