Table Of ContentBombay to Bloomsbury
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Bombay to Bloomsbury
A Biography of the Strachey Family
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.k
BARBARA CAINE
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In memory of
1921 2002
Peggy Caine ( – )
V 1922 2002
and Rhona Ovedo ( – )
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Preface
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IhavebeenresearchingandwritingthisbookontheStracheysfornearlya
decade.Inpart,thelengthoftimetheprojecthastakenreXectsthechanges
it has undergone since I began. Initially, I was concerned primarily to
explorethelivesandactivitiesoftheStracheywomen.JaneMariaStrachey
and her daughters and daughters-in-law oVerone of thefew examples of a
family in which there were two generations of feminist activists across the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The younger Strachey women,
moreover, oVered a variety of diVerent ways of thinking about the eman-
cipation of women as some were interested in careers, and in combining
careers with marriage and motherhood, while others saw emancipation in
sexualratherthanpoliticalterms.AsIreadthroughthematerial,however,
IrealizedthatitwasimpossibletoseparatethelivesoftheStracheywomen
from their father, brothers, and husbands. The richness of the material
made me decide rather to extend the scope of the work and to encompass
the whole family, including its best known member, Lytton.
I have retained my original plan of attempting to combine collective
biography with a history of attitudes, beliefs, and ideas. However, the
expanded scope of the book has inevitably expanded this discussion,
making questions about modernity, and the ways in which a signiWcant
Victorian family understood and dealt with the excursions of some of its
younger members intoavarietyofnewideas, approaches, andwaysoflife
central. Jane Stracheyremained thematriarchofthefamily until herdeath
in 1928. While she, like her husband, embraced a range of advanced and
‘modern’ ideas and attitudes in her youth, she became increasingly con-
servative in her Wnal years. Her children remained devoted to her, and
indeed often to the family values and traditions that she endorsed so
strongly and of which she was so very proud. What interests me particu-
larlyarethewaysinwhichtheyoungerStracheysdealtwiththeirdesirefor
a new kind of life and their rejection of many Victorian values while still
enmeshed within a familial framework. Conversely, I am interested in the
extenttowhicheventhemostradicaloftheyoungerStracheystookapride
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in their family name and heritage, and inthe ways inwhich this limited or
served to mediate the ways in which they accepted or understood the
modernity that some of them espoused. The book thus includes both a
number of biographical chapters, seeking to explore their life experiences
inthematicways,andanumberofchaptersdealingwiththeirinvolvement
inIndiaandinBritishimperialism,infeminism,inchangingapproachesto
genderandsexuality,andinliteratureandBritishintellectuallifegenerally.
Inthecourseoftheresearching andwritingofthisbook,manyindivid-
uals and institutions have helped me. The History Department at Monash
University has provided a most congenial environment in which to under-
take the research and to write and many colleagues have contributed to it.
Iwanttothankallmycolleagues,particularlyDavidGarrioch,IanCopland,
Jane Drakard, and Maria Nugent. I have received invaluable assistance in
doing the research from Julie Burbidge, Lesley Sutherland, and especially
from Barbara Russell who not only helped me to Wnd material, but also
compiledthenewfamilytrees.Theworkofotherscholarsandthememoirs
of those who knew the Stracheys have been extremely important in this
work and I wish to thank Michael Holroyd, Bill Lubenow, Frances
Partridge, Peter Stansky, and the late Barbara Strachey for sharing with
me their personal knowledge of the Stracheys and the results of their own
extensive research into Bloomsbury.
Anumberoffriendshaveindulgedorsharedmypreoccupationwiththe
Stracheys over many years, oVering very helpful suggestions and critical
insightsthattheymaywellWndincorporatedintothebook.Iwishparticu-
larly to thank Sally Alexander, Christine Battersby, Ellen Dubois, Jane
Caplan, Joan Landes, Moira Gatens, Leela Gandhi, Vivian Gornick, Jose
Harris,JeriJohnson,AlisonLight,RuthMcMullen,RosPesman,Rosemary
Pringle,andEllenRoss.RuthPoissonandSophieWatsonbothoVeredthe
generoushospitalitythatmakesdoingresearchinLondonsuchapleasure—
and Sophie Watson and Russell Hay were wonderful companions in the
many months that I spent poring over Strachey papers in the British
Library. Their interest in the unfolding Strachey story, and Sophie’s links
to this Bloomsbury world, added greatly to my enjoyment of the research.
Ioweveryspecialthankstotwootherfriends.GlendaSlugahassharedmy
interestinthisprojectfromthebeginning,oVeringmanyinsightsfromher
own extensive knowledge of the history of feminism and of questions of
gender in relation to nationalism, and imperialism. Pauline Nestor has
helpedimmeasurablywiththewritingofthebook.Ihavediscussedalmost
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preface
everyaspectofitwithher,oftenoververypleasantdinners,andhercritical
intelligenceandsenseofhumourhavebeeninvaluable.
As a family that prided itself on its administrative capacities and tradi-
tions, the Stracheys were, for the most part, very good keepers of records.
Hence the archival material is both extensive and rich. It is now widely
dispersedandIhaveusedtheresourcesofmanydiVerentlibraries.Ithank
the staV and the trustees of the following libraries for assistance and for
access to the material in their collections: the Oriental and India OYce
Library for access to the Strachey papers, the Lytton papers, and the
Salisbury papers; the Manuscript Room in the British Library for access
to the Strachey papers, the Keynes papers, and the Havelock Ellis papers;
the Women’s Library for access to the Papers of Jane Maria, Pernel and
Philippa Strachey, and to their Autograph Letter Collections; the British
Institute of Psycho-Analysis for access to their collection of Strachey
papers and their correspondence Wles; the Berg Collection in the New
YorkPublicLibrary,theHarryRansomCenterattheUniversityofTexas,
and the University of Princeton Library for the Strachey papers that they
hold. I thank the University of Sussex Library for access to the Papers of
LeonardWoolf;theProvostandScholarsofKing’sCollege,Cambridgefor
access to the Papers of Maynard Keynes; the Principal of Newnham
College for access to the college records, and the Lilley Library at the
University of Indiana for access to the Papers of Ray Strachey in the
Hannah Whitall Smith Collection. I thank the Bibliothe`que Nationale for
access to the correspondence of Dorothy Bussy, Andre Gide, and Roger
Martin du Gard. I also wish to thank the archivists at St Paul’s School in
London, at Clifton College, at Balliol College and Lady Margaret Hall in
Oxford,andatNewnhamCollegefortheirhelpfulresponsestomyqueries
about the Stracheys.
For permission to publish extracts from the letters of Lytton Strachey,
I thank the Strachey Trust and the British Society of Authors. For
permission to publish the picture of Jane and Richard Strachey in India,
I thank the Oriental and India OYce Library at the British Library. For
their help in supplying me with Strachey pictures and for permission to
publish the Strachey photographs and the sketches byRay Strachey that I
havechosenfromtheircollection,IthanktheNationalPortraitGallery.For
supplying the print and for permission to publish the portrait of Lady
Strachey by Dora Carrington, I thank the National Portrait Gallery of
Scotland.
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