Charles Henry Madge (10 October 1912 – 17 January 1996) was an English

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...

and sociologist, now most remembered as a founder of

Mass-Observation Mass-Observation is a United Kingdom social research project; originally the name of an organisation which ran from 1937 to the mid-1960s, and was revived in 1981 at the University of Sussex. Mass-Observation originally aimed to record everyday ...

Philip Bounds Philip Bounds was a Marxist historian, journalist and critic. He held a PhD in Politics from the University of Wales and wrote a number of books, including ''Orwell and Marxism'' and ''British Communism and the Politics of Literature, 1928–1 ...

, ''Orwell and Marxism: the political and cultural thinking of George Orwell''. London: I.B. Tauris, 2009. (p. 204)

Life

Charles Henry Madge was born in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Dem ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

, son of Lieut-Col. Charles Madge (1874-1916) and Barbara Hylton-Foster (1882-1967). He was educated at

Winchester College Winchester College is a public school (fee-charging independent day and boarding school) in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It was founded by William of Wykeham in 1382 and has existed in its present location ever since. It is the oldest of ...

and studied at Magdalene College, Cambridge. He was a literary figure from his early twenties, becoming a friend of

David Gascoyne David Gascoyne (10 October 1916 – 25 November 2001) was an English poet associated with the Surrealist movement, in particular the British Surrealist Group. Additionally he translated work by French surrealist poets. Early life and surrealis ...

; like Gascoyne he was generally classed as a surrealist poet. Madge's essay "Surrealism for the English" (''New Verse'' magazine, December 1933) argued that potential English surrealist poets would need both a knowledge of "the philosophical position of the French surrealists" and "a knowledge of their own language and literature". Madge contributed the essay "Pens Dipped In Poison" (1934) to ''

Left Review ''Left Review'' was a journal set up by the British section of the Comintern-sponsored International Union of Revolutionary Writers (previously known as the International Bureau for Revolutionary Literature; also known as the Writers' Internationa ...

'', a strong critique of the British intellectuals who had supported the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. He worked for a spell as a reporter for the ''

Daily Mirror The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily tabloid. Founded in 1903, it is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was simply ''The Mirror''. It had an average daily print c ...

''. By the end of the 1930s, he was more involved in the

social research movement, which he co-founded in 1937, socialist realism (in theory) and

Communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a ...

. By the 1940s, however, Madge was moving away from Communism. In 1947 he became the Social Development Officer for Stevenage New Town, and in 1950 (despite never having completed a university degree) he was appointed as the first Professor of Sociology at the

University of Birmingham The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a Public university, public research university located in Edgbaston, Birmingham, United Kingdom. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingha ...

, a position he held until 1970. Faber and Faber published his poetry as ''The Disappearing Castle'' (1937) and ''The Father Found'' (1941).

Family

In 1938, Charles Madge married the poet

Kathleen Raine Kathleen Jessie Raine CBE (14 June 1908 – 6 July 2003) was a British poet, critic, and scholar, writing in particular on William Blake, W. B. Yeats and Thomas Taylor. Known for her interest in various forms of spirituality, most prominently ...

(previously married to Hugh Sykes Davies). He had two children by Kathleen Raine: Anna Madge (b. 1934) and James Wolf Madge (1936–2006) who married Jennifer Alliston, daughter of architects

Jane Drew Dame Jane Drew , (24 March 1911 – 27 July 1996) was an English modernist architect and town planner. She qualified at the Architectural Association School in London, and prior to World War II became one of the leading exponents of the Modern ...

and James Thomas Alliston. In 1942 he married

Inez Pearn Marie Agnes Pearn (1913–1976), known as Inez Pearn and by the pen name Elizabeth Lake, was a British novelist who was acclaimed for her "remorseless interest in emotional truth", her "formidable ... characterisation", and her ability to evoke pl ...

, a young novelist who published under the name of Elizabeth Lake. She had previously been married to

Stephen Spender Sir Stephen Harold Spender (28 February 1909 – 16 July 1995) was an English poet, novelist and essayist whose work concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry by th ...

. They had two children: a

daughter A daughter is a female offspring; a girl or a woman in relation to her parents. Daughterhood is the state of being someone's daughter. The male counterpart is a son. Analogously the name is used in several areas to show relations between group ...

and a son. Inez died in 1976. Charles married his third wife, Evelyn Brown, in 1979.Charles Madge: Obituary by Angus Calder, The Independent, 20 Jan 1976
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Books

POETRY *''The Disappearing Castle''. Charles Madge. Faber & Faber, London, 1937. *''The Father Found''. Charles Madge. Faber & Faber, London, 1941. *''Of Love, Time and Places: Selected Poems''. Charles Madge. Anvil Press, London, 1994. SOCIOLOGY *''Mass Observation Number One''. Charles Madge & Tom Harrisson. Frederick Muller, London, 1937. *''May the Twelfth: Mass Observation Day – surveys 1937 by over two hundred observers''. Charles Madge & Humphrey Jennings (editors). Faber & Faber, London, 1937. *''First Year’s Work, 1937-1938, by Mass Observation''. Charles Madge and Tom Harrisson. Lindsay Drummond, London, 1938. *''Britain, by Mass-Observation''. Charles Madge and Tom Harrisson. Penguin Books, London, 1939. *''War Begins at Home, by Mass Observation''. Charles Madge and Tom Harrisson (editors). Chatto & Windus, London, 1940. *''The propensity to save in Blackburn and Bristol''. Charles Madge. National Institute of Economic and Social Research, London, 1940. *''Industry after the War: Who is going to run it?''. Charles Madge in consultation with Donald Tyerman. Foreword by William Beveridge. Pilot Press, London, 1943. *''Pilot Guide to the General Election''. Charles Madge (editor). Pilot Press, London, 1945. *''To Start You Talking. An experiment in Broadcasting''. Charles Madge, A.W. Coysh & George Dixon, and a commentary on the reactions of listening groups by Inez Madge. Pilot Press, London, 1945. *''Society in the Mind: Elements of Social Eidos''. Charles Madge, The Free Press, New York, 1964.

Notes

External links

JISC: Charles Madge Archive
(University of Sussex Library) {{DEFAULTSORT:Madge, Charles Alumni of Magdalene College, Cambridge People educated at Winchester College 1912 births 1996 deaths British sociologists English male journalists 20th-century English poets Surrealist poets English male poets 20th-century English male writers