John Seymour (author)
Encyclopedia
John Seymour was an influential figure in the self-sufficiency
movement. Precise categorisation is difficult: he was a writer, broadcaster, environmentalist
, agrarian
, smallholder
and activist; a rebel against: consumerism
, industrialisation
, genetically modified organisms, cities, motor cars; and an advocate for: self-reliance
, personal responsibility, self-sufficiency, conviviality (food, drink, dancing and singing), gardening, caring for the Earth and for the soil.
, England
; his father died when he was very young, his mother remarried and the family moved to Frinton-on-Sea
in north-east Essex
. A fashionable seaside town with a golf club, a tennis club and a population of 2,000 might seem an unlikely place to develop Seymour's later philosophy of life. It was however surrounded by agricultural land, where the horse was king; the sea was on his doorstep, there were quiet backwaters where he could learn to sail within a couple of miles of his home. The life led by those on the land and in small boats would have laid a foundation for his later vision of a simple cottage economy with farming and fishing providing the essentials of life.
After schooling in England and Switzerland Seymour studied agriculture at Wye College
, which was then a school of the University of London.
In 1934, at the age of 20, he went to Southern Africa
where his wish to experience life took him in through a succession of jobs: as a farmhand and then manager of a sheep farm, a deckhand and skipper of a fishing boat operating from Namibia
(then South-West Africa), a copper mine worker in Zambia
(then Northern Rhodesia
) and for the government veterinary service. Whilst in Africa he spent some time with bushmen
where he gained friendship and an insight into the life of hunter gatherers.
in 1939, John Seymour travelled to Kenya
where he enlisted in the Kenya Regiment
and was posted to the King's African Rifles
, a colonial regiment of the British army with white officers. He fought with them against Italy
in the Abyssinian Campaign
in Ethiopia
. After defeating the Italians, the regiment was posted to Sri Lanka
(then a British colony called Ceylon) and afterwards to Burma, where allied forces were fighting against Japan
. For Seymour the war ended on a low note; he expressed his disgust when the Allies used fission bombs on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki.
On arrival in Britain after the war Seymour worked for a while on a Thames sailing barge
. These traditional craft were still operating around the south and east coasts of England
. Here he picked up the folk songs of a disappearing occupation. After working as a civil servant (labour officer for the Agricultural Committee) finding agricultural work for German prisoners of war (some had still not returned home in 1950) he found an opening into broadcasting when he created a series of short programmes on the BBC
Home Service
(now Radio 4
), speaking on subjects that interested him. He then travelled overland to India
for the BBC gaining experience of the subsistence farming
still common in eastern Europe and Asia. His experiences on this journey led to his first book, The Hard Way to India, published in 1951.
sailing smack
when he married Sally Medworth, an Australia
n potter
and artist, in 1954. In this they travelled around the waterways and rivers of England
and Holland
, journeys later described in Sailing through England. As their first daughter grew older they felt that a land-base would be more suitable. They leased two isolated cottage
s on 5 acres (2 ha) of land near Orford
in Suffolk. The manner in which they fell into self-sufficiency
on this smallholding
is recounted in The Fat of the Land (1961). At the end of the 1960s John Seymour with other radical voices like Herbert Read
, Edward Goldsmith
and Fritz Schumacher provided a stream of articles for the journal Resurgence
edited from 1966–1970 by John Papworth.
In 1963 the family moved to a farm near Newport in Pembrokeshire. The 1970s saw Seymour's publication rate reach a maximum, In 1976 The Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency was published, a guide for real and dreaming downshifter
s. Published shortly after E. F. Schumacher
's Small is Beautiful - a study of economics as if people mattered (1973) and, more mundanely, The Good Life's first showing on British television (1975), the sales of the new book exceeded all expectations. It was also set to establish the reputation of two young publishers, Christopher Dorling and Peter Kindersley
who had commissioned and edited the work. His writing was not restricted to self-sufficiency: he wrote four guide books in the Companion Guide series and was now being asked to speak of his vision at conferences.
In the 1970s and 1980s he was also making television programmes: an early series followed the footsteps of George Borrow
's Wild Wales (1862), later he spent three years making the BBC series Far From Paradise (with Herbert Girardet
) which examined the history of human impact on the environment
.
His farm in Wales welcomed visitors seeking guidance on the smallholders life, a project which expanded to the School for Self-Sufficiency when he moved to County Wexford in Ireland during the 1980s. Here in 1999 he was taken to court for damaging a crop of GM sugar beet.
