Nicknames: Almost always Tess.
Birthdate: 22nd September, 1866
Current Age: 27 years
Gender: Usually identifies and is perceived as female. (Every so often, Tess makes an outing as Archer Whitby, and affects changes to her appearance and dress in order to be better perceived as male.) [Female for the census please!]
Occupation: Owner & Manager of Whitby & Co. Printers
Formerly known as Whitby & Sons, the printshop name changed in 1893 when there were no sons left. However, it is still a family-run magical job printing house, printing an array of newsletters, notices, flyers, posters and pamphlets; calling cards, invitations and stationary; business letters, tickets and receipts, as well as picture prints, the occasional hardcover publication, and anything else that one might want set in type.Reputation: 8
Working class woman with a ~traditionally masculine profession. Her printshop occasionally prints political fare.Residence: Both the printworks and the Whitby girls’ narrow rooms connected to the back of it are just off the Hogsmeade High Street, on the corner of Three-Knut Alley and Pendle Road.
Hogwarts House: Gryffindor
Wand: Poplar and phoenix feather, 11 3/4”. Secondhand.
Blood Status: Halfblood
Social Class: Working
Family:
Edmund Whitby | Father | 18xx - Nov 1893
Eleanor Whitby | Mother | 18xx - 1879
Beth Whitby | Sister | 1869
Saffron Whitby | Sister | 1871
Mia Whitby | Sister | 1875
Amber Whitby | Sister | 1879
Archer Whitby | Call him a pseudonym or an alter-ego, but Tess occasionally calls upon ‘Cousin Archer’, supposed inheritor of the printshop, to step in on business matters for her. He may not exist, but still, she finds him a rather useful figure to embody from time to time.
Appearance:
At 5’7”, Tess is tall and willowy, with a slim, angular figure and softer features in her face. Her hair is on the cusp of dark blonde and a light chestnut brown – it would go lighter if she ever saw the sun. But working long and late hours have left her skin pale, hazel eyes the only warmth in her. Her hands are always cold, and her wrists usually ache. With round cheeks, she gets dimples if she smiles fully, but usually she’s too focused for that – her expressions, whether thoughtful, exhausted or angry, are more often one step away from frowning. Her work is her life, and she has no room for vanity: so her clothes are practical and plain, skirts and women’s jackets and rolled-up sleeves and a printer’s apron to save them all from inkstains. Her hair is usually up in a careful knot. Messy wisps escape the longer she’s been working, but she doesn’t usually let it grow far past shoulder-length – better it doesn’t get caught in the press machines.
Archer Whitby looks different – with short, slicked or wavy, mussed hair in a slightly altered shade of blond, often under a cap; has a young, boyish face; wears large, round tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses, and muggle men’s clothes. He has better posture than Tess, with his shoulders broadened and relaxed – obviously he spends less time doing hunched over typesetting jobs than she does.History:
1866 | The Whitbys were originally from Scarborough, they say – but for the last few generations, as long as anyone can remember, they’ve lived in London, working as printers in the magical courts and alleys between Diagon Alley and Chancery Lane. Ned has inherited his father’s printworks, Whitby & Sons – they are still working class, but better off (not to mention more literate) than most. Ned and Nora have their first daughter, and name her Tess. She’s an oddly quiet baby, but stronger and healthier than at first she looks.
1869 | Beth is born. Tess learns to read and write young, using letters from the type cases.
1871 | Saffron is born.
1875 | Mia is born, and by this time Tess already has responsibilities in their busy household – either in looking after her younger sisters, or in being sent to the printshop to help her father, whichever her mother needs.
1877 | The country is in uproar about magic – when another magical printworks nearby gets burned down, Ned Whitby decides it’s time to get the family out of the city. They move to Hogsmeade, and work on opening a new printshop there.
1878 | Tess gets her Hogwarts letter, and although money is tight this year with the move, she hopes she’ll get a few years. She’s sorted into Gryffindor, and – although she’s been raised with magic and is financially still better off than some of her peers, Hogwarts still opens up new worlds to her, and occasionally makes her feel out of her depth.
1879 | Another baby is born – another sister, Amber – and their mother dies of complications a week after the birth. Her father insists that Tess goes back to Hogwarts for another year, but even at twelve, she feels guilty for her absence.
1880 | Beth is set to go to Hogwarts this year, so Tess, although it breaks her heart, decides it is best she doesn’t go back for her third year. There are the three younger girls to look after, and her father’s hours in the printing rooms are too long to leave all their care to nurses or neighbours.
1882 | Their father gets drafted on the trail, leaving the printshop in the hands of his workers and Tess’ sisters still at home in her care. If he doesn’t come back, well... she’s stressed, that’s all. But he does, and with some prize money from new Irvingly land he’s sold off, feeding that money back into new machines for the printshop and for the girls’ school funds.
1886 | By this year, all the girls save Amber are either at school or able to look after themselves. So Tess gets to do more than teach her sisters, and begins helping in the printshop in earnest, setting typefaces and correcting proofs and so on. It’s hardly an adventure, but somehow it still proves her little window into the outside world, seeing the notices and advertisements and things people choose to publish. It makes one think, is all.
1892 | Tess works full time in the printshop nowadays. She has hobbies too, of course – like when the Daily Prophet makes her furious by printing with Forsyte’s Discretionary Ink, she starts experimenting with how to undo such effects, and also starts up a free subscription service, printing and sending out the affected articles with all the words filled back in to women without a well-meaning man in their lives. (Even she is dependent on the male printers to create them.)
1893 | Their father’s health gets the better of him (all the lead and fumes and long nights of a printer’s life will do that) and after a miserable few months where they scrape together enough money to keep him in the hospital for better care, he dies in November. There is little else for it – Tess takes over Whitby & Co.
1894 | So here she is – trying to do her best by it, and by her sisters. It takes some months to get the business back in order, sorting through her father’s affairs, and some regular customers fall away when she tries to keep them on – so if Tess trials corresponding with certain contacts as Mr. A. Whitby, a kindly cousin who has taken over the business, and they do a little better for it, who can blame her? She still gets to be herself most of the time.
Personality: Tired. So tired.
(Look, she’s used to doing what she has to, and not often what she wants, but she’s always juggling that balance. She’s responsible, seems older than her years, is maternal to and protective of her sisters, and is generally exasperated with the world. She’s a workaholic and a perfectionist, always stressed and overworked and fed up with injustices, and stubbornly bottles up her emotions until they come out – whether in criticism, in anger or in tears. Eldest daughter syndrome in a person. She doesn’t always let people in, lighten up easily, or know how to express her own needs or wants, but she cares a lot about everything and would sacrifice anything of hers for someone else if she had to.)
Other: —
Sample Roleplay Post:
Age: 29
![[Image: TrSGeWR.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/TrSGeWR.jpg)