Vera Brittain
VERA BRITTAIN
OUTLINE BIOGRAPHY
1893 Born Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffs - eldest child of Edith and
Thomas Brittain, a wealthy paper manufacturer
1895 Younger brother, Edward, born
1904 Brittain family move to Buxton, Derbyshire, VB goes to school
1907-11 VB attends St. Monica’s School, Surrey
1912-13 VB ‘debutante’ in provincial Buxton society
1913-14 VB studying with private tutors for Oxford entrance exams
1914 VB wins Exhibition to Somerville College, Oxford
spring 1914 meets Roland Leighton, a school friend of her brother
August 1914 outbreak of WWI
October 1914 VB becomes student at Somerville College
December 1914 Edward Brittain and Roland Leighton are commissioned
1915 VB and RL in love, unofficially engaged
April 1915 Roland Leighton leaves for the ‘Front’;
June 1915 VB gives up her studies for duration of war and takes up
nursing, enrols as VAD, and works in London
December 1915 Roland Leighton dies of his war wounds
1916 Edward Brittain awarded Military Cross at the Battle of the Somme
1916-17 VB works as military nurse in Malta
1917-18 VB works as military nurse in France
1918 June 1918 Edward Brittain killed in action
1918-19 VB nursing in London
1919 VB returns to Somerville College to resume her degree studies
1920 VB meets Winifred Holtby (1898-1935) at Somerville College;
spend summer vacation together in Cornwall
1921 VB and Holtby graduate from Oxford (degrees at Oxford first
awarded to women in 1920); spend six-week holiday together
in France and Italy
1922 VB and Holtby move to London, share flats in Bloomsbury and Maida Vale
begin careers as journalists, lecturers and writers; VB joins the Six Point Group
VB becomes lecturer for the League of Nations Union
Holtby publishes her first novel, Anderby Wold
1923 VB publishes her first novel, The Dark Tide
1924 VB publishes her second novel, Not Without Honour; joins Labour Party
1925 VB marries George Catlin
1925-26 VB and George Catlin live in US, where Catlin teaches at Cornell University
1927 John Edward Catlin, their first child, is born
1927-35 Winifred Holtby joins the Catlin household and lives with them until her death
1930 Shirley Catlin born
1933 VB publishes Testament of Youth; best-seller
1934 VB undertakes book tour of US to publicise Testament of Youth
1935 Thomas Brittain dies; Winifred Holtby dies
1936 VB and George Catlin visit Germany to report on German elections;
VB attends Peace Rally in Dorchester
1937 VB joins Peace Pledge Union - pacifism now her major campaigning focus
1938 VB resigns from League of Nations Union
1939 VB publishes Testament of Friendship (memoir of Winifred Holtby)
1940 John and Shirley Catlin evacuated to US
1939-45 VB continues to support PPU throughout WWII; publishes pamphlet,
Seed of Chaos, criticising saturation bombing of
Germany (1944)
1950s VB publishes Testament of Experience
joins Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and remains active in it until her death
1953 VB publishes Lady into Woman: A History of Women from Victoria to Elizabeth II
1970 VB dies
Early years before 1914
VB born into a provincial middle-class family
VB education – experience similar to many other early 20c feminists - mixture of private tuition and formal schooling – followed by non-working life at home – marriage = assumed eventual objective
VB’s winning scholarship to Oxford = a feminist dream
Experience of WWI
Post WWI
VB’s typical of new directions in feminist thinking in the 1920s – women had vote and right to higher
education – now needed to capitalise on these gains to obtain legal and social reform
VB novels of the 1930s became increasingly more feminist and pacifist
Testament of Youth
Published nearly two decades after outbreak of WWI
By 1933 VB realised that another major war was imminent
Purpose of the book
To warn the young generation of the early 1930s not to be duped by British propaganda, as hers had been
To show how women had experienced WWI
Comparison between ToY and VB’s diaries is illuminating
ToY - picture of a young woman rejecting the feminine values of her mother’s generation
VB diaires – pre-WWI young woman enjoying dancing, parties, clothes – real intimacy with her mother
But also met with family resistance to her ambitions for higher education
VB’s feminism
ToY – VB maintains that her nursing work made her more comfortable with sexuality
WWI gave women more liberty to be alone with men
VB’s experiences of war led her to rebel against patriarchal values of her pre-war life
VB’s feminism post WWI – wanted
Changes in human attitudes – men’s belief in women’s inferiority
New concept of marriage – equal partners – had a ‘semi-detached’ marriage with Catlin
Professional and economic equality for women – equal pay for equal work, maternity leave, part-time work for mothers, refresher courses for women returners, state nursery schools
Better social services for women – maternalist focus – family planning clinics, national maternity service, state nurseries
New attitudes to sexual morality – end sexual double standard, better understandings of homosexuality – defence witness in obscenity trial of R. Hall’s The Well of Loneliness
New understandings of women’s psychology and capacities – women’s capacity for friendship, loyalty, and instinct for peace made their psychology different from men’s – see Testament of Friendship
Before WWI, VB’s closest friends were male; post-war her closest friend was Winifred Holtby
VB pacificism
VB diaries show that initially she was influenced by wartime propaganda
Her excitement about WWI reflected her pre-war boredom and stifled ambitions
Felt frustration about the predominant masculine model of heroism and suffering
BUT after casualty reports started to come in, VB’s attitude much more ambivalent –
Tensions between belief in rightness of the cause and despair at deaths and casualities
Early pro-war views and desire for war work seem part of her expressed desire to be a man – articulated a masculine rhetoric of patriotism and heroism
BUT nursing work brought out her suppressed female identity
VB often seen as a born pacifist and her writings encouraged the view that women were natural pacifists but her diaries of the WWI period indicate tensions she felt between patriotism and pacifism
VB’s career between 1914-1950 – no straight line to feminism and pacifism – rather a series of advances and retreats
VB became a revolutionary pacifist in 1936 – met Canon Dick Sheppard, head of the PPU
Realised that the peace organisations that she had been working with had political respectability because they were prepared to compromise with war
Remained a pacifist from then onwards, through WWII, until her death
1939 VB wrote to Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, requesting that Britain refrain from bombing civilian non-combatants
in WWII helped arrange emigration of British children (her own went to North America) and cared for civilian victims of bombing