Solidarity Park

      SOLIDARITY SUNDERLAND HISTORY HUB

      Eileen Maud O’Shaughnessy was born on 25th September 1905 to Laurence and Mary O’Shaughnessy of 3 Park Terrace, South Shields. Laurence O’Shaughnessy was born in Co Kerry, Ireland in 1866, he moved to England in the mid-1880s, he was employed as an inspector of customs and excise. Laurence married Mary Westgate in the Holy Trinity Church in Gravesend, Kent in February 1900. They set up home at 109 Cleveland Road, Bishopwearmouth, where their first child, named Laurence, was born on Christmas Eve 1900. The family had moved to 3 Park Terrace, South Shields when Eileen was born, she was baptised on 15th November 1905 in St Aiden’s Church. Shortly after the family moved to 2 Wellington Terrace (now 35 Beach Road), which they called ‘Westgate House’ after Mary’s maiden name (this is still visible above the front door).

      The 1911 census finds the family at Westgate House, Wellington Terrace, South Shields, as well as a servant Laurence has employed a governess for the children; Laurence aged 10 and Eileen aged 5. Eileen was educated at the local Westoe School then attended the fee-paying Sunderland Church High School, here the ‘star pupil’ was highly regarded; receiving Fellowship awards for the last two years of her University studies. From 1924 Eileen studied English at St Hugh’s College, Oxford when it was still very unusual for women to go to university.  She graduated in 1927 after which she moved to London and did several secretarial jobs, as well as working as a freelance journalist.  She also worked as a freelance typist, proof-reader and editor. Laurence had moved the family south in 1924, he sadly died on 5th November 1929 in Ascot Berkshire aged 62 years old.

      In 1934 Eileen studied for a Masters degree in Educational Psychology at the University College in London, living with her widowed mother in Greenwich.  It was at a party hosted by her friend Rosalind Obermeyer that Eileen met Eric Blair (AKA George Orwell) in 1935.  They married on 9th June 1936.

      After completing the commissioned Road to Wigan Pier Orwell spoke to Harry Pollitt of the CPGB about joining the International Brigade, failing to get a letter of introduction he left for Spain in late December 1936 where he spoke to the Tynesider John McNair who was running the Independent Labour Party’s political office, making arrangements for ILP volunteers to fight with the POUM militia. Eileen followed her husband to Spain arriving in Barcelona in February 1937 having finalised the printing of Road to Wigan Pier. With her professional skills she became the secretary to John McNair, producing the ILP newsletter. Eileen was able to visit her husband and take him some luxuries; they can both be seen in the photograph of the ILP group in Spain. 

      Whilst at the front Orwell would send notes for his next book to Eileen to type until he got leave to join Eileen in Barcelona in late April, a few days after returning to the front he was shot in the neck. Eileen arranged his medical care, she helped nurse him and planned their return to England just as the Republican government announced that the POUM would be declared illegal; Georges Kopp the leader of the POUM militia was imprisoned. Eileen’s room at the Hotel Continental was searched and her diaries seized but instead of being arrested, she was placed under surveillance, thus when they left Spain they had to leave behind all of the notes Eileen had been typing.  The book Homage to Catalonia, was written later that year, and Orwell acknowledged that it would not have been possible to write it without Eileen reminding him of so many passages; she continued to be type, proof-read and edit her husband’s work right up to her death in March 1945.

      After Franco’s victory in Spain Georges Kopp sought refuge in England, he stayed with Eileen’s brother, Laurence, who nursed him back to health. At the outbreak of the Second World War Kopp joined the French Foreign Legion and fought in the Battle of France, at the same time Laurence was killed in May 1940 in the Dunkirk evacuation whilst serving in the Royal Army Medical Corp. A year later in March 1941 Eileen’s mother Mary died in Greenwich.

      In June 1944 Eileen and Eric adopted a three-week-old boy they named Richard Horatio. In one of her last letters Eileen wrote of the arrangements for renting and decorating a farmhouse on Jura in the Scottish Inner Hebrides, this was to be the farmhouse where Orwell wrote most of Nineteen Eighty-Four.

      In 1945 after their London flat was bombed Eric, Eileen and Richard travelled to Teesside to stay in the home of Gwen O’Shaughnessy, Eileen’s sister-in-law, the widow of Laurence. She was living at Greystones, a Victorian villa just outside Carlton, Stockton-on-Tees; it was here that Orwell finished writing Animal Farm. Tragically Eileen died unexpectedly on 29th March 1945 during a hysterectomy at a private clinic at Fernwood House in Newcastle, aged 39, she is buried St. Andrew’s and Jesmond Cemetery in Newcastle

      Compiled by Tony Fox

      Here you can watch a trailer of a Film on youtube created by Gary Alikivi about Eileen’s life.

      George Orwell’s first wife, South Shields born Eileen O’Shaughnessy (Alikivi, 11mins edit)