George Orwell and Sheffield - March 1936
"Sheffield, I suppose, could justly claim to be called the ugliest town in the Old World..."
It could be argued that George Orwell was probably one of the most widely known and influential writers of the twentieth century. There are many sources on the internet and in book form that examine his life and writings in great detail but to date there is no comprehensive account of the time he spent in Sheffield in 1936 researching his book "The Road to Wigan Pier"
However to put Orwell's time in Sheffield into a wider context it may be helpful to understand just what George was doing here. In January 1936 George had just finished writing his novel "Keep The Aspidistra Flying" when his publisher Victor Gollancz commissioned him to write a book about the conditions facing the unemployed in the industrial north of England. Any reluctance that Orwell had about accepting the commission vanished when he was offered an advance of £500 for the book. At the time this was the equivalent of two years earnings for George - the sum was paid out in installments over two years. It gave him for the first time in his life as a writer, a degree of financial stability. It should also be noted that the idea for the book was not Orwell's but Gollancz's.
The actual time that Orwell spent in the North of England was two months between 31st January and 30th March 1936. In "George Orwell - A Bibliography", Gillian Fenwick notes that George Orwell spent three days in Sheffield 2nd - 4th March 1936.
Whilst in Sheffield he lodged at the house of Gilbert and Kate Searle in Wallace Road, Neepsend, Sheffield. Mrs Searle who was 29 at the time of his stay at the house was herself a committed socialist and secretary to the women's section of the Lansdowne Labour Party. She said of Orwell in an article in the Sheffield Telegraph dated February 2 1990
"He was a very jolly fellow, very intelligent - he'd been educated at Eton. He used to go out with my husband to lots of socialist meetings in town. He wanted to see how both sides lived... He used to say to us I cannot understand you people, you are so strong willed and you know about life yet you don't stand up to the upper classes... I think he had good intentions in trying to write about the working classes but as I said to him you have to live with us for more than a week to find out what it's all about.."
Bernard Crick in his book "George Orwell - A Life" recounts that he was shown around Sheffield by a partially crippled unemployed communist activist called William Brown. Brown had occasionally written for "The Adelphi" and it was through Brown that Orwell lodged with the Searle's in Wallace Road. He was charged six shillings a week for his board but such was the pace of his time in Sheffield - he visited many meetings, factories and houses - he left the Searle's after just three days and went to stay with his sister and brother in law in Leeds. Apart from the famous quote about Sheffield at the top of the page, Orwell also stated that
".. I was taken to a public hall to listen to a lecture by a clergyman, and it was by a long way the silliest and worst-delivered lecture I have ever heard or ever expect to hear. I found it physically impossible to sit it out, indeed my feet carried me out, seemingly of their own accord, before it was half-way through. Yet the hall was thronged with unemployed men; they would have sat through far worse drivel for the sake of a warm place to shelter in."
In the books I have consulted there is no mention of the location and more importantly the clergyman who inflicted the drivel on Orwell. However I see to recall from an article I read many years ago that the location was in fact the Victoria Hall in Norfolk Street Sheffield which was, and still is, the focus of Methodism in Sheffield.
George did stay at the Serle's house again later on in his travels but I have been unable to ascertain the exact dates of the second stay. After he left second time, the Searle's never saw Orwell again but they did occasionally receive the odd letter.
The full transcript of the Diary's entry about his time in Sheffield is in The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Volume 1: An Age Like This (Penguin Books) and this is what he had to say
3 March
This
house: two up two down, living room about 14 ft by 12 ft, parlour rather
smaller. Sink and copper in living
room, no gas fire, outside w.c. Rent
with rates about 8s. 6d. 2 cellars as well.
Husband is out of work (P.A.C.34 34.drawing the dole from the Public Assistance Committee of the local
authority - was previously
store-keeper at a factory which closed down and discharged its whole staff),
wife works as a char at 6d. an hour. One
kid aged 5.
