The power of independent Primary Research

The Peter Davison Award and

the power of independent Primary Research

*

Introduction

Professor Peter Davison is owed a monumental debt by all the subsequent scholars of Orwell. Peter, ably supported by his wife Sheila, and Ian Angus produced mostly at their own expense, and in their own time, the massive 20 volume Complete Works and subsequent follow up books, for example “Seeing Things as They Are”.

The Trustees of The Orwell Society responded positively to the suggestion of Ron Bateman, one of the founding Committee which worked with Dione Venables to create the Society, to commemorate Peter Davison in a way which reflected his contributions to Orwell Studies. The Trustees, with the blessing of Peter’s sons, created The Peter Davison Award. This is to be made when the Trustees see that an individual or group of researchers have made significant increases in our knowledge through conducting Primary Research. The Trustees have witnessed and in many cases valued the extensive range of publications which have used existing research to try and reveal different insights. They have seen less primary research and that is what we feel it is our responsibility to encourage.

Gordon Bowker, who was the guest speaker at the 2^nd AGM of The Orwell Society made the point very clearly in describing his efforts to find a publisher for his 2003 biography “George Orwell”. Gordon was told by many publishers that there was nothing new to be found out about Orwell, because Bernard Crick’s biography had left no stone unturned. We have had ample proof that this was untrue, not only in the primary research conducted by Gordon, but also for example by the discovery of letters, which were bought by Richard Blair and given to The Orwell Archive in The Special Collections at University College London.

It was the work of Luke Seaber researching the London end of Down and Out in Paris and London, which we thought was a good example of the work we were seeking to encourage. Not surprisingly we expected full time academics with a research bent to be competing with each other to produce work to be recognised by the Trustees.

A Winner

In practice, after the first award to Professor Peter Stansky for his lifelong research and contributions to our understanding of Orwell, it was not a full time academic who won the award when Richard Blair presented it on the 24^th October at University College London. It was Darcy Moore, The Deputy Head of a Senior School in a district some 2 hours South of Sydney in New South Wales in Australia. The traditional route to academic credibility is tied up in the securing and maintaining of Tenure in a good University. This requires academics to produce and expose their work to Peer Review prior to publication. Our winner has secured the respect of academics, including Luke Seaber and Professor Nathan Waddell, by working in a very different way.

Darcy Moore was originally inspired to research Orwell by reading the Complete Works and identifying that there were significant gaps in our knowledge. This set him thinking about where there might be documents and personal recollections to discover. He has built a huge network of contacts with family members of people who knew Orwell who have shared their information and documents with him. He has travelled from Australia at his own expense and in his own time for 5 or 6 weeks at a time searching for original documents in England, Paris and in Autumn 2023 in India.

Rather than create a paper or book for peer review, Darcy has worked differently. In protecting their work to ensure that it is not plagiarised by others, the pressure on a full time academic is to keep their work private until fully validated prior to publication. Darcy does the opposite. He shares his work with Academics both directly and by publishing it online at www.darcymoore.net He invites comment and criticism by publishing in that way, but more to the point he is sharing his work with everyone who wishes to read it. It is the depth and range of his research and the very different and unselfish approach to exposing it which secured the admiration of the Trustees.

What has happened since October 24^th? While a few people in the wider public around the world will have admired his work on his website, he did not have the easy path to academic approval of a senior University based academic. The recognition the Peter Davison award has given him has gained him huge credibility in his native Australia where he is now widely known. While we were together in Marrakech with members of The Orwell Society during our week following Orwell’s time in Morocco in late 1938 and early 1939, it appeared that Darcy was up half the night giving interviews to important media in Australia including ABC and the Educational Authority which employs him

The Peter Davison Award is not an annual award. It will be awarded when we recognise some similar selfless devotion to unearthing previously unknown resources which increase our knowledge. What Darcy has done is use his research to raise important questions which challenge previous understandings. A good example being the influence of the Indian sub-continent on Orwell and his family and also the assumption that his Mother’s family while connected to France, was deeply rooted in England. Another example is the inspiration Orwell had which formed part of his lifelong interest in nature from his childhood visits to the Perrycoste family in Polperro. Darcy will be a speaker on this latter subject at The Orwell Society event in Polperro from the 3^rd to 6^th of October 2025.

Invitation

I invite all other Orwell researchers to demonstrate to the Trustees that your work deserves this award.

Quentin Kopp, November 17^th, 2024.