Youth

Leonard Woolf ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 3-14
Author(s):  
Fred Leventhal ◽  
Peter Stansky
Keyword(s):  
Public School ◽  
Early Death ◽  
Moral Sense ◽  
Jewish Family ◽  
Classical Education ◽  
Jewish Heritage ◽  
The Family ◽  
Leonard Woolf

Leonard Woolf was born in London in 1880 to a prosperous Jewish family, whose roots went back for several generations. His father was a very successful barrister but his early death left the family in more straitened circumstances, forcing a move from Kensington to Putney. Though shaped by being Jewish, Leonard abandoned his faith in his early teens. Nevertheless his strict moral sense and his ideas were heavily influenced by his Jewish heritage, as they were also by his classical education at the eminent public school St Paul’s in London. It was during his time at St Paul’s that he developed the intellectual interests that provided the foundation for both his undergraduate years at Cambridge and his career as a writer, editor, and publisher.

George Claridge Druce, 1850 - 1932

1932 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-14
Keyword(s):  
Public School ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Early Death ◽  
School Education ◽  
Wild Plants ◽  
Animal Life ◽  
Public School Education ◽  
Plant Life ◽  
The Family

George Claridge Druce was born at Old Stratford in Northamptonshire, and, as he tells us in the delightful story of his early life in the Introduction to his “ Flora of Buckinghamshire,” “ on May 23, 1850—happy omen ! it was the birthday of Linnaeus.” Here the first five years of his life were spent. The early death of his father and the incompetence of trustees meant straitened circumstances for his widowed mother, to whose unselfish devotion Druce pays a tribute. Love of Nature seems to have been inborn, for in his earliest years his playthings were the wild plants and the animal life around his home. In 1855 the family removed to Yardley Gobion, and shortly afterwards his education began under his guardian. “ A public school education was debarred,” he wrote, “ but the proximity of the great woodland area of Whittlebury and Wakefield Lawn opened out the fascinating study of entomology, and' by the age of fourteen a very representative collection of its lepidoptera was made.” Pupae were dug for and larvae bred, and carbon impressions of leaves served to fix plants on the memory. Holidays spent at a little distance from home on the greensand or chalk-hills enlarged his knowledge of plant life.

Leonard Woolf

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred Leventhal ◽  
Peter Stansky
Keyword(s):  
Virginia Woolf ◽  
Publishing House ◽  
Early Death ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
John Maynard Keynes ◽  
Bloomsbury Group ◽  
Unusual Position ◽  
Leonard Woolf ◽  
Hogarth Press ◽  
The Village

This is a wide-ranging biography of Leonard Woolf (1880–1969), an important yet somewhat neglected figure in British life. He is in the unusual position of being overshadowed by his wife, Virginia Woolf, and his role in helping her is part of this study. He was born in London to a father who was a successful barrister but whose early death left the family in economic difficulty. Though he abandoned his Judaism when young, being Jewish was deeply significant in shaping Leonard’s ideas, as well as the Hellenism imbibed as a student at both St Paul’s and Trinity College, Cambridge. Despite his secularism, there were surprisingly spiritual dimensions to his life. At Cambridge he was a member of the secret discussion group, the Apostles, as were his friends Lytton Stracheyand John Maynard Keynes, thus becoming part of the later Bloomsbury Group. He spent seven years as a successful civil servant in Ceylon, which later enabled him to write brilliantly about empire as well as a powerful novel, The Village in the Jungle. Returning to London in 1911, he married Virginia Woolf the next year. In 1917 they founded the Hogarth Press, a successful and significant publishing house. During his long life he became a major figure, a prolific writer on a range of subjects, most importantly international affairs, especially the creation of the League of Nations, a range of domestic problems, and issues of imperialism, particularly in Africa. He was a seminal figure in twentieth-century British life.

Was the Traditional East European Jewish Family in the Recent Past Patriarchal?

2010 ◽  
pp. 121-142
Author(s):  
Shaul Stampfer
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Jewish Family ◽  
East European ◽  
The Family ◽  
Male Head ◽  
Minor Children ◽  
European Jewish ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries ◽  
Male Authority ◽  
Jewish Families

This chapter assesses whether the traditional Jewish family in eastern Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was patriarchal. In traditional east European Jewish families, authority over children was not monopolized by fathers; mothers also had a great deal of authority over minor children. Fathers often spent more hours a day out of the house than did mothers, and often they had to work far from their homes. As such, mothers usually determined what went on at home, and even when this was in accordance with their husbands' wishes, it does not imply that it was under their husbands' authority. Perhaps the greatest potential for paternal authority can be found in the marital patterns of their children. Meanwhile, in the area of relations between the male head of the family and his wife in traditional east European Jewish families, male authority could not be taken for granted and male heads of families could not simply force wives to do their bidding. The chapter then defines patriarchy, arguing that the dynamics of the traditional Jewish families in eastern Europe complicate the utility of the term.

