Name Index    HOME  
Eric Arthur Blair (George Orwell)      1903-1950
Eric was born on 25 June 1903, the son of Richard Walmesley Blair and Ida Mabel Limouzin, at Motihari, Bengal, India. He attended a small convent school in Henley-on-Thames, before moving on to St. Cyprian's preparatory school, at Eastbourne, Sussex.. He went on to Eton College with a scholarship. In 1921, Eric joined the Burma police, serving until he resigned in 1927, determined to be a writer. Eric, better known by the pen name George Orwell, was a keen English author and journalist. He went to fight in the Spanish civil war, and was wounded, returning to England in June 1937. In 1938 he was diagnosed with tuberculosis in one lung, and spent some time in a sanatorium Noted as a novelist, critic, political and cultural commentator, Orwell is among the most widely admired English-language essayists of the 20th century. He is best known for two novels critical of totalitarianism in general, and Stalinism in particular: Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Both were written and published towards the end of his life.

Eileen Maud O'Shaughnessy             1905-1945               (1st Wife)
Eileen was born on 25 September 1905, the daughter of Lawrence O'Shaughnessy and Mary Westgate, At South Shields, County Durham. She attended Sunderland Church High School. In the late 1920s she attended university at Oxford where she attained a degree in psychology In June of 1944 Orwell and O'Shaughnessy adopted a three-week old boy they named Richard Horatio Blair.
I have identified the following adopted child.
Richard Horatio Born May 1944
Birth of Parents
Eric Arthur Blair b: 25 Jun 1903         Motihari, Bengal, India
son of Richard Walmesley Blair (1857-1938) and Ida Mabel Limouzin (1875-1943)

Eileen Maud O'Shaughnessy b: 25 Sep 1905         South Shields, County Durham       1905 4Q South Shields 10a 766
daughter of Lawrence O'Shaughnessy and Mary Westgate

Marriage
9 Jun 1936
Eric Arthur Blair
Eileen Maud O'Shaughnessy

The Times, Thursday, Jun 11, 1936        MARRIAGES
  BLAIR : O'SHAUGHNESSY - On June 9, 1936 at the Parish Church, Wallington, quickly and without previous announcement, Eric Blair to Eileen O'Shaughnessy.

Adopted Child
Richard Horatio Blair b: May 1944
 















Greystone House

Death
Eileen Maud (O'Shaughnessy ) Blair
  Died 29 Mar 1945, Age 39,     Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland           1945 2Q Newcastle T 10b 110
Burial: Saint Andrew's and Jesmond Cemetery, West Jesmond, Newcastle.

The Times, Friday, Apr 6, 1945                         DEATHS
  BLAIR - On March 29, 1945 at Newcastle, Eileen Maud Blair, wife of Eric Blair, Aged 39.
LLANDUDNO   5 Dec 1945                         Probate
BLAIR, Eileen Maud, of Greystone, Carlton, Stockton-on-Tees (Wife of Eric Arthur Blair), Died 29 March, at Fernwood House. Clayton-road, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Administration (with Will) Llandudno, 5 December, to the said Eric Arthur Blair, journalist.
  Effects £1,042 0s. 11d.



Sonia Mary Brownell                              1918-1980                         (2nd Wife)
Sonia was born on 25 August 1918, the daughter of Charles Neville Brownell, at Ranchi, India.
I have not identified any children.

Birth of New Wife
Sonia Mary Brownell b: 25 Aug 1918         Ranchi, India
daughter of Charles Neville Brownell

Marriage
13 Oct 1949
Eric Arthur Blair
Sonia Mary Brownell
London   1949 4Q Pancras 4d 801
Death
Eric Arthur Blair
  Died 21 Jan 1950, Age 46           London             1950 1Q Pancras 5d 403
Burial: 26 Jan 1950, at All Saints, Sutton Courtenay

Read his Obituary

Death
Sonia Mary (Brownell) Blair Died 11 Dec 1980

The Times, Saturday, Dec 13, 1980                     DEATHS
  ORWELL - On December 11, 1980, after a long illness, Sonia Orwell.   Funeral service at St. Marys, Cadogan St. at 9:45 am, on Thursday, December 18th, followed by private burial at Putney Vale Cemetery.   Cut flowers to J. H. Kenyon, Ltd. 49 Marloes Rd., W8. Tel. 01-937-0757.   Details of Memorial Service to be announced later.





The Times, Tuesday, Dec 16, 1980               OBITUARIES
Read another personal Obituary
The Times, Friday, Dec 12, 1980                   OBITUARIES
MRS SONIA ORWELL
  Mrs. Sonia Orwell, widow of the writer George Orwell, died yesterday.   They were married in 1949 and he died not long afterwards in January 1950 at the age of 46.   His first wife had died in 1945.
  She had literary talent herself and had been assistant editor to Mr John Lehmann on New Writing and to Cyril Connolly on Horizon, the monthly magazine which Connelly founded with Mr Stephen Spender and Mr Peter Watson on the eve of war in 1939.
  She had a nose for talent in others, having worked with success for the publishers Weidenfeld and Nicolson, and was also a gifted translator.   Her translation of Marguerite Duras's Days in the Trees was put on the Aldwych Theatre in 1966 with Dame Peggy Ashcroft, Mr George Baker and Miss Frances Cuka in the cast.   With Mr Ian Angus she edited the four volumes of The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell which were published in 1968.