Francesca Allinson (born Enid Ellen Pulvermacher Allinson; 20 August 1902 – 7 April 1945) was an English writer, musician and puppeteer.[1] She was the youngest child of the pioneering physician and wholemeal bread entrepreneur Dr Thomas Allinson, and sister of the artist Adrian Allinson.[2]
Francesca Allinson | |
|---|---|
| Born | Enid Ellen Pulvermacher Allinson 20 August 1902 |
| Died | 7 April 1945 (aged 42) |
| Occupation(s) | Writer, musician, musicologist, puppeteer. |
| Notable work | A Childhood (1937) |
| Relatives | Thomas Allinson (father); Adrian Allinson (brother) |
Biography edit
Allinson wrote the semi-autobiographical book A Childhood which was published by Hogarth Press in 1937.[3]
She was a musician, a puppeteer, a conductor with the London Labour Choral Union,[4] and wrote extensively on the origins of English folk song, clashing with the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams on the subject.[5] She published editions of Henry Purcell and Orlando Gibbons and her unpublished manuscript on the Irish origins of English folksong is held at the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library.[1]
Allinson was a pacifist and established a community farm in East Grinstead, Surrey, where conscientious objectors worked during World War II.[6]
Her circle of friends and collaborators included the composer Alan Bush, artists Enid Marx and Wilfred Franks, music critic John Amis and poet Douglas Newton.[7] She was a close friend of the composer Michael Tippett who dedicated two of his compositions to her, Piano Sonata no.1 (1936–38) and The Heart's Assurance (1950-51); the latter was written in response to Allinson's death.[8][9] In old age Tippett was asked if he had ever been close to a woman, he replied, "Oh yes. Indeed. All through my life, Francesca Allinson, who I was closer to than almost anybody. It was a strange, tender, extremely tender, gentle relationship."[10]
Through much of the 1930s Allinson was involved in a same-sex relationship with Judith Wogan,[11] a producer of plays and owner of the Grafton Theatre on London's Tottenham Court Road.[12]
Allinson died in 1945 by suicide by drowning in the River Stour in Clare, Suffolk.[1][13] She left suicide notes for both Tippett and Wogan, the one left for Tippett included the following:
"Darling - it's no good - I can't hold on any longer. One has to be a better and stronger character than me to be able to face a life of individualism... I have thought endlessly about whether it is wrong - and perhaps it is. But one would have to feel very sure about its wrongness to go on existing as a helpless unhelping unit in the terrible post-war years that are to come... If we have to live many lives, may I live near those I now love again and make a better job of living... I can't live without the warm enfolding love of another person - and in this life I have smashed up the chance of that (in my love too). Darling forgive me. I am so tired and have been for so many years. All my love, Fresc."[14]
References edit
- ^ a b c "Francesca Allinson | Modernist Archives Publishing Project". www.modernistarchives.com. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
- ^ Southworth, Helen (2017). Fresca A Life in the Making. A Biographer's Quest for a Forgotten Bloomsbury Polymath. Eastbourne: SUSSEX ACADEMIC PRESS. p. 13. ISBN 9781845198213.
- ^ See The Library of Leonard and Virginia Woolf: A Short-title Catalog Compiled and edited by Julia King and Laila Miletic-Vejzovic ; foreword by Laila Miletic-Vejzovic; introduction by Diane F. Gillespie. Washington State University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-87422-270-2.
- ^ Southworth, Helen (2017). Fresca A Life in the Making. A Biographer's Quest for a Forgotten Bloomsbury Polymath. Eastbourne: SUSSEX ACADEMIC PRESS. p. 84. ISBN 9781845198213.
- ^ Southworth, Helen (2017). Fresca A Life in the Making. A Biographer's Quest for a Forgotten Bloomsbury Polymath. Eastbourne: SUSSEX ACADEMIC PRESS. pp. 267–278. ISBN 9781845198213.
- ^ Southworth, Helen (2017). Fresca A Life in the Making. A Biographer's Quest for a Forgotten Bloomsbury Polymath. Eastbourne: SUSSEX ACADEMIC PRESS. p. 178. ISBN 9781845198213.
- ^ Southworth, Helen (2017). Fresca A Life in the Making. A Biographer's Quest for a Forgotten Bloomsbury Polymath. Eastbourne: SUSSEX ACADEMIC PRESS. pp. 126–130. ISBN 9781845198213.
- ^ Kemp, Ian (1984). Tippett The Composer and His Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 499–500. ISBN 0 19 282017 6.
- ^ Berkeley, Michael (25 August 2005). "Joyful oblivion". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
- ^ Soden. Michael Tippett The Biography. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. p. 338. ISBN 978 1 4746 0602 8.
- ^ Soden, Oliver (2019). Michael Tippett The Biography. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. p. 227. ISBN 978 1 4746 0602 8.
- ^ Southworth, Helen (2017). Fresca A Life in the Making. A Biographer's Quest for a Forgotten Bloomsbury Polymath. Eastbourne: SUSSEX ACADEMIC PRESS. pp. 124–126. ISBN 9781845198213.
- ^ "Fresca". www.sussex-academic.com. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
- ^ Tippett, Michael. Those Twentieth Century Blues. Hutchinson. ISBN 0091753074.