B:
age 45 but looks less. Has
malformed right hand, also one foot. This
was inherited and he fears it is transmissible, so will not marry.
Owing to this has never had much in the way of regular work.
Was with a circus for some years as groom, clown and 'Wild West' rider -
he could apparently handle the bridle with his damaged hand.
Now lives alone and for some reason gets no dole, only something from the
parish and help from his brother. Has
a single room with only an open fireplace - no oven - to cook on.
Is terribly embittered and declares that feeling of actual hatred for the
bourgeoisie, even personal hatred of individuals, is necessary to any genuine
Socialist. Is nevertheless a good fellow and very anxious to help.
Mixed up with his political feelings is the usual local patriotism of the
Yorkshireman and much of his conversation consists of comparison between London
and Sheffield to the detriment of the former.
Sheffield is held to lead London in everything, e.g. on the one hand the
new housing schemes in Sheffield are immensely superior, and on the other hand
the Sheffield slums are more squalid than anything London can show.
I notice that apart from the usual hatred between the Northerner and the
Southerner, there is also hatred between the Yorkshireman and the Lancashireman,
and also internecine hatred between the various Yorkshire towns.
No one up here seems to have heard of any place in the south of England
except London. If you come from the south you are assumed to be a cockney
however often you deny it. At the
same time as the Northerner despises the Southerner he has an uneasy feeling
that the latter knows more of the arts of life and is very anxious to impress
him.
Had
a very long and exhausting day (I am now continuing this March 4th)
being shown every quarter of Sheffield on foot and by tram.
I have now traversed almost the whole city.
It seems to me, by daylight, one of the most appalling places I have ever
seen. In whichever direction you
look you see the same landscape of monstrous chimneys pouring forth smoke which
is sometimes black and sometimes of a rosy tint said to be due to sulphur.
You can smell the sulphur in the air all the while.
All buildings are blackened within a year or two of being put up.
Halting at one place I counted the factory chimneys I could see and there
were 33. But is was very misty as
well as smoky - there would have been many more visible on a clear day.
I doubt whether there are any architecturally decent buildings in the
town. The town is very hilly (said
to be built on seven hills, like Rome) and everywhere streets of mean little
houses blackened by smoke run up at sharp angles, paved with cobbles which are
purposely set unevenly to give horses etc, a grip.
At night the hilliness creates fine effects because you look across from
one hillside to the other and see the lamps twinkling like stars.
Huge jets of flame shoot periodically out of the roofs of the foundries
(many working night shifts at present) and show a splendid rosy colour through
the smoke and steam. When you get a
glimpse inside you see enormous fiery serpents of red-hot and white-hot (really
lemon coloured) iron being rolled out into rails.
In the central slummy part of the town are the small workshops of the
'little bosses', i.e. smaller employers who are making chiefly cutlery.
I don't think I ever in my life saw so many broken windows.
Some of these workshops have hardly a pane of glass in their windows and
you would not believe they were inhabitable if you did not see the employees,
mostly girls, at work inside.
The
town is being torn down and rebuilt at an immense speed.
Everywhere among the slums are gaps with squalid mounds of bricks where
condemned houses have been demolished and on all the outskirts of the town new
estates of Corporation houses are going up.
These are much inferior, at any rate in appearance, to those at
Liverpool. They are in terribly
bleak situations, too. One estate
just behind where I am living now, at the very summit of a hill, on horrible
sticky clay soil and swept by icy winds. Notice
that the people going into these new houses from the slums will always be paying
higher rents; and also will have to spend much more on fuel to keep themselves
warm. Also, in many cases, will be further from their work and
therefore spend more on conveyances.
In
the evening was taken to a Methodist Church where some kind of men's association
(they call it a Brotherhood) meet once a week to listen to a lecture and have
discussions. Next week a Communist
is speaking, to the evident dismay of the clergyman who made the announcements.
This week a clergyman who spoke on 'Clean and Dirty Water'.
