Eileen Maud Blair (née O'Shaughnessy, 25 September 1905 – 29 March 1945) was the first wife of
George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair). During World War II, she worked for the Censorship Department of the Ministry of Information in London and the Ministry of Food.
She was born in
South Shields in the northeast of England. Her mother was Marie O'Shaughnessy and her father was Lawrence O'Shaughnessy, a customs collector. She died at the age of 39 during an operation.
Education and early life
O'Shaughnessy attended
Sunderland Church High School
Sunderland High School was a Mixed-sex education, mixed Independent school (United Kingdom), independent day school located in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, England. Founded in 1883 as the oldest girls' senior school in Su ...
. In the autumn of 1924, she entered
St Hugh's College,
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
, where she studied English. In 1927, she received a
higher second-class degree. By choice there followed a succession of jobs 'of no special consequence and with no connection from one to the next', which she held briefly, and which began with work as an assistant mistress at Silchester House, a girls' boarding school in
Taplow
Taplow is a village and civil parish in the Unitary Authority of Buckinghamshire, England. It sits on the left bank of the River Thames, facing Maidenhead in the neighbouring county of Berkshire, with Cippenham and Burnham to the east. It is the ...
in the Thames valley, and included being a secretary; a reader for the elderly Dame
Elizabeth Cadbury
Dame Elizabeth Mary Cadbury ( Taylor; 24 June 1858 – 4 December 1951) was a British activist and philanthropist. Her husband was George Cadbury, the chocolate manufacturer.
Early life
Born in Peckham Rye, Southwark, London, Middlesex, she wa ...
; and the proprietor of an office in
Victoria Street,
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, for typing and secretarial work. When she closed it down she took up freelance journalism, selling an occasional feature piece to the ''Evening News''. She also helped her brother Lawrence, by typing, proofreading and editing his scientific papers and books.
In the autumn of 1934, Eileen enrolled at
University College, London
, mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £143 million (2020)
, budget = Â ...
for a two-year graduate course in educational psychology, leading to a
Master of Arts
A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Th ...
qualification. Eileen was particularly interested in testing intelligence in children "and quite early decided upon that as the subject for the thesis she would be writing".
Elizaveta Fen (pen name of Lydia Jackson Jiburtovich), a fellow student who became one of O'Shaughnessy's closest friends, met her then for the first time: "She was twenty-eight years old and looked several years younger. She was tall and slender, her shoulders rather broad and high. She had blue eyes and dark brown, naturally wavy hair. George once said that she had 'a cat's face' – and one could see that this was true in a most attractive sense..."
She was very close to her elder brother Lawrence O'Shaughnessy, a thoracic surgeon,
but even so, in a letter she described her brother as "one of nature's Fascists".
Marriage
![Orwell hampstead home](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Orwell_hampstead_home.JPG)
Eileen met Eric Blair in the spring of 1935. At the time Blair was living at 77 Parliament Hill in
Hampstead, occupying a spare room in the first floor flat of Rosalind Henschel Obermeyer, a niece of the conductor and composer Sir
George Henschel
Sir Isidor George Henschel (18 February 185010 September 1934) was a German-born British baritone, pianist, conductor, and composer. His first wife Lillian was also a singer. He was the first conductor of both the Boston Symphony Orchestra ...
and a friend of Mabel Fierz.
Rosalind Obermeyer was taking an advanced course in psychology at
University College London
, mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £143 million (2020)
, budget = ...
; one evening she invited some of her friends and acquaintances to a party. One "was an attractive young woman whom Rosalind did not know especially well, although they often sat next to each other at lectures: her name was Eileen O'Shaughnessy." Elizaveta Fen recalled Orwell in her memoirs, Orwell and his friend and mentor
Richard Rees
Sir Richard Lodowick Edward Montagu Rees, 2nd Baronet (4 April 1900 – 24 July 1970) was a British diplomat, writer and painter.
Rees was the son of Sir John Rees, 1st Baronet and his wife Mary Catherine Dormer. His sister was the pilot Rose ...
, "draped" at the fireplace, looking, she thought, "moth-eaten and prematurely aged."
Eric Blair married Eileen O'Shaughnessy the next year, on 9 June 1936, at St Mary's Church,
Wallington, Hertfordshire
Wallington is a small village and civil parish in the North Hertfordshire district, in the county of Hertfordshire, England, near the town of Baldock. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 Census was 150. Nearby villages include Rushden ...
(as Eric Arthur Blair and Eileen Maud O'Shaughnessy; at this time he was known as Orwell only in his writing, his friends knew him as Eric or Blair; and he "never quite got around to changing it"). Blair, though a non-practising member of the
Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...
, "was sufficiently a traditionalist to wish to be married in it." They tried to have children, but Eileen did not become pregnant and they learnt later that Orwell was sterile, as he told
Rayner Heppenstall
John Rayner Heppenstall (27 July 1911 in Lockwood, Huddersfield, Yorkshire, England – 23 May 1981 in Deal, Kent, England) was a British novelist, poet, diarist, and a BBC radio producer.John Wakeman, ''World Authors 1950-1970 : a companion volu ...
, as Eileen confided in Elizaveta Fen.