John lived back on his old Pembrokeshire farm with his daughter's family for the last years of his life. He died on September 14, 2004.
Self-sufficiency
Self-sufficiency refers to the state of not requiring any outside aid, support, or interaction, for survival; it is therefore a type of personal or collective autonomy...
movement. Precise categorisation is difficult: he was a writer, broadcaster, environmentalist
Environmentalist
An environmentalist broadly supports the goals of the environmental movement, "a political and ethical movement that seeks to improve and protect the quality of the natural environment through changes to environmentally harmful human activities"...
, agrarian
Agrarianism
Agrarianism has two common meanings. The first meaning refers to a social philosophy or political philosophy which values rural society as superior to urban society, the independent farmer as superior to the paid worker, and sees farming as a way of life that can shape the ideal social values...
, smallholder
Smallholding
A smallholding is a farm of small size.In third world countries, smallholdings are usually farms supporting a single family with a mixture of cash crops and subsistence farming. As a country becomes more affluent and farming practices become more efficient, smallholdings may persist as a legacy of...
and activist; a rebel against: consumerism
Consumerism
Consumerism is a social and economic order that is based on the systematic creation and fostering of a desire to purchase goods and services in ever greater amounts. The term is often associated with criticisms of consumption starting with Thorstein Veblen...
, industrialisation
Industrialisation
Industrialization is the process of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial one...
, genetically modified organisms, cities, motor cars; and an advocate for: self-reliance
Self-Reliance
Self-Reliance is an essay written by American Transcendentalist philosopher and essayist, Ralph Waldo Emerson. It contains the most thorough statement of one of Emerson's repeating themes, the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false consistency, and follow his or her own instincts...
, personal responsibility, self-sufficiency, conviviality (food, drink, dancing and singing), gardening, caring for the Earth and for the soil.
Early life
John Seymour was born in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
; his father died when he was very young, his mother remarried and the family moved to Frinton-on-Sea
Frinton-on-Sea
Frinton-on-Sea is a small seaside town in the Tendring District of Essex, England. It is part of the Parish of Frinton and Walton.-History:...
in north-east Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
. A fashionable seaside town with a golf club, a tennis club and a population of 2,000 might seem an unlikely place to develop Seymour's later philosophy of life. It was however surrounded by agricultural land, where the horse was king; the sea was on his doorstep, there were quiet backwaters where he could learn to sail within a couple of miles of his home. The life led by those on the land and in small boats would have laid a foundation for his later vision of a simple cottage economy with farming and fishing providing the essentials of life.
After schooling in England and Switzerland Seymour studied agriculture at Wye College
Wye College
The College of St. Gregory and St. Martin at Wye, more commonly known as Wye College, was an educational institution in Kent, United Kingdom. It was founded in 1447 by John Kempe, the Archbishop of York, as a college for the training of priests. It is located in the small village of Wye, Kent, 60...
, which was then a school of the University of London.
In 1934, at the age of 20, he went to Southern Africa
Southern Africa
Southern Africa is the southernmost region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. Within the region are numerous territories, including the Republic of South Africa ; nowadays, the simpler term South Africa is generally reserved for the country in English.-UN...
where his wish to experience life took him in through a succession of jobs: as a farmhand and then manager of a sheep farm, a deckhand and skipper of a fishing boat operating from Namibia
Namibia
Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia , is a country in southern Africa whose western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. It gained independence from South Africa on 21 March...
(then South-West Africa), a copper mine worker in Zambia
Zambia
Zambia , officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west....
(then Northern Rhodesia
Northern Rhodesia
Northern Rhodesia was a territory in south central Africa, formed in 1911. It became independent in 1964 as Zambia.It was initially administered under charter by the British South Africa Company and formed by it in 1911 by amalgamating North-Western Rhodesia and North-Eastern Rhodesia...
) and for the government veterinary service. Whilst in Africa he spent some time with bushmen
Bushmen
The indigenous people of Southern Africa, whose territory spans most areas of South Africa, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia, and Angola, are variously referred to as Bushmen, San, Sho, Barwa, Kung, or Khwe...
where he gained friendship and an insight into the life of hunter gatherers.
