# Carole Seymour-Jones

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**Carole Veronica Gillian Seymour-Jones** (3 March 1943 – 23 May 2015) was a Welsh writer. She taught history at [Surrey University](/source/Surrey_University). She wrote biographies of [Beatrice Webb](/source/Beatrice_Webb) and [Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot](/source/Vivienne_Haigh-Wood_Eliot).

## Biography

Seymour-Jones was born in [Towyn](/source/Towyn), north-west Wales, the daughter of a prominent surgeon. She was raised in [Southsea](/source/Southsea).[1] She studied history at [Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford](/source/Lady_Margaret_Hall,_Oxford), but left after her first year, under family pressure, to marry the stockbroker Robert Bigland. She completed her history degree with the [Open University](/source/Open_University), while raising four children, and later gained her master's degree at [Sussex University](/source/Sussex_University).[1] She taught history to adults at [Surrey University](/source/Surrey_University) and to [sixth formers](/source/Sixth_formers).[2]

Although she had been writing educational books for some years, Seymour-Jones' career as a biographer began after the breakup of her first marriage after 26 years in the early 1990s.[1][3] She was the author of *[Beatrice Webb](/source/Beatrice_Webb): A Life* (1992); *Painted Shadow: The Life of [Vivienne Eliot](/source/Vivienne_Eliot), First Wife of [T.S. Eliot](/source/T.S._Eliot)* (2001), which she wrote as a visiting fellow at the [University of Texas at Austin](/source/University_of_Texas_at_Austin); and *A Dangerous Liaison* (2009), about the relationship between [Simone de Beauvoir](/source/Simone_de_Beauvoir) and [Jean-Paul Sartre](/source/Jean-Paul_Sartre). She also wrote a biography of SOE agent [Pearl Witherington](/source/Pearl_Witherington), *She Landed By Moonlight: The Story of Secret Agent Pearl Witherington: the 'real Charlotte Gray'* (2013). She wrote for the *[New Statesman](/source/New_Statesman)* and the *[Times Higher Education Supplement](/source/Times_Higher_Education_Supplement)*, and was co-editor of *Writers Under Siege: Voices of Freedom from Around the World* (2007). She served on the executive committee of the English [PEN](/source/International_PEN), the writers' association, from 1997 to 2001, sat on its Books to Prisoners Committee, and chaired its Writers in Prison Committee.[2]

## Marriage

Seymour-Jones met the probation officer and radio playwright Geoffrey Parkinson in 1992; the couple married in 2012. Parkinson died in 2014;[1][4] Seymour-Jones died on 23 May 2015.[3]

## References

1. ["Carole Seymour-Jones, biographer - obituary"](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/11696440/Carole-Seymour-Jones-biographer-obituary.html), *Daily Telegraph*, 24 June 2015

1. [Committee Chairs](http://www.englishpen.org/aboutenglishpen/staffandofficers/committeechairs/) [Archived](https://web.archive.org/web/20110613205218/http://www.englishpen.org/aboutenglishpen/staffandofficers/committeechairs/) 13 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine, PEN, accessed 11 November 2009.

1. ["Carole Seymour-Jones"](https://www.thetimes.com/article/carole-seymour-jones-5j9cnpj9grz), *The Times*, 30 May 2015, reprinted on [Seymour Jones website](http://caroleseymourjones.com/) [Archived](https://web.archive.org/web/20150801095347/http://caroleseymourjones.com/) 1 August 2015 at the Wayback Machine.

1. Kate Parkinson ["Geoffrey Parkinson obituary"](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/oct/07/geoffery-parkinson-obituary), *The Guardian*, 7 October 2014

## Further reading

- Seymour-Jones, Carole (2001). [*Painted Shadow: The Life of Vivienne Eliot, First Wife of T. S. Eliot*](http://www.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=193222), Knopf Publishing Group.
- Seymour-Jones, Carole (14 October 2001). [Tom and Viv... and Bertie](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/oct/14/features.review), *The Observer*.
- Seymour-Jones, Carole (26 October 2001). [Not crazy after all these years](http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=165448), *Times Higher Education*.
- Mulley, Clare (13 July 2013). [She Landed by Moonlight (book review)](https://www.spectator.com.au/2013/07/she-landed-by-moonlight-by-carole-seymour-jones-review/), *The Spectator*.

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