Sacheverell Sitwell

Sir Sacheverell Sitwell, Bt
Born Sacheverell Reresby Sitwell
(1897-11-15)15 November 1897
Scarborough, North Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Died 1 October 1988(1988-10-01) (aged 90)
Towcester, Northamptonshire, England
Occupation Writer
Period 1918-1986
Spouse Georgia Doble (1925–1980)
Children Reresby, Francis
Relatives George Sitwell (father)
Edith Sitwell (sister)
Osbert Sitwell (brother)

Sir Sacheverell Reresby Sitwell, 6th Baronet CH ( /sæˈʃɛvərəl/; 15 November 1897 – 1 October 1988) was an English writer, best known as an art critic, music critic (his books on Mozart, Liszt, and Domenico Scarlatti are still consulted), and writer on architecture, particularly the baroque. Dame Edith Sitwell and Sir Osbert Sitwell were his older siblings.

Life

He was the youngest child of Sir George Sitwell, 4th Baronet, of Renishaw Hall. His mother was the former Lady Ida Emily Augusta Denison, a daughter of the 1st Earl of Londesborough and a granddaughter of Henry Somerset, 7th Duke of Beaufort. She claimed a descent through female lines from the Plantagenets.

Born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, he was brought up in Derbyshire and educated at Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford. In World War I he served from 1916 in the British Army, in the Grenadier Guards.

After the war he went to Balliol but did not complete a degree, and was heavily involved in Osbert and Edith's projects. In 1925 he married a Canadian woman, Georgia Doble. They had two sons: Reresby (1927–2009) and Francis (1935–2004). He was also a member of White's and St James's clubs.[1]

Constant Lambert set to music The Rio Grande, one of his poems, and it was performed and broadcast in 1928. Sitwell was an early member of the New Party, a group established in 1931 by Oswald Mosley and containing former members of the major British political parties.[2]

In his later life he withdrew from associating himself with the publicity attaching to the Sitwells collectively, instead preferring to travel and concentrate on writing. He became the 6th baronet, inheriting the title when Osbert died in 1969. He was made a Companion of Honour in 1984. His main residence was Weston Hall, Northamptonshire, the family home and he served as High Sheriff of Northamptonshire for 1948.[3]

He is buried in the churchyard of Weedon Lois in Northamptonshire, near his sister Edith.[4]

As his poetry was so severely criticised by those who disliked the Sitwells in general, and although Canons of Giant Art is a work of very considerable impact, he refused to publish any of his poems for many years. In 1967 Derek Parker published a selection of his poems in the summer edition of Poetry Review, including his elegy for his beloved sister Edith. Among his most remarkable and original works are a series of lengthy autobiographical and art-based "fantasias" such as "For Want of the Golden City", "The Hunters and the Hunted" and "Dance of the Quick and the Dead" (1936).

Sitwell was the author of the book Poltergeists (1940). It reviewed poltergeist cases over the centuries. He concluded that many cases could be explained by human trickery (conscious or unconscious) and hysteria.[5]

Works

References

  1. ↑ Who's Who. Adam and Charles Black. 1951. p. 2619.
  2. ↑ Richard Griffiths, Fellow Travellers on the Right, Oxford University Press, 1983, p. 33
  3. ↑ "London Gazette 1948". Retrieved 6 March 2011.
  4. ↑ "Sacheverell Sitwell - Find a Grave". findagrave.com. Retrieved 29 November 2013.
  5. ↑ Bradford, Sarah. (1993). Sacheverell Sitwell: Splendours and Miseries. Sinclair-Stevenson. p. 291

Sources

Baronetage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Osbert Sitwell		 Baronet
(of Renishaw, Derbyshire)
1969–1988 		Succeeded by
Reresby Sitwell
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