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The biographer Winifred Gérin (1901–81), who wrote the lives of all
four Brontë siblings, stumbled on her literary vocation on a visit to
Haworth, after a difficult decade following the death of her first
husband. On the same visit she met her second husband, a Brontë
enthusiast twenty years her junior. Together they turned their backs
on London to live within sight of the Parsonage, Gérin believing that
full understanding of the Brontës required total immersion in their
environment.
Gérin’s childhood and youth, like the Brontës’, was characterised
by a cultured home and an intense imaginative life shared with her
sister and two brothers, and by family tragedies (the loss of two
siblings in early life). Strong cultural influences formed the children’s
imagination: polyglot parents, French history, the Crystal Palace, Old
Vic productions. Winifred’s years at Newnham College, Cambridge
were enlivened by such eccentric characters as the legendary lecturer
Arthur Quiller-Couch (‘Q’), Lytton Strachey’s sister Pernel, and
Bloomsbury’s favourite philosopher, G.E. Moore.
Her happy life in Paris with her Belgian cellist husband, Eugène
Gérin, was brought to an abrupt end by the Second World War, during
which the couple had many adventures: fleeing occupied Belgium,
saving Jews in Vichy France, and escaping through Spain and Portugal
to England, where they did secret war work for the Political
Intelligence Department near Bletchley Park. After Eugène’s death in
1945 Winifred coped with bereavement by writing poetry and plays
until discovering her true literary metier on her visit to Haworth. She
also wrote about Elizabeth Gaskell, Anne Thackeray Ritchie and
Fanny Burney. This book is based on her letters and on her unpub-
lished memoir.
Helen MacEwan studied modern languages at Oxford University. A
translator and former teacher, she is the author of The Brontës in
Brussels, an exploration of Charlotte and Emily Brontë’s time at the
Pensionnat Heger, and Down the Belliard Steps: Discovering the
Brontës in Brussels.
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“In an original and revealing biography . . . Helen MacEwan presents
not just a fascinating study of Gérin’s long and at times very personal
preoccupation with the Brontës, but the story of a highly individual
character . . . Using much previously unknown and unpublished mate-
rial, MacEwan has painstakingly put together a portrait of one woman
and her times that adds significantly to Brontë studies and literary
biography, while her deftly-told narrative brings Gérin’s private,
feeling, thoughtful character to life with unerring sympathy.”
CLAIREHARMAN, biographer and critic, author of the major new biography,
Charlotte Brontë: A Life, and of Jane’s Fame.
“In this beautifully written and carefully researched biography of a
biographer, Helen MacEwan shows us something of the European
dimension of Gérin’s experience and understanding, as well as
revealing the deeply emotional character of her subject, in her joys,
passions and losses . . . Helen MacEwan shines a fascinating light, not
only on a remarkable woman of letters, but on a reader and writer of
exceptional integrity.”
STEVIEDAVIES, critic and novelist, author of Emily Brontë: Hereticand Four
Dreamers and Emily
“For anyone, like me, who knows Winifred Gérin only as the biogra-
pher of the Brontës, this book will come as a revelation. Not only did
Gérin have an astonishingly adventurous life, but Helen MacEwan has
brought it before us in vivid and enthralling detail . . . MacEwan’s
book draws on extensive original research into unpublished papers
and records, but she wears her erudition lightly and always gives a
sense of the lived moment rather than the dry facts. She achieves, in
fact, that balance between sense and sensibility which friends appre-
ciated in Gérin’s own work. This is a thrilling book to read, a
page-turner, offering through specific vignettes important glimpses
into the social history of the twentieth century. It will appeal to an
audience well beyond Brontë devotees.”
PATSY STONEMAN is Emeritus Reader in English, University of Hull, and
Acting President of the Brontë Society. She is the author of Charlotte Brontë
in the Writers and their Workseries, Northcote House Publishers
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Winifred Gérin
Biographer of the Brontës
Helen MacEwan
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Copyright © Helen MacEwan 2016.