Eileen joined her husband in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. Eileen volunteered for a post in the office of
John McNair, the leader of the
Independent Labour Party
The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse working-class candidates ...
who coordinated the arrival of British volunteers, and with the help of
Georges Kopp
Georges Kopp (October 10, 1902 – July 15, 1951) was a Belgian educated engineer and inventor of Russian descent, who volunteered in the fight against Nazism and is best known for his friendship with George Orwell, whom he commanded in the Spani ...
paid visits to her husband, bringing him English tea, chocolate, and cigars. She had a relationship with Kopp at this time (Eileen and Orwell had a "somewhat open marriage"). By June 1937, the political situation had deteriorated and Orwell and Eileen were under threat and had to lie low, although they broke cover to try to help Kopp. After getting their passports in order, they escaped from Spain by train, diverting to Banyuls-sur-Mer for a short stay before returning to England.
At the start of World War II, Eileen began working in the Censorship Department of the
Ministry of Information in London, staying during the week with her family in Greenwich. Her brother Lawrence was killed by a bomb during the
evacuation from
Dunkirk, after which, according to Elizaveta Fen, "her grip on life, which had never been very firm, loosened considerably."
In spring 1942, she changed jobs to work at the
Ministry of Food
An agriculture ministry (also called an) agriculture department, agriculture board, agriculture council, or agriculture agency, or ministry of rural development) is a ministry charged with agriculture. The ministry is often headed by a minister ...
. In June 1944 she and Eric adopted a three-week-old boy they named
Richard Horatio. In one of her last letters to Blair, Eileen wrote of arrangements for renting and decorating
Barnhill, Jura
Barnhill is a farmhouse in the north of the island of Jura in the Scottish Inner Hebrides overlooking the Sound of Jura. It stands on the site of a larger 15th-century settlement, Cnoc an t-Sabhail; the English name Barnhill has been in use si ...
, the house where Orwell would write most of ''
Nineteen Eighty Four
''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (also stylised as ''1984'') is a dystopian social science fiction novel and cautionary tale written by the English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final ...
'' – but she died before she ever saw Barnhill.
Death
Eileen's brother Lawrence O'Shaughnessy had married Gwen Hunton; Gwen had a property called "Greystone" near
Carlton, County Durham, that had been left empty on the death of her maiden aunt. The Blairs stayed there on many occasions during 1944 and 1945. Gwen evacuated her children to the location when the "flying-bomb" raids began, and
Richard
Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from Old Frankish and is a compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and it therefore means 'stro ...
went there when the Blairs had been bombed out of their flat in
Maida Vale
Maida Vale ( ) is an affluent residential district consisting of the northern part of Paddington in West London, west of St John's Wood and south of Kilburn. It is also the name of its main road, on the continuous Edgware Road. Maida Vale is ...
in June 1944.
In early 1945, Eileen was in very poor health and went to stay there. Joyce Pritchard, the O'Shaughnessys'
nanny
A nanny is a person who provides child care. Typically, this care is given within the children's family setting. Throughout history, nannies were usually servants in large households and reported directly to the lady of the house. Today, modern ...
, said that Eileen had visited Greystone frequently between July 1944 and March 1945.
Eileen died on 29 March 1945 in
Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...
under anaesthetic. She was thirty-nine. In the words of the inquest: "Cardiac failure whilst under anaesthetic of
ether
In organic chemistry, ethers are a class of compounds that contain an ether group—an oxygen atom connected to two alkyl or aryl groups. They have the general formula , where R and R′ represent the alkyl or aryl groups. Ethers can again be ...
and
chloroform skilfully and properly administered for operation for removal of uterus." She and Richard were living at Greystone at the time, with Orwell working in Paris as a war correspondent for ''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...
''. He reached Greystone on Saturday, 31 March. She is buried in Saint Andrew's and Jesmond Cemetery, West Jesmond,
Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...
.
Influence on Orwell's writing
Some scholars believe that Eileen had a large influence on Orwell's writing. It is suggested that Orwell's novel ''
Nineteen Eighty-Four
''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (also stylised as ''1984'') is a dystopian social science fiction novel and cautionary tale written by the English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and fina ...
'' may have been influenced by one of Eileen's poems, ''End of the Century, 1984'', The poem was written in 1934, to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the school she went to,
Sunderland Church High School
Sunderland High School was a Mixed-sex education, mixed Independent school (United Kingdom), independent day school located in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, England. Founded in 1883 as the oldest girls' senior school in Su ...
, and to look ahead 50 years to the school's centenary in 1984.
Although the poem was written a year before she met Blair, there are some similarities between the futuristic vision of Eileen's poem and that in ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'', including the use of mind control, and the eradication of personal freedom by a police state.
References
Citations
Sources
*
Further reading
* Sylvia Topp: ''Eileen : the making of George Orwell'', London : Unbound, 2020,
External links
Text of ''"End of the Century, 1984"''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blair, Eileen
1905 births
1945 deaths
British people of the Spanish Civil War
English civil servants
George Orwell
Civil servants in the Ministry of Food
People educated at Sunderland High School
Alumni of University College London
People from South Shields
Women in the Spanish Civil War