Life
1889-1965 [Helen Jane; sometime called ‘the darling of Ulster’],
b. 31 May, Tokyo, dg. of Hugh Waddell, Presbyterian minister and orientalist;
br. Samuel Waddell (Rutherford Mayne), and collateral descendent of Mayne
Reid; family home at Cappoquin; returned to Belfast, 1900 [aetat. 10];
mother died of typhoid before return of father, who then married Martha
Waddell, his cousin, and died in 1901, leaving 10 stepchildren to her
care; ed. Victoria Colleges [School], TCD, BA and MA (MA thesis, ‘Milton,
the Epicurist’); wrote bible stories for children while tending to
her stepmother; entered Oxford 1919, (Ph.D. in Medieval French); Cassell
Lecturer, St Hilda’s College, 1921; taught at Bedford Coll., 1922;
free-lance; first female member RSoc. Literature [?1932]; hon. degree
Durham; hon. degrees from QUB and Columbia, 1934; lionised as England’s
most distinguished woman in the 1930s; encouraged Patrick Kavanagh to
write The Green Fool (1938); asst. ed. of The Nineteenth Century
Journal, 1938; wrote patriotic poems and served as Air Raid warden
in WWII London, her own house being bombed; translated articles for Free
French writer “Jacques”, published as A French Soldier Speaks
(Constable 1941); retired 1945; ‘Poetry in the Dark Ages’ was
her W. P. Ker lecture at University of Glasgow, 28 Oct. 1947, a brilliant
success; died, 1965; published Wandering Scholars (1927); issued
Medieval Latin Lyrics (1929); trans. Abbé Prévost’s
Histoire de Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut (1931); and
Book of Medieval Latin for Schools (1931); translations from Latin,
Beasts and Saints (1934), trans. of extracts from medieval lives;
The Desert Fathers (1936); also, Stories from Holy Writ
(1949), written for children 30 years earlier, and brought out by Otto
Kyllmann of Constable; original member IAL, 1926; also Royal Society for
Literature, first woman (1931); d. Mar 1965, bur., Magherally churchyard,
[poss. Magheralin], Co. Down; there is a portrait in oil by Grace Henry.
NCBE DIB DIW DIL OCEL KUN ATT DUB OCIL.
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Works
Poetry, Lyrics from the Chinese, by Shih Ching (London: Constable
1913, 1915) [trans. of 600 b.c. poetry from Court of Soo]; New York
City (Wales: Gregynog Press 1935) [long poem]; trans. Milton’s
Epithalamiom Damonis, Lament for Damon (London: Constable 1943).
Fiction, Peter Abelard (London: Constable 1933), 304pp.; Do., another ed. (NY: Henry Holt & Co. [1949]); Stories from Holy Writ (London: Constable 1949) [stories written 30 years earlier]; The Princess Splendour and Other Stories (Longmans Young Books 1969).
Plays, The Spoiled Buddha, play in two acts [prod. Ulster Theatre 1915] (Dublin: Talbot Press; London: T. Fisher Unwin 1919); The Abbé Prévost, play (London: Constable 1933).
Prose, The Hollow Field, trans. from M. Aymé (London: Constable 1923) [?prose]; The Wandering Scholars (London: Constable 1927), history of and translations from Goliards; Do. [another ed., rev. & enl. (1932), another ed. (1949), another ed. (Penguin 1954) [DIL 1931]; Book of Medieval Latin for Schools (London: Constable 1929), another ed. (1931); trans. Abbé Prévost d’Exiles, The History of the Chevalier des Grieux and of Manon Lescaut (London: Constable 1931), another edn. (1950); Beasts and Saints (London: Constable 1934), trans. of extracts from medieval lives]; Desert Fathers (Constable 1936), trans. from Vitae Patrum; ‘Poetry in the Dark Ages’ [W. P. Ker lecture at University of Glasgow, 28 Oct. 1947] (Glasgow: Jackson 1947); trans. Sedulius Scotus, Life of St. Brigit (Constable [q.d.]). Miscellaneous, Preface to W. Haughton Crowe, New Education for Old (Belfast: William Mullan & Son MCMXLIV [1954]), pp.9-11 (‘London, 1944’).