Love and Family

2010 ◽  
pp. 26-55
Author(s):  
Shaul Stampfer
Keyword(s):  
Social Environment ◽  
Family Life ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
Jewish Family ◽  
East European ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Marriage Formation ◽  
Broad Subject ◽  
European Jewish

This chapter examines the subject of love and the family within east European Jewish life. In the nineteenth century, almost every aspect of Jewish life was transformed in one way or another. The structures of Jewish family life in eastern Europe and the place of love and affection in these frameworks were no exceptions. However, to a greater degree than many today realize, there was also a great deal of continuity between what was accepted in traditional Ashkenazi Jewish family life and in the lives of their descendants. In some cases, the attention given to atypical lives of famous and exceptional individuals has led to a skewed picture of the past. Similarly, superficial views of traditional family dynamics have created a distorted picture of what life was like in traditional east European Jewish society. Looking at love and family life in their fullness and as part of the general social environment is one of the best ways to correct these errors and to arrive at a balanced view of realities and developments. Because marriage and love within the context of family life is a very broad subject, the chapter focuses on four major topics: courtship and marriage formation; marital roles and expectations; parenthood; and remarriage.

Robert Allan Smith, 14 May 1909 - 16 May 1980

1982 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 479-504
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
High School ◽  
Public School ◽  
World War I ◽  
World War ◽  
Secondary Schooling ◽  
Strong Bond ◽  
Village School ◽  
Infant School ◽  
The Family

Robert Allan Smith, always known as Robin to his close associates, was born on 14 May 1909 in Kelso, Roxburghshire. Professionally, during Robin’s time first names were rarely used except between close friends. Surnames were in common usage except for Smiths, Joneses, etc., who had to be distinguished. Hence, he was often called ‘R.A.’. The combination of charm and determination, characteristic of a Borderer, was always present with Robin. He was the elder brother to (William) Allan, in the family of two, born to George J. T. Smith, tailor, a native of Kelso, and his wife, Elisabeth( née Allan), a ladies’ dressmaker and native of Eccles village, Kelso. The family ancestry was mainly in farming and business. His childhood was spent in the country in and around Kelso together with his primary and secondary schooling. On the outbreak of World War I, his father, who was a member of the Territorial Army, was called up, and his mother, Robin and Allan moved to Heeton Village near Kelso to stay with relations. A strong bond was formed between Robin and his uncle and aunts which endured throughout their life. Robin’s first school was therefore Heeton Village School where he spent a year before the family returned to Kelso. There after schooling continued at Kelso Infant School, Kelso Public School, and a Bursary to Kelso High School gave him the opportunity to go forward to higher education.

scholarly journals George Armand Robert Kon 1892-1951

1952 ◽  
Vol 8 (21) ◽  
pp. 170-192 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
North China ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Great Care ◽  
Only Child ◽  
Jewish Family ◽  
British Science ◽  
The People ◽  
The Family

George Kon came to British science from an unusual background. He was born in St Petersburg on 18 February 1892, the only child of his parents. His father was a cultured and talented member of an old Polish-Jewish family, an excellent mathematician and linguist and the son of a portrait painter; his mother, Marie Fleuret, was French. His father was a banker in a responsible position, and the family was comfortably off. George was a delicate child and was brought up with great care and devotion by his mother and an old nurse. In the candid and penetrating autobiographical notes which he left, he remarks ruefully, ‘It is clear that I was unnecessarily coddled and spoilt and this was to prove a handicap in later life’. He was educated privately by a succession of instructors; a French governess, two Polish tutors (one, Adolf Dygasinski, an author of some note, who gave him a love for natural history) and a German governess. When he was ten, the family moved to Tientsin in North China where his father had become manager of the Russo-Chinese Bank. He spent three happy years in China where his liking for natural history developed into a passion for butterfly collecting. He published two short notes in the Entomologische Zeitschrift between the ages of sixteen and seventeen. In Tientsin he first came into contact with the people whose nationality he was to adopt and was taught English by a ‘worthy though hideous’ lady, the daughter of a missionary. A later move was to Vladivostok, ‘magnificent country for shooting and ideal for butterfly-collecting’, and here the family made friends with Sir Robert Hodgson, then British Vice-Consul. The first turning point in Ron’s life came when Hodgson persuaded his parents to send him to Cambridge. Accordingly, in 1909, he passed the Russian equivalent of Matriculation and, after some coaching in Greek at a rectory near Wisbech, he went up to Caius to read medicine.

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