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| Carole Seymour-Jones obituary | |
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| Carole Seymour-Jones, who has died aged 72, was a biographer of distinction and a leading light in the writers’ association English Pen. Her books were especially effective when recounting the lives of determined but emotionally vulnerable women. Her advocacy of human rights, especially the rights of authors unjustly incarcerated by intolerant regimes, was exceptionally articulate; she contributed to the release of many and publicised the plight of countless others. | Carole Seymour-Jones, who has died aged 72, was a biographer of distinction and a leading light in the writers’ association English Pen. Her books were especially effective when recounting the lives of determined but emotionally vulnerable women. Her advocacy of human rights, especially the rights of authors unjustly incarcerated by intolerant regimes, was exceptionally articulate; she contributed to the release of many and publicised the plight of countless others. |
| Her first book, Beatrice Webb: A Life (1992), later subtitled Woman of Conflict, told the story of the Fabian social worker and co-operative economist, with fresh revelations about her private emotions. Everyone knew of Beatrice’s marriage and partnership with Sidney Webb, but her passion for Joseph Chamberlain provided Seymour-Jones with far less familiar material. | Her first book, Beatrice Webb: A Life (1992), later subtitled Woman of Conflict, told the story of the Fabian social worker and co-operative economist, with fresh revelations about her private emotions. Everyone knew of Beatrice’s marriage and partnership with Sidney Webb, but her passion for Joseph Chamberlain provided Seymour-Jones with far less familiar material. |
| Her next book was Journey of Faith: The History of the World YWCA 1945-1994. It was published in 1994, shortly after she had begun living with Geoffrey Parkinson, a radio playwright and probation officer. They married in 2012, not long before Parkinson’s death in 2014. | Her next book was Journey of Faith: The History of the World YWCA 1945-1994. It was published in 1994, shortly after she had begun living with Geoffrey Parkinson, a radio playwright and probation officer. They married in 2012, not long before Parkinson’s death in 2014. |
| Journey of Faith marked the YWCA’s 50th anniversary. Seymour-Jones tracked the organisation’s odyssey from being, in its own words, “the daughter of the industrial revolution” to its position as a global agent of change, empowering women in more than 120 countries. The book led to many lecturing invitations. | Journey of Faith marked the YWCA’s 50th anniversary. Seymour-Jones tracked the organisation’s odyssey from being, in its own words, “the daughter of the industrial revolution” to its position as a global agent of change, empowering women in more than 120 countries. The book led to many lecturing invitations. |
| More significantly for her future as a biographer, she realised that it could often be truer to depict two characters than one, since a professional or personal relationship was often at the heart of understanding individual achievement. Beatrice was inconceivable without Sidney, in the same way that Vivienne Eliot could not be interpreted other than alongside her husband, Tom, or Simone de Beauvoir without Jean-Paul Sartre. Such an approach did not always endear itself to feminists since it suggested dependency. Indeed, it was a paradox of her biographical writing that Seymour-Jones chose fiercely individual women as her subjects, but often portrayed them as needing a counterweight. | More significantly for her future as a biographer, she realised that it could often be truer to depict two characters than one, since a professional or personal relationship was often at the heart of understanding individual achievement. Beatrice was inconceivable without Sidney, in the same way that Vivienne Eliot could not be interpreted other than alongside her husband, Tom, or Simone de Beauvoir without Jean-Paul Sartre. Such an approach did not always endear itself to feminists since it suggested dependency. Indeed, it was a paradox of her biographical writing that Seymour-Jones chose fiercely individual women as her subjects, but often portrayed them as needing a counterweight. |
