Ida (Limouzin) Blair
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Ida Mabel (Limouzin) Blair (1875 - 1943)

Ida Mabel Blair formerly Limouzin
Born in Penge, Surrey, Englandmap
Ancestors ancestors
[sibling(s) unknown]
Wife of — married 1896 in Tetha, Bihar, Indiamap
Descendants descendants
Died at age 67 in Hampstead, London, Englandmap
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Profile last modified | Created 27 Jun 2014
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Biography

Ida was born in Penge on the Southern outskirts of London on 18 May 1875 while her parents were on holiday visiting the Hallileys there. Ida Limouzin grew up in Moulmein in Lower Burma.

She became an assistant mistress in the girls' department of a boys' school in Naini Tul, a hill station over 6,000 feet in the North-West Province of India.Naini Tul, was a popular summer resort for Europeans and a retreat for the provincial government in the hot season. There she met Richard Blair. He was 39 and still a lowly Sub-Deputy opium agent while Ida was 22. He was a staid, somewhat philistine British colonel while Ida was a high spirited, vivacious woman with a lively intelligence. He was over 6 ft tall with clear blue eyes and rather chubby cheeks. She was dark and pretty with a ready smile and an exotic taste in dress.

They were married at Church of St John in the wilderness on 15 Jun 1897, with Ida's sister Blanche as bridesmaid. The move to the sweltering, disease-ridden district of Gaya must have been something of a shock. Children

  1. Marjorie Frances Blair 21 Apr 1898 - 03 May 1946
  2. Eric Arthur Blair 25 Jun 1903 - 21 January 1950
  3. Avril Nora Blair 06 April 1908 - 11 January 1978

She passed away on 19 March 1943 of a heart attack, age 67.

"Perhaps the best bit of luck that Richard Blair had was his marriage. He married in 1896, at the age of 39, Ida Mabel Limouzin who was 21. She ahd been born in Penge near London, then a semi-rural, new residential suburb (as painted by Camille Pissarro). Her mother was English and her father French, and she had lived most of her life until marriage in Moulmein, Burma, where her father kept up a business, founded by his father, as teak merchant and boat-builder, but later lost much of his money speculating in rice. Her mother, a woman of strong character and considerable intelligence, was still very much alive when her grandson, Eric Blair, went to Burma in 1922. Ida Blair, eighteen years younger than her husband, was a more lively, unconventional, widely read and in every way a more interesting person (all her grandchildren agree)."

"Ida Blair took their two young children back to England, as was then quite common, some time in 1904. They settled temporarily in a house called Ermadale in Vicarage Road, Henley-on-Thames, in Oxfordshire, leaving it in April 1905 for another, slightly larger, rented home, The Nutshell, Western Road. Richard Blair did not see them again until 1907, when he was given three months' leave on his final promotion from Sub-Deputy Opium Agent, second grade, to Sub-Deputy Opium Agent, first grade. Avril was conceived at this time. He returned to Monghyr before she was born and did not rejoin his family until his retirement, four years later. This arrangement would not have been thought of as anything extrodinary. Nearly all 'Anglo-Indians' (the British in India) saw the advantages of bringing up even younger children in England despite, it was a commonplace to note, the inevitable fall in the standard of living and of services, the perennial servant problem. From now on Ida Blair kept house with a non-resident daily, neither a cook nor a parlour-maid even, thus doing much of the work herself, an arragement that she perhaps thought a fair price to pay for the greater liberty of being 'home' (if nowhere in particular) at last. Such years of seperation enabled Ida to prepare a good home for her husband's eventual retirement. Perhaps there were also specific worries about Eric's health that kept Mrs. Blair in England."

Sources


  • George Orwell By Gordon Bowker
  • George Orwell: A Life by Bernard Crick




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DNA Connections
It may be possible to confirm family relationships with Ida by comparing test results with other carriers of her mitochondrial DNA. However, there are no known mtDNA test-takers in her direct maternal line. It is likely that these autosomal DNA test-takers will share some percentage of DNA with Ida:

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Comments: 2

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Francis Limouzin was my g-grand fathers brother

Joseph Limouzin

Ida Blair was my grandmothers sister, making her my aunt.

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