Umbridge was based on a real person, says Rowling

J K Rowling has revealed that Dolores Umbridge, a Hogwarts professor and enemy of Harry Potter, was based on a real person.
 
In any essay posted on the Pottermore website, Rowling said she “disliked intensely on sight” the person she based Umbridge on, who was a teacher “in a certain skill or subject”.
 
She said: “The woman in question returned my antipathy with interest. Why we took against each other so instantly, heartily and (on my side, at least) irrationally, I honestly cannot say.”
 
Rowling was keen to point out that this women was not the real Dolores Umbridge, but that like Umbridge she had a taste for twee accessories, including a “tiny little plastic bow slide, pale lemon in colour”.
 
Umbrige is the only character in the Harry Potter world, apart from Voldemort, to permanently scar Harry. Her “desire to control, to punish and to inflict pan, all in the name of law and order, are, I think, every bit as reprehensible as Lord Voldemort’s unvarnished espousal of evil”, said Rowling.
 
J K Rowling has published a string of new material about the Harry Potter world on Pottermore this year, including an article about a 30-something Harry Potter at the final of the Quidditch World Cup 2014 and information about her favourite “off-stage” character Celestina Warbeck.