Ralph Charles Woodthorpe (1886-1971) was a British author who wrote eight mysteries in the 1930s, including The Public School Murder (1932), A Dagger in Fleet Street (1934), Death Wears a Purple Shirt (1934), Death in a Little Town (1935), The Shadow on the Downs (1935), The Necessary Corpse (1939), Rope for a Convict (1939), and Put Out That Light (1940). Many of these are set in small towns in the south of England. Several feature Matilda Perks, a retired schoolmistress, and The Public School Murder was made into a television episode in the UK. It is interesting to note that Woodthorpe was himself a teacher of English and that one of his pupils was Philip Carter, the husband of the mystery writer Margery Allingham.