His lecture consisted of incredibly silly and disconnected ramblings
about Shaw's Adventures of a Black Girl etc. Most of the audience did not understand a word of it and in
fact hardly listened, and the talk and the questions afterwards were so
unbearable that B and I slipped out with his friend Binns to see the latter's
back to back house, on which I took notes.
B says that most of the members of this Brotherhood are unemployed men
who will put up with almost anything in order to have a warm place where they
can sit for a few hours.
Accent
in Sheffield not so broad as in Lancashire.
A very few people, mostly miners I think, wear clogs.
5
March
At
21 Estcourt Avenue, Headingley, Leeds.35 (35
The home of Orwell's elder sister, Marjorie, and her husband Humphrey
Dakin) I left Sheffield at 10.30 this morning, and in spite of its
being such a frightful place and of the relief of getting back into a
comfortable house, I was quite sorry to leave the Searles.
I have seldom met people with more natural decency.
They were as kind to me as anyone could possibly be, and I hope and trust
they liked me. Of course I got their whole life-history from them by
degrees. Searle is 33 and was an
only child. When a youth he joined
the Army and was in the Ordnance Corps (or whatever it is called) with the army
of occupation in Palestine and Egypt. He
has vivid memories of Egypt and wishes he was back there.
Since then he has only had short-lived jobs, e.g. as store-keeper and
check-weighman at various works, also as railway (outside) porter. Mrs S comes from a somewhat more prosperous family, as her
father till only a few weeks ago36 (36
He died very suddenly and his wife has now no resources except the old age
pension [Author's footnote) was in a good job at £5 a week and also made
something on the side by making fishing rods.
But it was a very large family (11) and she went into service.
She married S when he was on the dole, against the opposition of her
family. At first they could not get
a house, and lived in a single room, in which two children were born and one
died. They told me they had only
one bed for the family and had to 'lay out' the dead baby in the perambulator.
Finally, after frightful difficulty (one reason for this is that private
landlords are not too keen on letting to people on the dole and there is a
certain amount of bribery of agents) they got this house, of which the rent is
about 8s. 6d. Mrs S earns about 9s.
a week from her charing. Exactly what deduction is made for this from S's dole I don't
know, but their total income is 32s. 6d. In
spite of which I had great difficulty in getting them to accept enough for my
keep while there - they wanted to charge only 6s. for full board and lodging
from Monday night to Thursday morning. They keep the house very clean and decent, have a bit of
garden, though they can't do much with it, as it has factory chimneys on one
side and the gas works on the other, besides being poor soil, and they are very
fond of one another. I was
surprised by Mrs S's grasp of the economic situation and also of abstract ideas
- quite unlike most working-class women in this, though she is I think not far
from illiterate. She does not seem
resentful against the people who employ her - indeed she says they are kind to
her - but sees quite clearly the essential facts about domestic service. She told me how the other day as she waited at the lunch
table she calculated the price of the food on the table (for 5 persons for one
meal) and it came to 6s. 3d. - as much as the P.A.C. allows her child for a
fortnight.
B
was very good and took my request to 'show me over Sheffield' even too
seriously, so that from morning to night I was being rushed from place to place,
largely on foot, to see public buildings, slums, housing estates etc.
But he is a tiresome person to be with, being definitely disgruntled and
too conscious of his Communist convictions.
In Rotherham we had to have lunch at a slightly expensive restaurant
because there didn't seem to be any others except pubs (B is T.T.), and when in
there he was sweating and groaning about the 'bourgeois atmosphere' and saying
he could not eat this kind of food. As
he declares that it is necessary to literally hate the bourgeoisie, I wondered
what he thought of me, because he told me at the very start I was a bourgeois
and remarked on my 'public school twang'. However,
I think he was disposed to treat me as a sort of honorary proletarian, partly
because I had no objection to washing in the sink etc. but more because I seemed
interested in Sheffield. He was
very generous and though I had told him at the start that I was going to pay for
his meals etc. while we were together, he would always go out of his way to
spare me expense. It seems that he
lives on 10s. a week - I had this from Searle: exactly where B's 10s. comes from
I don't know - and the rent of his room is 6s.
