Cicely Hamilton (1872–1952)
Author of William: An Englishman
About the Author
Works by Cicely Hamilton
Associated Works
Gender in Modernism: New Geographies, Complex Intersections (2007) — Contributor — 12 copies, 1 review
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Hamilton, Cicely Mary
- Other names
- Hammill, Cicely (birth)
- Birthdate
- 1872-06-15
- Date of death
- 1952-12-06
- Gender
- female
- Occupations
- journalist
novelist
actor
suffragist
nurse - Organizations
- Women Writers' Suffrage League(co-founder)
Women's Social and Political Union
Women's Freedom League
Birmingham Repertory Company
Time and Tide - Relationships
- Delafield, E. M. (friend)
- Short biography
- Cicely Hamilton was born Cicely Hammill in London, the daughter of Danzil Hammill, a British army officer, and Maude Piers. When Cicely was 10 years old, her mother disappeared from her life. Although Cicely always refused to talk about it, it is believed that her mother was committed to a psychiatric institution. While her father was serving abroad, Cicely was brought up by foster parents. She first worked as a teacher, but wanted to go on the stage. She got a job as an actress with a touring company and changed her name to Hamilton. When she could not get leading roles in London, Cicely Hamilton turned to writing plays, novels, and nonfiction. One of her first plays, Diana of Dobsons, was an immediate success. In 1908, she joined the Women's Social and Political Union, but after a few months left to join the breakaway Women's Freedom League. She also became a co-founder with Bessie Hatton of the Women Writers' Suffrage League. At the outbreak of World War I, she became one of the first to join the new Scottish Women's Hospitals Committee and helped establish a hospital at Royaumont Abbey in France. During the summer of 1916, she nursed soldiers wounded at the Battle of the Somme. In 1917, she left the organization and soon afterwards was asked to form a repertory company at the Somme. For the rest of the war, the company performed for Allied soldiers fighting on the Western Front. After the war, Cicely Hamilton became a freelance journalist, writing for newspapers such as the Daily Mail, the Daily Mirror and the Daily Express, and as a playwright for the Birmingham Repertory Company. She also was a regular contributor to the feminist journal Time and Tide. Her war novel William: An Englishman was awarded the Prix Femina Vie Heureuse-Anglais in 1920. Her autobiography, entitled Life Errant, was published in 1935.
- Nationality
- England
UK - Birthplace
- Paddington, London, England, UK
- Places of residence
- Paddington, London, England, UK
Malvern, Worcestershire, England, UK
Bad Homburg, Germany - Place of death
- Portugal
- Associated Place (for map)
- Paddington, London, England, UK
Members
Reviews
William and Griselda Tully playing at politics are - to paraphrase Harold Nicholson - 'like 2 curates entering a pub for the first time'. Inevitably, however, this hapless pair find themselves face to face with the militarism they have been demonstrating against only to learn that moral indignation, indeed moral certainty, are worse than useless against brute force.
William: an Englishman is a book that works on many levels. It is an anti-war novel written from the civilian perspective, with show more a strong emphasis on the chaos of the dispossessed in flight from the invader. But it is also a book about personal loss, in particular the loss of innocence, standards and, finally, hope.
An excellent first choice for the Persephone Press. show less
William: an Englishman is a book that works on many levels. It is an anti-war novel written from the civilian perspective, with show more a strong emphasis on the chaos of the dispossessed in flight from the invader. But it is also a book about personal loss, in particular the loss of innocence, standards and, finally, hope.
An excellent first choice for the Persephone Press. show less
CAUTION: substantial SPOILERS!
I really have to give this one some thought before I'm sure of it. It's a novel that clearly depicts the futility of war (in this case, World War I, and I've read this book as the start in the VMC Group's The Great War Theme Read), but I'm not entirely sure of what the author's ultimate response is to her characters – or to the War itself.
Before I go on, I see one serious stylistic default in the novel. Prior to their encounter with the War in France, there show more are some quite funny scenes with William and Griselda, but unfortunately Hamilton doesn't leave well-enough alone. I mean by this, she tends to over-explain things to her readers rather than just let the satire of well-meaning but dim-witted "radicals" speak for itself. It's a problem of excessive authorial editorializing.
For example:
(ch. 4). Hey, thanks, but we know there's humbuggery involved and you don't have to tell us. Let their actions speak for themselves without authorial editorializing. This happens too often throughout the novel.
And now, the real problem: Who is the real William? And what is Hamilton's response to him (and to her other characters)? Obviously William in the end is not an "internationally minded" revolutionary, and I think Hamilton – despite her own "radical" credentials – ultimately takes a "blood and soil" approach to the War, particularly considering the eventual "heroism" (at least after conscription) of many of William's old friends like Faraday.
But what is the ultimate result of William's life?
(ending pages). He's buried "without mourners," and we never do find out whether anyone wrote to Edith Haynes, though we strongly suspect that they did not.
(On this latter point, I like the ambiguity, because once William is dead, he's dead and the story ends with him. What's the effect, if any, on survivors? Does Edith mourn? Does she ever even find out enough to mourn? Is William just one of an entire generation of forgotten casualties? We don't know one way or the other, and this ambiguity gives the novel's ending a real – indeed, a real-life – strength.)