Published in the Sussex Academic e-Library, 2016.
SUSSEX ACADEMIC PRESS
PO Box 139
Eastbourne BN24 9BP, UK
and simultaneously in the United States of America and Canada
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes
of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Applied for.
ISBN 978-1-78284-256-9 (e-pub)
ISBN 978-1-78284-257-6 (e-mobi)
ISBN 978-1-78284-258-3 (e-pdf)
This e-book text has been prepared for electronic viewing. Some features, including
tables and figures, might not display as in the print version, due to
electronic conversion limitations and/or copyright strictures.
MacEwan - xx - 2 index 31/08/2015 06:16 Page v
Contents
List of Illustrations vi
Preface viii
Acknowledgements xii
1 Norwood: Childhood and the End of Childhood 1
2 Paris 1913: ‘The most splendid adventure’ 22
3 Sydenham: The Great War Years 28
4 Cambridge: ‘Bill’ and ‘Q’ 37
5 Holidays in France: ‘Plom’ and Cannes 54
6 Paris Idyll: 1932–1939 75
7 Flight from Brussels: The Summer of 1940 91
8 Nice: The Pit of Darkness 98
9 Aspley Guise: Political Intelligence 109
10 West Cromwell Road: The Long Road Back 129
11 Haworth: ‘Brontë Atmosphere’ 159
12 Haworth: Recognition at Last 182
13 Kensington: The Final Fifteen Years 202
Epilogue 237
Bibliography 239
Index 243
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List of Illustrations
The colour and mono plates are after page 96. Unless otherwise
stated in plate captions, all pictures are owned by Irene Lock or Paul
Gérin and reproduced here with their kind permission.
Portrait of Winifred by Nell (1960s).
Plombières-les-Bains (railway poster).
Plombières-les-Bains (photo).
Winifred’s father, Frederick Bourne.
The interior of Winifred’s ‘Richard III’ cottage in Stanford in the Vale.
Painting by Nell of St Denys Church, Stanford in the Vale.
Winifred’s mother, Katharine Hill.
Winifred as a teenager.
View of South Norwood Hill from Whitehorse Lane.
‘Bill’ and Dorothy Moore with Nicky in 1919.
The young Eugène Gérin with his cello.
The violoncelliste poète.
Eugène in the 1930s.
Winifred and Eugène on the Riviera around the time of their marriage
(1932).
Another photo of Winifred and Eugène from the same period.
Winifred with Eugène, her brother-in-law Maurice and sister-in-law
Marthe.
With ‘Pussy’ in the Paris apartment.
Eugène with his family in their house in Brussels (1934).
Alfred Rode and his ‘Gypsy Orchestra’ in 1931.
Eugène in gypsy costume.
Marthe and Paul in 1942.
Winifred, Eugène and Eugénie with Paul as a toddler.
No. 60 West Cromwell Road, Earls Court, Kensington.
Nell and ‘Gilbert’ with Rowley and Minette.
Winifred in the house in West Cromwell Rd (1950s).
Scene from Juniper Hall.
Winifred after receiving her M.A. in 1949.
Winifred and John around the time of their marriage (1955).
Winifred and John in the house in West Cromwell Road.
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List of Illustrations vii
The cast of My Dear Master, performed in Leeds in 1955.
Nell at work in her studio.
Sketch of Nell painting (1968).
Winifred and John on the moors near Haworth.
Winifred and John in Haworth.
Winifred with Anne-Marie and the three eldest Gérin children in 1970.
With her godson Eugène in 1967.
Church Green, Stanford in the Vale.
Winifred in 1971.
With Paul at Blenheim, c.1970.
With Jamie.
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Preface
Why write a biography of a biographer? It is a question I have been
asked more than once since embarking on this project. My last book
was about the Brontës, a subject whose appeal is evident. But why
write about someone who wrote about the Brontës?