| Painted Shadow: A Life of Vivienne Eliot (2001) was a conscious act of reclamation. It had become an accepted view that Vivienne Haigh-Wood, TS Eliot’s first wife, was a mentally unstable, neurotic, drug-dependent leech, sucking the great poet’s creative energies and forcing him into a seemingly callous indifference as his only way of protecting himself. Seymour-Jones portrayed a different kind of woman, one ultimately destroyed by her husband’s self-absorption – but in the early years of their relationship acknowledged by him as his muse and mentor. | Painted Shadow: A Life of Vivienne Eliot (2001) was a conscious act of reclamation. It had become an accepted view that Vivienne Haigh-Wood, TS Eliot’s first wife, was a mentally unstable, neurotic, drug-dependent leech, sucking the great poet’s creative energies and forcing him into a seemingly callous indifference as his only way of protecting himself. Seymour-Jones portrayed a different kind of woman, one ultimately destroyed by her husband’s self-absorption – but in the early years of their relationship acknowledged by him as his muse and mentor. |
| The biography gave interpretations of poems that many Eliot scholars thought simply wrong, overemphasising sexual implications which they denied were there. Seymour-Jones was convinced that Eliot was homosexual, and not all that repressed; that he encouraged his wife’s affair with Bertrand Russell; and that he drove Vivienne to probable suicide. Whatever the truth, biographers of the most influential poet of the 20th century will not be able to proceed without taking into account Seymour-Jones’s explanation of his first marriage – and her proposals about the poems she believed it influenced. | The biography gave interpretations of poems that many Eliot scholars thought simply wrong, overemphasising sexual implications which they denied were there. Seymour-Jones was convinced that Eliot was homosexual, and not all that repressed; that he encouraged his wife’s affair with Bertrand Russell; and that he drove Vivienne to probable suicide. Whatever the truth, biographers of the most influential poet of the 20th century will not be able to proceed without taking into account Seymour-Jones’s explanation of his first marriage – and her proposals about the poems she believed it influenced. |
| Having tackled in Russell and Eliot two intellectual giants of the English-speaking world, Seymour-Jones turned next to the book for which she may be most remembered, A Dangerous Liaison (2008), which examined the parallel careers and personal relationship of France’s philosopher king and queen, Sartre and De Beauvoir. Some readers thought that the book strayed towards the novelettish; it certainly did not restrain itself in describing the ups and downs of what was often a very stormy partnership. | Having tackled in Russell and Eliot two intellectual giants of the English-speaking world, Seymour-Jones turned next to the book for which she may be most remembered, A Dangerous Liaison (2008), which examined the parallel careers and personal relationship of France’s philosopher king and queen, Sartre and De Beauvoir. Some readers thought that the book strayed towards the novelettish; it certainly did not restrain itself in describing the ups and downs of what was often a very stormy partnership. |
| Seymour-Jones showed a knack for summarising complex abstractions in an accessible and coherent manner. She also depicted how this most manipulative of couples were often sad and isolated figures, disliked by their peers and oddly exposed by the lives they had to live when their country was occupied by the Nazis. There were plenty of French admirers of the book, which, if far from definitive, was the first to evaluate the two writers alongside each other in such a measured way. | Seymour-Jones showed a knack for summarising complex abstractions in an accessible and coherent manner. She also depicted how this most manipulative of couples were often sad and isolated figures, disliked by their peers and oddly exposed by the lives they had to live when their country was occupied by the Nazis. There were plenty of French admirers of the book, which, if far from definitive, was the first to evaluate the two writers alongside each other in such a measured way. |
| Seymour-Jones’s last book was She Landed by Moonlight (2013), the story of the secret agent Pearl Witherington, who parachuted into France in 1943 to join the resistance and also to search for her lover, Henri Cornioley. The author departed from the biographical mode of her earlier books, adopting the fashionable but speculative “re-creation” technique of imagined dialogue and interior musings. | Seymour-Jones’s last book was She Landed by Moonlight (2013), the story of the secret agent Pearl Witherington, who parachuted into France in 1943 to join the resistance and also to search for her lover, Henri Cornioley. The author departed from the biographical mode of her earlier books, adopting the fashionable but speculative “re-creation” technique of imagined dialogue and interior musings. |
