Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (17 August 1840 – 10 September 1922), sometimes spelt Wilfred, was an English poet and writer. He and his wife Lady Anne Blunt travelled in the Middle East and were instrumental in preserving the Arabian horse bloodlines through their farm, the Crabbet Arabian Stud.
Blunt was best known for his poetry, which appeared in a collected edition in 1914, and also wrote political essays and polemics. He became additionally known for strongly anti-imperialist views that were relatively uncommon in his time.
Early life Blunt was the son of Francis Scawen Blunt, of Crabbet, by his wife Mary Chandler.William Smith Ellis "The Parks and Forests of Sussex", p. 71 Blunt was born at Petworth House in Sussex, home of his aunt's husband Baron Leconfield. He served in the Diplomatic Service 1858–1869. He was raised in the faith of his mother, a Catholic convert, and educated at Twyford School, Stonyhurst, and at St Mary's College, Oscott. He was a cousin of Lord Alfred Douglas.
Biography
In 1869 Blunt married Lady Anne Noel, daughter of the Earl of Lovelace and Ada Lovelace, and granddaughter of Lord Byron. Together the Blunts travelled through Spain, Algeria, Egypt, the Syrian Desert, and extensively in the Middle East and India.
Horse breeding
Based upon pure-blooded Arabian horses they obtained in Egypt and the Nejd, the Blunts co-founded Crabbet Arabian Stud. They later bought a property near Cairo named Sheykh Obeyd as their horse-breeding base in Egypt.Wentworth, The Authentic Arabian Horse
Anti-imperialism, beliefs and politics Blunt was generally anti-imperialist as a matter of belief. In 1882, He championed the cause of Urabi Pasha, which led to him being barred from Egypt for four years.New International Encyclopedia Blunt remained vigorously opposed to colonial expansion, writing three books outlining his views: The Secret History of the English Occupation of Egypt... (1907), Gordon at Khartoum (1911), and My Diaries: Being a Personal Narrative of Events, 1888–1914 (2 vols. 1919–1920). Historian Robert O. Collins, who worked closely with British civil servants, described Blunt as "The most vigorous English advocate of Egyptian nationalism" and cautioned against using Blunt's work uncritically.Robert O. Collins, "Egypt and the Sudan" in Robin W. Winks, ed., The Historiography of the British Empire-Commonwealth: Trends, Interpretations and Resources (Duke U.P., 1966) p. 282. The Malet book is online
His support for Irish independence led to imprisonment in 1888 for chairing an anti-eviction meeting in County Galway that had been banned by the Chief Secretary, Arthur Balfour. He was held in Galway Prison, then at Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin.Article by Elizabeth Longford.
Blunt's three attempts to enter Parliament were unsuccessful. He stood as a "Tory Democrat" supporting Irish Home Rule at Camberwell North in 1885 and as a Liberal at Kidderminster in 1886, where he lost by 285 votes. While in prison in Ireland, he contested a Deptford by-election in 1888, but lost by 275 votes.
When describing late 19th and early 20th century Orientalist authors, Edward Said wrote of Blunt: "[he] believed his vision of things Oriental was individual, self-created out of some intensely personal encounter with the Orient, Islam, or the Arabs" and "expressed general contempt for official knowledge held about the East." Notably, Said marked Blunt as exceptional in not exhibiting most other Orientalists' "final...traditional Western hostility to and fear of the Orient."Said, Edward. "Style, Expertise, Vision: Orientalism's Worldliness." In Orientalism. 25th Anniversary ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1994.
