ORWELL’S ANCESTORS

How far can any biography explore genealogy? One imagine readers skipping those pages or chapters at the beginning of a book unless it has some interesting connection to the subject. The biographies of Orwell – probably due to page limits and the time-consuming nature of original research – have little to say about Orwell’s ancestors and are riddled with errors.

Bernard Crick, whose entry on Orwell, in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, really needs updating, has the dates wrong (and this error remains in place at the ODNB entry and the second edition of the biography) but more significantly, these errors continue in the most recent work on Orwell. The genealogical story usually commences with a sketchy sentence or two about Charles Blair (1743-1802) with incorrect dates (stemming from Crick’s error) which has become a biographical trope badly in need of an update.

Researching George Orwell’s ancestors has become a labour of love and keeps leading back to the question: how much did the writer know about his own ancestry? There is a growing body of evidence that he knew much more than previously assumed. The letters I discovered in 2024 revealed Orwell’s interest in preserving the paintings of his ancestors.

At the very least, the story of Orwell’s ancestors is a fascinating, troubling and illuminating voyage backwards in time to the 12th century in Scotland.

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