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Criticism
Monica Blackett, The Mark of The Maker [Biography of Helen Waddell]
(London: Constable 1973).
Felicitas Corrigan, ‘Helen Waddell, Scholar and Author’, in George O’Brien and Peter Roebuck, eds., Nine Ulster Lives (Ulster Hist. Foundation 1992), pp.53-72.
Dame Felicitas Corrigan, OSB, Helen Waddell, A Biography (q.d).
Norman Vance, Helen Waddell: Presbyterian Medievalist [Robert Allen Memorial Lecture] (Belfast: Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland l996), 20pp.
Irish Book Lover, Vol. 5.
David Burleigh, ed., Helen Waddell's Literary Writings from Japan (Dublin: IAP 2005), 224pp.
Books Ireland, April 1993.
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Notes
Robert Hogan, ed., Dictionary of Irish Literature (Dublin:
Gill & Macmillan 1979),, gives bio-data: b. 31 May; returned to Ulster,
1900; attended Victoria College and QUB, BA 1991, English MA, 1912; postponed
further study at Oxford till 1919, caring for her stepmother; wrote children’s
bible stories for Presbyterian weekly, and wartime propaganda for Manchester
Guardian, &c.; taught Latin at Somerville, 1920-22; Ca[s]sell Lecturer
at St Hilda’s, 1921; Susette Taylor Travelling Fellowship, 2 years;
briefly lectured at Bedford, 1923; moved to London; lectures and BBC work;
DLitt, Durham; IAL, 1932; joined Constable and Co. as literary advisor;
unable to recognise her closest friends by 1955. The Wandering Scholars
is a study of Europe’s ‘real’ Renaissance at Chartres,
Orleans, Paris, in the 12th c., and its bye-product, Ordo Vagorum, the
bohemian literati of the day. Medieval Latin Lyrics is a collection of
literature from fall of Rome to the Cluniac Movt. Peter Abelard
is criticised as a scholar’s work, failing to confront realities
of the day.
Belfast Central Library holds Peter Abelard (1933, many rep. to 1976); Wandering Scholars (1927).
Peter Abelard (1933), a novel in four books, ends ‘“Curiosa
dolore plaga nostra curata est; et lapsus nostros laina ruina suscepit [ By whose grief our wound is healed; by whose ruin our fall was stayed]”.
I wonder. Is that what men have asked of God?’ (p.304.)
Times Letter: Helen Waddell wrote to The Times objecting to the denial of reprieve for six youths sentenced for killing a policeman, since House of Lords was not in session: ‘is the memory of a kindly Ulster policeman to become a thing of horror in men’s minds ... thanks to the savagery of his avengers?’; and was answered by Dorothy L. Sayers, ‘no Irish person ever understood the majesty of England and lost no [sic] chance to vilify it.’ (P. J. Kavanagh, Voices in Ireland, 1994, p.17.)
Patrick Kavanagh, on reaching London: ‘Miss Helen Waddell was in, and in to a stranded poet. she received me as the prodigal was received.’ (The Green Fool; both the foregoing cited in Kavanagh, op. cit., p.47.) See also Helen Waddell’s recollection: ‘I quickly ascertained that there was a fund of rural reminiscence [...] not yet tapped in his writing.’ (Quoted in Antoinette Gibbons, Patrick Kavanagh, Gill & Macmillan 2001, p.13; cited in Claire Callan, UG Diss, UCC 2003.)
Portraits: Helen Waddell by Grace Henry, lent Mrs Martin; see Anne Crookshank, Irish Portraits Exhibition Cat. (Ulster Mus. 1965), Helen Waddell, Somerville Coll, Oxford, Lecturer St. Hilda’s Hall, 1922-23; Lectures at Bedford College, London.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)