Francesca Allinson

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Francesca Allinson (born Enid Ellen Pulvermacher Allinson; 20 August 1902 – 7 April 1945) was an English author and musician.[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]

Biography[]

Allinson wrote the semi-autobiographical book A Childhood which was published by Hogarth Press in 1937.[3]

She was also a musician, and was 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composer Ralph Vaughan Williams on the subject.[5] She published editions of Henry Purcell and Orlando Gibbons and her unpublished manuscript on the Irish origins of English folksong is held at the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library.[1] Apparently a majority of her theories have subsequently been disproven. Allinson's circle of friends and collaborators included the composer Alan Bush, artists Enid Marx and Wilfred Franks, music critic John Amis and poet Douglas Newton.[6] 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.[7][8] Through much of the 1930s Allinson was involved in a same-sex relationship with Judith Wogan,[9] a producer of plays and owner of the Grafton Theatre on London's Tottenham Court Road.[10]

Allinson was a pacifist and established a community farm in East Grinstead, Surrey, where conscientious objectors worked during World War II.[11]

Allinson died in 1945 by suicide by drowning in the River Stour in Clare, Suffolk.[1][12]

References[]

  1. ^ a b c "Francesca Allinson | Modernist Archives Publishing Project". www.modernistarchives.com. Retrieved 2020-06-21.
  2. ^ 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.
  3. ^ 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.
  4. ^ 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.
  5. ^ 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.
  6. ^ 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.
  7. ^ Kemp, Ian (1984). Tippett The Composer and His Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 499–500. ISBN 0 19 282017 6.
  8. ^ Berkeley, Michael (2005-08-25). "Joyful oblivion". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-06-21.
  9. ^ Soden, Oliver (2019). Michael Tippett The Biography. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. p. 227. ISBN 978 1 4746 0602 8.
  10. ^ 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.
  11. ^ 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.
  12. ^ "Fresca". www.sussex-academic.com. Retrieved 2020-06-21.
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