As an adult Blunt became an atheist, though he underwent episodes of faith."Wilfred Scawen Blunt was notorious as an atheist, a libertine, an adventurer and a poet. Somehow he found time to be a diplomat – one of the country's earliest to make a real attempt to understand Islam – and an anti-imperialist, becoming the first British-born person to be jailed for Irish independence." Phil Daoust, The Guardian, 11 March 2008, G2: Radio: Pick of the day, p. 32.Elizabeth Longford, 1979. A Pilgrimage of Passion: The Life of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson; pp. 120–122, 132 and 235–237. He had a serious interest in Islam and became immersed in its reformist strands.Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, 1882. The Future of Islam. London: Kegan Paul, Trench. Blunt, Wilfrid Scawen., 1922. Secret history of the English occupation of Egypt; being a personal narrative of events. New York: Alfred Knopf; p. 120. Blunt had supposedly become a convert to Islam under the influence of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani. However, he agreed before he died to see a priest, Fr Vincent McNabb, and receive Communion,Elizabeth Longford, 1979. A Pilgrimage of Passion: The Life of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson; p. 422. so fulfilling a prediction of Sir William Henry Gregory, as recalled by his wife: "You will see Wilfrid will die with the wafer in his mouth."Lady Gregory, The Journals, ed. Daniel J. Murphy, 1978. (Vol I), p. 6.
Affairs and separation Wilfrid and Lady Anne's only child to reach maturity was Judith Blunt-Lytton, 16th Baroness Wentworth, later known as Lady Wentworth. She was married in Cairo when she was an adult, but in 1904 she relocated permanently to the Crabbet Park Estate.
Wilfrid had mistresses, including long-term relations with Catherine "Skittles" Walters, and Jane Morris, the wife of his friend William Morris. He seduced and impregnated his cousin Mary Wyndham, having previously been the lover of her mother.Claudia Renton. Those Wild Wyndhams (2014), pp. 235-8, 241-3
After he moved another mistress, Dorothy Carleton, into his home, Lady Anne legally separated from him in 1906. She signed a Deed of Partition drawn up by Wilfrid, under terms unfavourable to herself, whereby she kept the Crabbet Park property, where their daughter Judith lived, and half the horses, while Blunt took Caxtons Farm, also known as Newbuildings, and the rest of the stock.
Struggling with financial concerns and addiction, Wilfrid sold off numerous horses to pay debts and constantly attempted to obtain additional assets. Lady Anne left the management of her properties to Judith and spent many months of each year in Egypt at the Sheykh Obeyd estate, moving there permanently in 1915.
Wilfrid tried to disinherit Judith and obtain the entire Crabbet property for himself. As a result, on her death in 1917, Lady Anne passed her share of the Crabbet Stud to Judith's daughters, under the oversight of an independent trustee. Blunt filed a lawsuit soon afterwards.
Ownership of the Arabian horses went back and forth between the estates of father and daughter in subsequent years. Blunt sold more horses to pay off debts and shot at least four in an attempt to spite his daughter, which led to intervention of the trustee of the estate with a court injunction to prevent him from further "dissipating the assets" of the estate. The suit was settled in favour of the granddaughters in 1920 and Judith bought their share from the trustee, combining it with her own and reuniting the stud.
Wilfrid and Judith were briefly reconciled before his death in 1922, but his promise to rewrite his will to restore Judith's inheritance was not kept.
Blunt was a friend of Winston Churchill, aiding him in a 1906 biography of his father, Lord Randolph Churchill. Blunt had befriended him in 1883 at a chess tournament.