I'm giving this 3*** at least tentatively, though I might revisit it and rate it perhaps a bit more highly. My criticism isn't based on agreement or disagreement with the author's views but on whether she's adequately expressed them. On the one hand, her satire is often quite humorous but can also unnecessarily overstate the obvious. The ultimate conclusion leaves us with a sense of complete futility to William's life – but at the same time, I'm not entirely sure of Hamilton's own position on the War or whether she's in fact as wavering as William was. show less
I really have to give this one some thought before I'm sure of it. It's a novel that clearly depicts the futility of war (in this case, World War I, and I've read this book as the start in the VMC Group's The Great War Theme Read), but I'm not entirely sure of what the author's ultimate response is to her characters – or to the War itself.
Before I go on, I see one serious stylistic default in the novel. Prior to their encounter with the War in France, there show more are some quite funny scenes with William and Griselda, but unfortunately Hamilton doesn't leave well-enough alone. I mean by this, she tends to over-explain things to her readers rather than just let the satire of well-meaning but dim-witted "radicals" speak for itself. It's a problem of excessive authorial editorializing.
For example:
And the unconscious little humbug clasped her hands and, from force of habit, rose to her feet, addressing an imaginary audience. William, an equally unconscious humbug, also rose to his feet and kissed her. It was one of those happy and right-minded moments in which inclination agrees with duty, and they were able to admire themselves and each other for a sacrifice which had cost them nothing.
(ch. 4). Hey, thanks, but we know there's humbuggery involved and you don't have to tell us. Let their actions speak for themselves without authorial editorializing. This happens too often throughout the novel.
And now, the real problem: Who is the real William? And what is Hamilton's response to him (and to her other characters)? Obviously William in the end is not an "internationally minded" revolutionary, and I think Hamilton – despite her own "radical" credentials – ultimately takes a "blood and soil" approach to the War, particularly considering the eventual "heroism" (at least after conscription) of many of William's old friends like Faraday.
But what is the ultimate result of William's life?
"I don't seem to have been much good . . . but there comes a time . . . when nothing matters."
"Not even," asked the chaplain, feeling his way, "the sense that you have done your duty?"
"Most people do that," said William. "The question is . . . if you've been much use when you've done it."
The chaplain, puzzled, said something of infinite mercy and the standard of God not being as the standard of man.
"If you've done your best . . ." he suggested. "Most people do that," said William again . . . and slid back once more without into silence.
(ending pages). He's buried "without mourners," and we never do find out whether anyone wrote to Edith Haynes, though we strongly suspect that they did not.
(On this latter point, I like the ambiguity, because once William is dead, he's dead and the story ends with him. What's the effect, if any, on survivors? Does Edith mourn? Does she ever even find out enough to mourn? Is William just one of an entire generation of forgotten casualties? We don't know one way or the other, and this ambiguity gives the novel's ending a real – indeed, a real-life – strength.)
I'm giving this 3*** at least tentatively, though I might revisit it and rate it perhaps a bit more highly. My criticism isn't based on agreement or disagreement with the author's views but on whether she's adequately expressed them. On the one hand, her satire is often quite humorous but can also unnecessarily overstate the obvious. The ultimate conclusion leaves us with a sense of complete futility to William's life – but at the same time, I'm not entirely sure of Hamilton's own position on the War or whether she's in fact as wavering as William was. show less
"What he termed public life-a ferment of protestation and grievance...with all the extremist's contempt for those who balance"
By sally tarbox on 23 March 2018
Format: Paperback
William Tully is a quiet little clerk in pre-WW1 London, described as 'painstaking and obedient...unobtrusive and diffident. To his colleagues, he is 'a negligible quantity. He was not unpopular- it was merely that he did not matter.'
Cowed by his redoubtable mother, William finds himself - following her unexpected show more death- a free agent, possessed of a small income. But what to do now? "His life had been so ordered, so bound down and directed by others, that even his desires were tamed to the wishes of others and left to himself he could not tell what he desired."
By chance, he latches on to colleague Faraday, whose private life is entirely dedicated to social activism; under his tutelage, William becomes a regular at meetings promoting women's suffrage, pacifism and other causes. And here he meets his future wife Griselda; their shallow, ignorant outlook focussing on protests and struggles.
"They believed (quite rightly) in the purity of their own intentions; and concluded (quite wrongly) that the intentions of all persons who did not agree with them must therefore be evil and impure...They read newspapers written by persons who wholly agreed with their views...From these they quoted, in public and imposingly, with absolute faith in their statements."
Paying no heed to the greater world affairs of 1914, they spend their honeymoon in the Belgian Ardennes...and find themselves in the middle of hideous war. Slowly, as he witnesses the atrocities, William's mindset changes; a realisation that the trivial complaints they made about British society were as nothing compared with this:
"He remembered -quite plainly, he remembered - a letter writte to the daily Press to point out with indignation that one of the Leaders of the Movement had been hurt in the ankle in the course of the Great Civil War."
With experience, William renounces pacifism for militarism, but even here he is doomed to disappointment...
