Eric Arthur Blair is a prominent British journalist, author dissident, based out of Paris, who is renowned for his social commentary, opposition to authoritarianism and "democratic socialist" critiques of the incumbent Mann government of the Union of Britain. Blair is also commonly known by his pen name George Orwell which he has used for both non-fiction and fiction works.
History[]
Early life[]
Eric Arthur Blair was born on 25 June 1903 in Motihari, Bengal Presidency, British India. Descended from the landed gentry and clergyman, Blair described his family as "lower-upper-middle class". His father, Richard Walmesley Blair, worked in the Opium Department of the Indian Civil Service. His mother, Ida Mabel Blair (née Limouzin), grew up in Moulmein, Burma, where her French father was involved in speculative ventures. Eric had two sisters: Marjorie, five years older; and Avril, five years younger. When Blair was one year old, his mother took him and Marjorie to England.
In 1904, Ida Blair settled with her children at Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire. Blair was brought up in the company of his mother and sisters and, apart from a brief visit in mid-1907, he did not see his father until 1912. Aged five, Eric was sent as a day-boy to a convent school in Henley-on-Thames, which Marjorie also attended. Through the social connections of Ida Blair's brother Charles Limouzin, the headmaster undertook to help Blair to win a scholarship, and made a private financial arrangement that allowed Blair's parents to pay only half the normal fees. Arriving in September 1911, he boarded at the school for the next five years, returning home only for school holidays. Although he knew nothing of the reduced fees, he "soon recognised that he was from a poorer home". Blair hated the school and has interspersed anecdotes of his experiences into some work of his works.
While at St Cyprian's, Blair wrote two poems that were published in the Henley and South Oxfordshire Standard. He came second to Cyril Connolly in the Harrow History Prize, had his work praised by the school's external examiner, and earned scholarships to Wellington and Eton. Inclusion on the Eton scholarship roll did not guarantee a place, and none were immediately available for Blair. He chose to stay at St Cyprian's until December 1916, in case a place at Eton became available.
Before the Weltkrieg, the family moved to Shiplake, Oxfordshire, where Eric became friendly with the Buddicom family, especially their daughter Jacintha. When they first met, he was standing on his head in a field. Asked why, he said, "You are noticed more if you stand on your head than if you are right way up." Jacintha and Eric read and wrote poetry, and dreamed of becoming famous writers. He said that he might write a book in the style of H. G. Wells's A Modern Utopia. During this period, he also enjoyed shooting, fishing and birdwatching with Jacintha's brother and sister.
In January, Blair took up the place at Wellington, where he spent the Spring term. In May 1917 a place became available as a King's Scholar at Eton. At this time the family lived at Mall Chambers, Notting Hill Gate. Blair remained at Eton until December 1921, when he left midway between his 18th and 19th birthday. Wellington was "beastly", Blair told his childhood friend Jacintha Buddicom, but he said he was "interested and happy" at Eton. His principal tutor was A. S. F. Gow, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, who also gave him advice later in his career. Blair was briefly taught French by Aldous Huxley. Steven Runciman, who was at Eton with Blair, noted that he and his contemporaries appreciated Huxley's linguistic flair. Cyril Connolly followed Blair to Eton, but because they were in separate years, they did not associate with each other.
Blair's academic performance reports suggest that he neglected his academic studies, but during his time at Eton he worked with Roger Mynors to produce a College magazine, The Election Times, joined in the production of other publications—College Days and Bubble and Squeak—and participated in the Eton Wall Game. His parents could not afford to send him to a university without another scholarship, and they concluded from his poor results that he would not be able to win one. Runciman noted that he had a romantic idea about the East, and the family decided that Blair should join the Imperial Police. For this he had to pass an entrance examination. In late 1921 he left Eton and travelled to join his retired father, mother, and younger sister Avril, who that month had moved to 40 Stradbroke Road, Southwold, Suffolk. Blair was enrolled at a crammer there called Craighurst, and brushed up on his Classics, English, and History. He passed the entrance exam, coming seventh out of the 26 candidates who exceeded the pass mark.
Policing & Life in Burma[]
Blair's maternal grandmother lived at Moulmein, so he chose a posting in Burma, then still a province of British India. After the Christmas of 1921 he sailed on board SS Herefordshire via the Suez Canal and Ceylon to join the Indian Imperial Police in Burma. Owing to growing tensions on the sub-continent, additional manpower was sorely needed and so Blair was fast-tracked for work in his new posting. In January, he arrived at Rangoon and travelled to the police training school in Mandalay. He was appointed an Assistant District Superintendent (on probation) at the pay of 525 Rupees per month. He would be shortly posted to the frontier outpost of Myaungmya in the Irrawaddy Delta at the beginning of 1923.
Working as an imperial police officer gave him considerable responsibility while most of his contemporaries were still at university in England. When he was posted farther east in the Delta to Twante as a sub-divisional officer, he was responsible for the security of some 200,000 people. By the start of 1924, he was re-posted to Rangoon to help reinforce the local security forces keep a lid on growing tensions in the city. Now based in a cosmopolitan seaport, Blair would spend his free time in the city as often as he could, "to browse in a bookshop; to eat well-cooked food; to get away from the boring routine of police life". In June, he went to Insein, the home of Insein Prison, the second largest prison in Burma. In Insein, he had "long talks on every conceivable subject" with Elisa Maria Langford-Rae (who later married Kazi Lhendup Dorjee). She noted his "sense of utter fairness in minutest details".
Upon returning to Rangoon he would experience one last brief period of relative peacefulness before full-blown insurrection in the form of the Burmese Revolt. As an Imperial Police Officer stationed in Rangoon, Blair was heavily involved in the initial suppression of riots and other revolutionary elements. Fortunately, he would be spared involvement in the worst excesses of violence and be re-assigned to suppression duties in Mandalay. Following the Christmas Raid and further attempts against police stations and barracks, Blair would be once more re-assigned, this time to garrison duties at a police station.
WIP
Return to Britain[]
WIP
Exile and Paris[]
WIP