Queer Places:
New Beacon School
Eton College
University of Oxford, Oxford, Oxfordshire OX1 3PA
1 Chester Gate, London NW1 4JH, UK
The Chantry, Chantry, Frome BA11 3LJ, UK
Anthony
Dymoke Powell CH CBE (21 December 1905 – 28 March 2000) was an English
novelist best known for his twelve-volume work A Dance to the Music of Time,
published between 1951 and 1975. The coining of the expression ‘Homintern’ is
often attributed to Cyril Connolly,
less often to Maurice Bowra, and
sometimes to W.H. Auden; but
Anthony Powell thought its source was
Jocelyn Brooke, and
Harold Norse claimed it for
himself. He was a member of the Hypocrites'
Club. Anthony Powell wrote: "Coming from different colleges, we used to lunch or dine several times a week at this inexpensive and ill-furnished club over a bicycle shop near Folly Bridge. The premises, reputed to be Tudor, were certainly very rickety. The membership, equally irregular, was in process of changing from shove-halfpenny playing Bohemians to fancy-dress wearing aesthetes. One of the rowdiest members was Evelyn Waugh, one of the most sophisticated Harold Acton."[20]
Powell's major work has remained in print continuously and has been the
subject of TV and radio dramatisations. In 2008, The Times newspaper
named Powell among their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".[2]
Powell was born in Westminster, Middlesex, the son of Philip Lionel William
Powell and Maud Mary Wells-Dymoke. His father was an officer in the Welsh
Regiment, while his mother came from a land-owning family in Lincolnshire.
Because of his father's career and the First World War, the family moved
several times, and mother and son sometimes lived apart from Powell's father.
Powell attended Gibbs's pre-prep day-school for a brief time. He was then
sent to New Beacon School near Sevenoaks, which was popular with military
families. Early in 1919, Powell passed the Common Entrance Examination for
Eton, where he started that autumn. There he made a friend of a fellow pupil,
Henry Yorke, later to become known as the novelist
Henry Green. At
Eton, Powell spent much of his spare time at the Studio, where a sympathetic
art master encouraged him to develop his talent as a draughtsman and his
interest in the visual arts. In 1922 he became a founding member of the Eton
Society of Arts. The Society's members produced an occasional magazine called
The Eton Candle.
Anthony Powell by Henry Lamb
Anthony Powell; Riccardo Aragno
by Lewis Morley
toned bromide print, 1963
15 3/4 in. x 11 1/2 in. (388 mm x 293 mm)
Given by Lewis Morley, 1989
Photographs Collection
NPG x125219
In the autumn of 1923, Powell went up to Balliol College, Oxford. Soon
after his arrival he was introduced to the Hypocrites' Club. Outside that club
he came to know
Maurice Bowra, then a young don at Wadham College. During his third year
Powell lived out of college, sharing rooms with Henry Yorke. Powell travelled
on the Continent during his holidays. He was awarded a third-class degree at
the end of his academic years.
Upon his arrival in London, after Oxford, part of Powell's social life
centred around attendance at formal debutante dances at houses in Mayfair and
Belgravia. He renewed acquaintance with
Evelyn Waugh, whom he
had known at Oxford, and was a frequent guest for Sunday supper at Waugh's
parents' house. Waugh introduced him to the Gargoyle Club, which gave him
experience in London's Bohemia. He got to know the painters
Nina Hamnett
and Adrian Daintrey, who were neighbours in Fitzrovia, and the composer
Constant Lambert,
who remained a good friend until Lambert's death in 1951.
Powell married Lady Violet Pakenham (1912–2002),[8]
sister of Lord Longford, on 1 December 1934 at All Saints, Ennismore Gardens,
Knightsbridge. Powell and his wife relocated to 1 Chester Gate in Regent's
Park, London, where they remained for seventeen years. Their first son,
Tristram, was born in April 1940, but Powell and his wife spent most of the
war years apart, while he served in the Welch Regiment and later in the
Intelligence Corps.[9]
A second son, John, was born in January 1946.[10]
Powell was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE)
in 1956, and in 1973 he declined an offer of knighthood. He was appointed
Companion of Honour (CH) in 1988. He served as a trustee of the National
Portrait Gallery from 1962 to 1976.[3]
With Lady Violet, he travelled to the United States, India, Guatemala, Italy,
and Greece.
On 30 April 2018, Powell's granddaughter Georgia Powell (born 18 February
1969) married Henry Somerset, 12th Duke of Beaufort.[11]
Anthony Powell died on 28 March 2000 at his home, The Chantry, Whatley,
west of Frome, Somerset.[4][5]
My published books:
BACK TO HOME PAGE
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Powell
- Woods, Gregory. Homintern . Yale University Press. Edizione del
Kindle.