A very well-written novel; the author herself was both a suffragette and a nurse in WW1 France. Comic at times, as we follow the committed but narrow-minded young couple in their efforts to redeem society, the descriptions of the war are vivid and shocking. I'm not sure we really get to know William; written in the 3rd person, he is brought to us through Hamilton's eyes, and perhaps it loses a little immediacy through that. But an unusual and interesting work. show less
By sally tarbox on 23 March 2018
Format: Paperback
William Tully is a quiet little clerk in pre-WW1 London, described as 'painstaking and obedient...unobtrusive and diffident. To his colleagues, he is 'a negligible quantity. He was not unpopular- it was merely that he did not matter.'
Cowed by his redoubtable mother, William finds himself - following her unexpected show more death- a free agent, possessed of a small income. But what to do now? "His life had been so ordered, so bound down and directed by others, that even his desires were tamed to the wishes of others and left to himself he could not tell what he desired."
By chance, he latches on to colleague Faraday, whose private life is entirely dedicated to social activism; under his tutelage, William becomes a regular at meetings promoting women's suffrage, pacifism and other causes. And here he meets his future wife Griselda; their shallow, ignorant outlook focussing on protests and struggles.
"They believed (quite rightly) in the purity of their own intentions; and concluded (quite wrongly) that the intentions of all persons who did not agree with them must therefore be evil and impure...They read newspapers written by persons who wholly agreed with their views...From these they quoted, in public and imposingly, with absolute faith in their statements."
Paying no heed to the greater world affairs of 1914, they spend their honeymoon in the Belgian Ardennes...and find themselves in the middle of hideous war. Slowly, as he witnesses the atrocities, William's mindset changes; a realisation that the trivial complaints they made about British society were as nothing compared with this:
"He remembered -quite plainly, he remembered - a letter writte to the daily Press to point out with indignation that one of the Leaders of the Movement had been hurt in the ankle in the course of the Great Civil War."
With experience, William renounces pacifism for militarism, but even here he is doomed to disappointment...
A very well-written novel; the author herself was both a suffragette and a nurse in WW1 France. Comic at times, as we follow the committed but narrow-minded young couple in their efforts to redeem society, the descriptions of the war are vivid and shocking. I'm not sure we really get to know William; written in the 3rd person, he is brought to us through Hamilton's eyes, and perhaps it loses a little immediacy through that. But an unusual and interesting work. show less
William Tully is a quiet unassuming clerk in an insurance office, when his mother's death leaves him a little money and the independence to please himself as to how to spend his life. A chance encounter turns the easily influenced William into a key advocate of social reform. And with sufficient funds to enable him to give up work, William finds a certain success in the new circles in which he moves, and on meeting Griselda, an ardent suffragette, he finds love in a true meeting of minds: show more
show lessThey believed (quite rightly) in the purity of their own intentions; and concluded (quite wrongly) that the intentions of all persons who did not agree with them must therefore be evil and impure ... They held .,, to their opinions strongly and would have died rather than renounce, or seem to renounce, them -- which did not restrain them from resenting the same attitude of mind and heart in others. What in themselves they admired as loyalty, they denounced in others as interested and malignant stubbornness.'
But although William and Griselda are portrayed by the author with all their faults, there is also something touching about the way that their romance and subsequent marriage is dealt with. While neither of them are initially appealing characters, they are irritating rather than unpleasant, and are clearly very much in love: at the end of the day they are decent human beings. Hamilton deals with their political activism and romance in a light-hearted way which does engender a certain affection for the characters, even if they are not necessarily the sort of people the reader might want to spend a large amount of time with:'The advanced Press spread itself over the description of the ceremony and - in view of the fact that the bridesmaids, six in number, had all done time for assault - even the Press that was not advanced considered the event worth a paragraph'
But William and Griselda's marriage takes place on the 23rd July 1914, and they set off for their four week long honeymoon in a very remote part of the Belgian Ardennes that afternoon. And deliberately out of the reach of newspapers, not speaking French, and out of contact with any other English speakers, they are completely oblivious that Europe has descended into all out war. So that when the war finds them they are completely unprepared ...
This is a tremendously sad book, as William tries to come to terms with what happens in the Ardennes, and also with the complete destruction of his long cherished beliefs. For the pacifist circles in which William has moved up until that point believes fervently that the workers of Europe would in no way allow themselves to be drawn into a war which was merely required by the machinations of their governments.
There have been mixed reviews of this book on LT, but I found it a rewarding read. Some readers have questioned whether William and Griselda could be so naive as to spent their honeymoon in Europe in a time of such heightened tension, but this seems plausible to me. They are very naive in anything outside their own experience, and with the views of all around them agreeing that a war is impossible, why should they feel the need to change their holiday plans? After all, Britain hadn't been involved in a war in continental Europe since the end of the Napoleonic wars a hundred years previously, so why should 1914 have been any different? So overall I found this a rewarding and poignant read dealing with a very ordinary man caught up in events that were completely outside his experience or even imagination.
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- Works
- 19
- Also by
- 4
- Members
- 345
- Popularity
- #69,184
- Rating
- 3.7
- Reviews
- 21
- ISBNs
- 38