| Carole was born in Towyn, Wales, the daughter of an ear, nose and throat surgeon, Anthony, and his wife, Elizabeth (nee Pinches). Her family moved to Southsea in Hampshire, where she developed a lifelong enthusiasm for boats. She was sent away to school at St Mary’s, in Calne, Wiltshire, and from there proceeded to Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, with vague thoughts of pursuing an academic career as a historian. After only a year, however, she abandoned her degree, leaving to marry Robert Bigland, a stockbroker, in 1963. She later claimed that family pressures had had forced her into a decision that she came to regret – but the marriage, which lasted until the early 1990s, produced a son and three daughters, one of whom died at the age of four. | Carole was born in Towyn, Wales, the daughter of an ear, nose and throat surgeon, Anthony, and his wife, Elizabeth (nee Pinches). Her family moved to Southsea in Hampshire, where she developed a lifelong enthusiasm for boats. She was sent away to school at St Mary’s, in Calne, Wiltshire, and from there proceeded to Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, with vague thoughts of pursuing an academic career as a historian. After only a year, however, she abandoned her degree, leaving to marry Robert Bigland, a stockbroker, in 1963. She later claimed that family pressures had had forced her into a decision that she came to regret – but the marriage, which lasted until the early 1990s, produced a son and three daughters, one of whom died at the age of four. |
| She later resumed her study of history, completing a degree with the Open University before graduating with an MA from the University of Sussex. She briefly taught history to students at Surrey University – later becoming a fellow there – and at a school in Dorking; but her heart lay in research and writing. | She later resumed her study of history, completing a degree with the Open University before graduating with an MA from the University of Sussex. She briefly taught history to students at Surrey University – later becoming a fellow there – and at a school in Dorking; but her heart lay in research and writing. |
| Many who knew Seymour-Jones will regard her work with English Pen as every bit as important as her achievements as a writer. She served as its deputy chair and chaired its Writers in Prison committee (2006-10). She travelled to Belarus, Turkey, Ukraine and much more widely to demand the release of imprisoned authors. With Lucy Popescu she co-edited Another Sky: Voices of Conscience from Around the World (2007), an English Pen anthology of “prison pieces” by, among others, Aung San Suu Kyi and Orhan Pamuk. She was also the main instigator of the Pen Pinter prize, founded in the writer’s memory and awarded to an author who defines “the real truth of our lives and our societies”. | Many who knew Seymour-Jones will regard her work with English Pen as every bit as important as her achievements as a writer. She served as its deputy chair and chaired its Writers in Prison committee (2006-10). She travelled to Belarus, Turkey, Ukraine and much more widely to demand the release of imprisoned authors. With Lucy Popescu she co-edited Another Sky: Voices of Conscience from Around the World (2007), an English Pen anthology of “prison pieces” by, among others, Aung San Suu Kyi and Orhan Pamuk. She was also the main instigator of the Pen Pinter prize, founded in the writer’s memory and awarded to an author who defines “the real truth of our lives and our societies”. |
| No one who worked with Seymour-Jones in her pursuit of justice and freedom of expression will forget her breezy passion, her doggedness or her clear presentation of usually unanswerable challenges. Slightly windswept, nearly always cheerful, she was an incorrigible force for good. | No one who worked with Seymour-Jones in her pursuit of justice and freedom of expression will forget her breezy passion, her doggedness or her clear presentation of usually unanswerable challenges. Slightly windswept, nearly always cheerful, she was an incorrigible force for good. |
| She is survived by her children Emma, Edward and Lucy. | She is survived by her children Emma, Edward and Lucy. |
| • Carole Veronica Gillian Seymour-Jones, writer and campaigner, born 3 March 1943; died 23 May 2015 | • Carole Veronica Gillian Seymour-Jones, writer and campaigner, born 3 March 1943; died 23 May 2015 |