Of course it would not be possible to subsist on the remainder, allowing
for fuel. You could only keep alive
on 4s. a week37 if you spent nothing on fuel and nothing on tobacco
or clothes. I gather B gets meals
from time to time from the Ss and other friends, also from his brother who is in
comparatively good employ. His room
is decent and even cultured-looking, as it has bits of 'antique' furniture which
he has made himself, and some crude but not disagreeable pictures, mostly of
circuses, which he has painted. Much
of his bitterness obviously comes from sexual starvation. His deformity handicaps him with women, his fear of
transmitting it has stopped him from marrying (he says he would only marry a
woman past the childbearing age), and his inability to earn money makes it more
impossible still. However, at one
of the Adelphi summer schools he picked up with some school-mistress
(aged 43) who I gather is his mistress when opportunities permit and who is
willing to marry him, only her parents oppose it.
The Searles say he has improved greatly since taking up with this woman -
before that he used to have fits occasionally.
We had an argument one evening in the Searles' house because I helped Mrs
S with the washing-up. Both of the
men disapproved of this, of course. Mrs
S seemed doubtful. She said that in
the North working-class men never offered any courtesies to women (women are
allowed to do all the house-work unaided, even when the man is unemployed, and
it is always the man who sits in the comfortable chair), and she took this state
of things for granted, but did not see why it should not be changed.
She said that she thought the women now-a-days, especially the younger
women, would like it if men opened doors for them etc.
The position now-a-days is anomalous.
The man is practically always out of work, whereas the woman occasionally
is working. Yet the woman continues
to do all the house-work and the man not a hand's-turn, except carpentering and
gardening. Yet I think it is
instinctively felt by both sexes that the man would lose his manhood if, merely
because he was out of work, he became a 'Mary Ann'.
______________________________________________________________
37 LIVING on 4s. A WEEK:
MAN'S DESCRIPTION OF HOW HE DOES IT. Following
the disclosures in the News of the World of parent who have to bring up big
families on tiny incomes, a correspondent draws our attention to the case of a
man who spends less than 4s. a week on food.
His week's supply and its cost is as follows:-
s.
d
3
Wholemeal loaves
1 0
½
lb. Margarine
2 ½
½
lb. Dripping
3
1lb.
Cheese
7
1lb.
Onions
1 ½
1lb.
Carrots
1 ½
1lb
Broken biscuits
4
2lb.
Dates
5
1
Tin evaporated milk
5
10
Oranges
5
_______
Total cost
3 11 ½
One
particular picture of Sheffield stays by me.
A frightful piece of waste ground (somehow, up here a piece of waste
ground attains a squalor that would be impossible even in London), trampled
quite bare of grass and littered with newspaper, old saucepans etc.
To the right an isolated row of gaunt four room houses, dark red,
blackened by smoke. To the left an
interminable vista of factory chimneys, chimney behind chimney, fading away
Other
memories of Sheffield: stone walls blackened by smoke, a shallow river yellow
with chemicals, serrated flames, like circular saws, coming out from the cowls
of the foundry chimneys, thump and scream of steam hammers (the iron seems to
scream under the blow), smell of sulphur, yellow clay, backsides of women
wagging laboriously from side to side as they shove their perambulators up the
hills....
The section on Sheffield appears in Chapter 7 of "The Road To Wigan Pier"
Sources
George Orwell - A Bibliography - Gillian Fenwick
George Orwell - A Life - Bernard Crick
Sheffield Telegraph February 2 1990
Orwell, George. The Road to Wigan Pier Diary - Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus, eds., The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Volume 1: An Age Like This (Penguin Books)
This page was last updated on 10/04/13 09:47