Poet More direct, conversational and wry than typical ornate Victorian verse, Blunt's poetry can be seen as transitional between late Victorian romanticism and the psychological realism of the 20th century poetry. His work reflects the many romances, his political views and his travels. His mistress Skittles, for instance, was portrayed as Esther in his Sonnets and Songs by Proteus (1875), which experiment with the sonnet form. The Wind and the Whirlwind (1883) is a long poem condemning the British intervention in Egypt of 1882. Blunt's most memorable line of poetry on the subject of anti-imperialism comes from Satan Absolved (1899), where the devil, answering a Kiplingesque remark by God, snaps back:The white man's burden, Lord, is the burden of his cash. Elizabeth Longford wrote, "Blunt stood Rudyard Kipling's familiar concept on its head, arguing that the imperialists' burden is not their moral responsibility for the colonised peoples, but their urge to make money out of them."Elizabeth Longford, A Pilgrimage of Passion, Knopf, New York 1979 p.335, citing Blunt's Poetical Works, 2.254 His prison sonnet sequence In vinculis ("In chains", 1888) marks a turning point in his writing. His friend Oscar Wilde said that his imprisonment in Galway Prison changed Blunt "from a clever rhymer into a deep-thinking poet". The Stealing of the Mare (1892) is a rendering in verse of Lady Anne Blunt's translation of the ancient Arabic tale.R. B. Serjeant, R. L. Bidwell. Arabian Studies (2005), pp. 112-113
By the end of his life Blunt was a respected literary figure, friendly with Hilaire Belloc (a neighbour), Roger Casement, St John Philby (father of Kim), Alice and Wilfrid Meynell, Francis Thompson and Father Vincent McNabb. He was also highly regarded by the younger generation of poets, as seen by a tribute dinner held in January 1914 at Blunt's manor house in West Sussex.Lucy McDiarmid. Poets and the Peacock Dinner, Oxford University Press (2014) Six poets travelled from London to attend: W. B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, the imagists Richard Aldington and Frank Stuart Flint, and the older poets Victor Plarr and Thomas Sturge Moore.Lucy McDiarmid. 'What happened when seven poets met to eat peacock in 1914?', Irish Times, 10 March, 2015 Pound later called Blunt "the last of the great Victorians".Dan Chiasson. 'When Pound and Yeats Ate a Peacock', New Yorker, 24 February 2015
Bibliography Sonnets and Songs. By Proteus. John Murray, 1875 Aubrey de Vere (ed.): Proteus and Amadeus: A Correspondence Kegan Paul, 1878 The Love Sonnets of Proteus. Kegan Paul, 1881 The Future of Islam Kegan Paul, Trench, London 1882 (scanned) The Wind and the Whirlwind (1883) In Vinculis (1889) A New Pilgrimage and Other Poems (1889) Esther (1892) The Stealing of the Mare (1892) Griselda Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1893 The Quatrains of Youth (1898) The Poetry of Wilfrid Blunt (1898), selected by W.E. Henley and George Wyndham. Satan Absolved: A Victorian Mystery. J. Lane, London 1899 Seven Golden Odes of Pagan Arabia, (The Moallakat) 1903 Atrocities of Justice under the English Rule in Egypt T. F. Unwin, London, 1907 Secret History of the English Occupation of Egypt Knopf, 1907 India under Ripon; A Private DiaryNote: Ripon refers to George Robinson, 1st Marquess of Ripon T. Fisher Unwin, London 1909 Gordon at Khartoum. S. Swift, London 1911 (scanned) The Land War in Ireland. S. Swift, London 1912 The Poetical Works. 2 vols. . Macmillan, London 1914 (Volume 1 Volume 2) My Diaries: Being a Personal Narrative of Events, 1888–1914. Secker, London 1919–1921; 2 vols. Knopf, New York 1921 (Part 1 Part 2) Poems. Knopf, New York 1923; Macmillan, London 1923.
Notes
References and further reading Elizabeth Longford (1979). A Pilgrimage of Passion: The Life of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson Max Egremont (1977). The Cousins: The Friendship, Opinions and Activities of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt and George Wyndham. London: Collins Luisa Villa, "A 'Political Education': Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, the Arabs and the Egyptian Revolution (1881–82)", Journal of Victorian Culture 17.1 (2012): 46–63 Edmund King GC., "Radicalism in the Margins: The Politics of Reading Wilfrid Scawen Blunt in 1920." Journal of British Studies 55.3 (2016): 501–518 online Frank C. Sharp and Jan Marsh (2012), The Collected Letters of Jane Morris, Boydell & Brewer, London