Thrumpton Hall (book)

Last updated • 3 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

Thrumpton Hall: A Memoir of Life in My Father’s House is a work published in 2007 by Miranda Seymour.

The book describes, from the perspective of his alienated daughter, the life and times of the little-known George FitzRoy Seymour (1923–1994), proprietor of a declining English country estate (Thrumpton Hall) in Nottinghamshire, and a self-absorbed husband and father with aristocratic pretensions (he is distantly related to one of the many illegitimate offspring of Charles II). The book is primarily a memoir, judiciously narrated, yet with an undertone of daughterly displeasure that threatens, as the author knows, to overwhelm any hoped-for objectivity. It also uncovers biographical details that the author learns of only through having read her father’s diaries and having researched her family’s history by means of letters and other archival sources. In England, the book was published as In My Father’s House and subtitled Elegy for an Obsessive Love, a reference to George Seymour’s lifelong preoccupation with the grand house (originating in the sixteenth century) that he managed to inherit through his own designs, despite not being the son of the previous owner, Charles Byron (a descendant of Lord Byron and an uncle-by-marriage to George). The book, however, is anything but an elegy, and a sustained examination of George’s obsession with the house is but one part of the author’s concern.

The other part of Seymour's method involves the interrogation of the hated father and the detailing of his deleterious decisions and actions, as viewed more than a decade after his death. His character, that of a “priggish,” snobbish adolescent embarrassed by his parents, and a gently domineering father/husband too obviously desperate for a social status that he cannot achieve, is painted in exuberant English prose. Among George's quirks are a lifelong lack of friends, a serious devotion to letter-writing, an intense focus on the social graces and personal hygiene, an inability to appreciate the needs of other family members, and a tendency to aggrandize his own station in life. The chief quirk of Master George, however, is his abandonment, late in life, of most of his family duties, not to mention all upper-class appearances, as he takes to dressing up in leathers and touring country roads (often at night) on a motorcycle. In the process, he befriends, or rather falls in love with, an illiterate “lad” or two, principally a person named Robbie, whom George calls Tigger after the Winnie-the-Pooh character (to his own Christopher Robin). No one else is amused, particularly when Robbie begins to displace others who are slated to inherit family property. Although this aspect of the story supplies a certain drama, there is no shortage of human drama and tension, of mortal helplessness and hubris, elsewhere in the book. Throughout, the voice of the author's mother provides a light counterpoint to Miranda Seymour's own observations and opinions.

Seymour was awarded the PEN/Ackerley Prize for her memoir in 2008.

Related Research Articles

J. R. Ackerley English writer and editor

Joe Randolph "J. R." Ackerley was a British writer and editor. Starting with the BBC the year after its founding in 1927, he was promoted to literary editor of The Listener, its weekly magazine, where he served for more than two decades. He published many emerging poets and writers who became influential in Great Britain. He was openly homosexual, a rarity in his time when homosexual activity was forbidden by law and socially ostracised.

PEN Ackerley Prize is awarded annually by English PEN for a literary autobiography of excellence, written by an author of British nationality and published during the preceding year. The winner receives £3,000. In recent years, the winner has been announced at the annual English PEN summer party.

Francis Quarles English poet

Francis Quarles was an English poet most notable for his emblem book aptly entitled Emblems.

Michael Bruce (poet)

Michael Bruce was a Scottish poet and hymnist.

Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset

Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset, known by the epithet "The Proud Duke", was an English peer. He rebuilt Petworth House in Sussex, the ancient Percy seat inherited from his wife, in the palatial form which survives today. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, he was a remarkably handsome man, and inordinately fond of taking a conspicuous part in court ceremonial; his vanity, which earned him the sobriquet of "the proud duke", was a byword among his contemporaries and was the subject of numerous anecdotes; Macaulay described him as "a man in whom the pride of birth and rank amounted almost to a disease".

Miranda Jane Seymour is an English literary critic, novelist and biographer. The lives she described included those of Robert Graves and Mary Shelley. Seymour, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, has in recent years been a visiting Professor of English Studies at Nottingham Trent University and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

George Szirtes

George Szirtes is a British poet and translator from the Hungarian language into English. Originally from Hungary, he has lived in the United Kingdom for most of his life after coming to the country as a refugee at the age of eight. Szirtes was a judge for the 2017 Griffin Poetry Prize.

Blake Morrison English poet and author

Philip Blake Morrison FRSL is an English poet and author who has published in a wide range of fiction and non-fiction genres. His greatest success came with the publication of his memoirs And When Did You Last See Your Father? which won the J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography. He has also written a study of the murder of James Bulger, As If. Since 2003, Morrison has been Professor of Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths College, University of London. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

James Lamont Gillespie pen name Haven Gillespie, was an American Tin Pan Alley composer and lyricist. He was the writer of "You Go to My Head", "Honey", "By the Sycamore Tree", "That Lucky Old Sun", "Breezin' Along With The Breeze", "Right or Wrong," "Beautiful Love", "Drifting and Dreaming", and "Louisiana Fairy Tale", each song in collaboration with other people such as Beasley Smith, Ervin R. Schmidt, Richard A. Whiting, Wayne King, and Loyal Curtis. He also wrote the seasonal standard "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town".

Thrumpton Hall

Thrumpton Hall is an English country house in the village of Thrumpton near Nottingham. It operated as a wedding venue until November 2020.

Thomas Scott-Ellis, 8th Baron Howard de Walden British peer and patron of the arts

Thomas Evelyn Scott-Ellis, 8th Baron Howard de Walden, 4th Baron Seaford was an English peer, landowner, writer and patron of the arts.

Lord Byron English Romantic poet and lyricist (1788-1824)

George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, simply known as Lord Byron, was an English poet and peer. One of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, Byron is regarded as one of the greatest English poets. He remains widely read and influential. Among his best-known works are the lengthy narrative poems Don Juan and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage; many of his shorter lyrics in Hebrew Melodies also became popular.

Bart Jason Moore-Gilbert was a Tanzanian born British academic, orientalist and political campaigner, most widely known for his work in the field of postcolonial literary studies and theory.

Founded in 1921, English PEN is one of the world's first non-governmental organisations and amongst the first international bodies advocating for human rights. English PEN was the founding centre of PEN International, a worldwide writers' association with 145 centres in more than 100 countries. The current President of English PEN is Philippe Sands. The Director is Daniel Gorman.

Mary Shelley English writer (1797–1851)

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), which is considered an early example of science fiction. She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin and her mother was the philosopher and feminist activist Mary Wollstonecraft.

George Fitzroy Seymour was High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire in 1966 and Deputy Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire.

Soughton Hall Grade II* country house & hotel in Flintshire, Wales, UK

Soughton Hall is a Grade II* listed country house hotel in Sychdyn, Flintshire, Wales. Notable guests that have stayed include Luciano Pavarotti, Michael Jackson and King Juan Carlos I of Spain. William John Bankes inherited Soughton Hall in the 1815.

<i>Do No Harm</i> (book) 2014 memoir written by Henry Marsh

Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery is a 2014 memoir written by Henry Marsh and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. The book details the author's career as a neurosurgeon.

Peter Parker (author) British writer (born 1954)

Peter Robert Nevill Parker is a British biographer, historian, journalist and editor. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1997.

<i>The Day That Went Missing</i> Memoir written by English author Richard Beard

The Day That Went Missing: A Family's Story is a memoir written by English author Richard Beard about a family tragedy that occurred when he was a boy and the collective denial perpetrated by his entire family in its wake.