Scholarly insights into author George Orwell wins international award for NSW assistant principal

By Nick McLaren and Melinda James

Darcy Moore (left) received the award from George Orwell's son, Richard Blair. (Supplied: Darcy Moore)

A high school teacher from the NSW South Coast has "out-scholared" academics from around the world, blogging his way to international recognition for his unique historical insights into author George Orwell.  

 

Orwell, real name Eric Blair, penned classics such as Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), Animal Farm (1945) and Down and Out in Paris and London (1933). Books that are still widely read and highly relevant today due to their profound insights into truth-telling and objectivity.

An assistant principal at Dapto High School, Darcy Moore runs his own online George Orwell studies blog with original articles uncovering previously unknown aspects of the author's life.

Mr Moore, who lives in Kiama, has self-financed research trips to the United Kingdom, France and India and is currently in Marrakech, Morocco, travelling with George Orwell's son.

Last week in London, he was announced the winner of the Orwell Society's Peter Davidson Award, named in recognition of "outstanding ability and contribution to the study of George Orwell, his life and work."

A spokesperson for the society said Mr Moore uncovered 13 previously unknown letters from Orwell to sculptor Siegried Charoux, two letters to newspaper editor and millionaire David Astor and previously unknown material about the author's Anglo-Indian family sourced from India.

"He has also found significant new information relating to Eric Blair's time spent in Paris, from which Blair wrote his first book, Down and Out in Paris and London, and the wider family history of Eric Blair," the spokesperson said.

Dapto High School teacher Darcy Moore says he's studied Orwell's complete works for over a decade. 
(Supplied: Darcy Moore)

Darcy Moore's deep interest in George Orwell was seeded at school when he read key texts.

But it deepened about 10 years ago after Mr Moore obtained and read, chronologically, the complete works, including a series of letters of George Orwell.

"It was clear there were huge gaps in our knowledge even though this amount of effort had been put into collecting his work," he said.

"I am in very deep now. I have spent so much time doing this and there are so many questions.

"I guess I should be sick of it now, but I feel excited by trying to find out more things about Orwell.

"The things I am discovering are changing my understanding, but I also think over the longer term they will change our understanding."

Orwell in India and Burma

Eric Arthur Blair was born in 1903 in Motihari in northern British India, where his father worked for the Indian Civil Service.

He returned to England at a young age to attend a boarding school. He later attended Wellington and Eton Colleges, then returned to the subcontinent in 1922 to take up a position with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma.

Mr Moore travelled to Orwell's birthplace to further research his past.

"Orwell was an Anglo-Indian. In other words, he was part of a class of people that for centuries went to India and Ceylon and Burma and were servants of empire," Mr Moore said.

Darcy Moore is currently retracing Orwell's past during through a series of trips. (Supplied: Darcy Moore)

"I went to where he was born, Motihari, and also to where his parents married, Nainital, and I got into the Indian archives.

"I found documents about his father who was an opium agent, a controversial job to say the least, and that wasn't really mentioned during his lifetime at all."

Morocco pilgrimage reveals more

Mr Moore's travels in search of Orwell's past have also taken him to Paris, where he has mapped the locations Orwell visited and what he did there, with some of the information to be included in an upcoming book.

Mr Moore's current search has taken him to Marrakesh in Morocco with Richard Blair, Orwell's son and Quentin, the son of Georges Kopp, who was Orwell's commander when he fought in the Spanish Civil War.

 Mr Moore said it was a good opportunity to do some more research.

"As you know, Orwell died of tuberculosis and he went to Marrakech. He went to Morocco to try to get away from the London winter, which is not really conducive to breathing so well," Mr Moore said.

"There's a few of us. They [Orwell's family and colleagues] have been endlessly generous to me, so if I have got questions or need contacts, they really have assisted.”

First published at ABC News Illawarra, November 5, 2024