It is many years now since I first read Winifred Gérin’s biography
of Charlotte Brontë. Together with Mrs Gaskell’s Life, it brought its
subject alive for me and, more generally, sparked an interest in
authors’ lives and a passion for literary biography. Later I went on to
read Winifred’s other biographies.
Her books were on my shelves for a long time before I became
curious about their author, though I had wondered about the origin
of her foreign surname. It was not until I moved to Belgium and first
began to research the Brontës myself, after becoming fascinated by
their time in Brussels, that I learned something about Winifred and her
own association with Belgium. The entries in the Dictionary of
National Biography outlined an enthralling story: marriage to a
Belgian cellist, years living in Paris in the 1930s, and a series of exciting
war adventures. At the time of the German invasion of Belgium, the
Gérins were working for the British Embassy in Brussels. Having fled
to Vichy France, they found themselves trapped for two years in Nice,
finally escaping through Spain and Portugal to England, where they
worked for Political Intelligence. Then, ten years after Eugène Gérin’s
death in 1945, there was Winifred’s romantic meeting on the Haworth
moors with her second husband, John Lock, and their decision to buy
a house within sight of the Parsonage and devote themselves to
researching the Brontës. Winifred Gérin, who wrote lives of all four
siblings, was long known as theBrontë biographer.
I wanted to know more, though at this stage all I envisaged was an
article about Winifred’s Belgian links. I needed to trace the family of
her Belgian first husband. There was a clue in the acknowledgements
in her Charlotte Brontë biography, which mentioned the help given in
her Brussels research by her nephew Paul Eugène Gérin, a lecturer at
the University of Liège.
Paul Gérin’s telephone number was in an online directory. I called
him and a week later was sitting in his apartment in Liège, drinking
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Preface ix
tea and listening to him talk about his godmother Winny, the wife of
his uncle Eugène. Marraine Winny was a formative influence and an
important part of his life for nearly fifty years.
Professor Gérin generously placed at my disposal hundreds of
letters in impeccable French written by Winifred to him and other
members of his family. Most date from after Eugène’s death and give
a wealth of information on her activities in the post-war years – first
trying to make her way in London as a playwright, and later gaining
recognition as a biographer after her marriage to John Lock and their
move to Haworth.
From the DNB entries I knew that Winifred had left an unpublished
autobiography called The Years that Count. Thanks to contacts in the
Brontë Society and Haworth I succeeded in tracking down this
memoir. I met John Lock’s second wife, who had owned it since he
died in 1998. John was Winifred’s heir and literary executor. After his
death, many of her papers were sold to a private collector but Mrs
Lock kept the autobiography, written in the last year of Winifred’s life
at the suggestion of her editor at Oxford University Press. To John
Lock’s disappointment, OUP eventually decided against publication,
and he never found another publisher for it.
By this time I was eager to write a biography of Winifred, and Mrs
Lock agreed that with the autobiography still unpublished 35 years
after it was written, this would be the best way of making Winifred’s
life story known. She kindly allowed me access to the memoir.
Winifred herself described this memoir as a ‘partial’ one, and while it
filled in many gaps in my knowledge of her early years – her child-
hood, time in Paris with Eugène and wartime adventures – the years
after the War are hurried through in a mere twenty pages, which is
where Paul Gérin’s letters became so invaluable.
The third main source of information was sitting in three large
boxes in the attic of a house near Winchester. They belong to Robin
Greenwood (related to the Haworth Greenwoods who knew the
Brontës), a local history researcher who bought the bulk of Winifred’s
papers when they were sold in 2000. On visits to Robin and his wife
Gilly’s beautiful house I was given access to a treasure trove. The boxes
contained letters written by Winifred to her family when she was a
student at Cambridge and a newly-wed in Paris, and these give a
fresher and more vivid impression of her than the memoir written in
old age. They also contained typescripts of three of her plays, and
manuscript poems written after Eugène’s death. A collection of her
early poems was published in 1930, but her plays and most of this
moving later verse are unpublished.
I now had many of the essential jigsaw puzzle pieces of Winifred’s
