Robert Geoffrey Neill (19 November 1905 – 1979)[1] was an English writer of historical fiction, best known for his debut novel, Mist over Pendle, published in 1951, which has remained in print since first appearing.
His great-grandfather, also called Robert Neill, was a former Mayor of Manchester (two terms, 1866–68), though his mother came from Colne, in Central Lancashire, an area to which he would return continually in his novels.
[citation needed] Neill was educated at King Edward VII School, Lytham, on the Lancashire coast, before reading Natural Science at Cambridge (a choice he would later describe as a mistake).
He became a research worker for the Scottish Marine Biological Association, a schoolmaster at Burton upon Trent, and an Electrical Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve during World War II.
Neill continued to live in Cheltenham for several years but eventually returned to the northwest, settling in Cumberland, stating that he was too much of a northerner to ever feel properly comfortable south of the River Mersey.