1939 to 1951
At the start of World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
in 1939, John Seymour travelled to Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
where he enlisted in the Kenya Regiment
Kenya Regiment
The Kenya Regiment was formed in 1937 and disbanded in May 1963.Volunteers were recalled in about 1950, with European settlers making up the main force. At the end of 1950 a call-up of eighteen-year-olds was introduced as the Mau Mau uprising was beginning...
and was posted to the King's African Rifles
King's African Rifles
The King's African Rifles was a multi-battalion British colonial regiment raised from the various British possessions in East Africa from 1902 until independence in the 1960s. It performed both military and internal security functions within the East African colonies as well as external service as...
, a colonial regiment of the British army with white officers. He fought with them against Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
in the Abyssinian Campaign
East African Campaign (World War II)
The East African Campaign was a series of battles fought in East Africa during World War II by the British Empire, the British Commonwealth of Nations and several allies against the forces of Italy from June 1940 to November 1941....
in Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
. After defeating the Italians, the regiment was posted to Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
(then a British colony called Ceylon) and afterwards to Burma, where allied forces were fighting against Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. For Seymour the war ended on a low note; he expressed his disgust when the Allies used fission bombs on Hiroshima
Hiroshima
is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It became best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M...
and Nagasaki.
On arrival in Britain after the war Seymour worked for a while on a Thames sailing barge
Thames sailing barge
A Thames sailing barge was a type of commercial sailing boat common on the River Thames in London in the 19th century. The flat-bottomed barges were perfectly adapted to the Thames Estuary, with its shallow waters and narrow rivers....
. These traditional craft were still operating around the south and east coasts of England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. Here he picked up the folk songs of a disappearing occupation. After working as a civil servant (labour officer for the Agricultural Committee) finding agricultural work for German prisoners of war (some had still not returned home in 1950) he found an opening into broadcasting when he created a series of short programmes on the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
Home Service
BBC Home Service
The BBC Home Service was a British national radio station which broadcast from 1939 until 1967.-Development:Between the 1920s and the outbreak of The Second World War, the BBC had developed two nationwide radio services, the BBC National Programme and the BBC Regional Programme...
(now Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
), speaking on subjects that interested him. He then travelled overland to India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
for the BBC gaining experience of the subsistence farming
Subsistence agriculture
Subsistence agriculture is self-sufficiency farming in which the farmers focus on growing enough food to feed their families. The typical subsistence farm has a range of crops and animals needed by the family to eat and clothe themselves during the year. Planting decisions are made with an eye...
still common in eastern Europe and Asia. His experiences on this journey led to his first book, The Hard Way to India, published in 1951.
The Smallholdings
Seymour was living aboard a DutchNetherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
sailing smack
Smack (ship)
A smack was a traditional fishing boat used off the coast of England and the Atlantic coast of America for most of the 19th century, and even in small numbers up to the Second World War. It was originally a cutter rigged sailing boat until about 1865, when the smacks became so large that cutter...
when he married Sally Medworth, an Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n potter
Pottery
Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...
and artist, in 1954. In this they travelled around the waterways and rivers of England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and Holland
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, journeys later described in Sailing through England. As their first daughter grew older they felt that a land-base would be more suitable. They leased two isolated cottage
Cottage
__toc__In modern usage, a cottage is usually a modest, often cozy dwelling, typically in a rural or semi-rural location. However there are cottage-style dwellings in cities, and in places such as Canada the term exists with no connotations of size at all...
s on 5 acres (2 ha) of land near Orford
Orford, Suffolk
Orford is a small town in Suffolk, England, within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths AONB.Like many Suffolk coastal towns it was of some importance as a port and fishing village in the Middle Ages. It still has a fine mediaeval castle, built to dominate the River Ore.The main geographical feature of the...
in Suffolk. The manner in which they fell into self-sufficiency
Self-sufficiency
Self-sufficiency refers to the state of not requiring any outside aid, support, or interaction, for survival; it is therefore a type of personal or collective autonomy...
on this smallholding
Smallholding
A smallholding is a farm of small size.In third world countries, smallholdings are usually farms supporting a single family with a mixture of cash crops and subsistence farming. As a country becomes more affluent and farming practices become more efficient, smallholdings may persist as a legacy of...
is recounted in The Fat of the Land (1961). At the end of the 1960s John Seymour with other radical voices like Herbert Read
Herbert Read
Sir Herbert Edward Read, DSO, MC was an English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art. He was one of the earliest English writers to take notice of existentialism, and was strongly influenced by proto-existentialist thinker Max Stirner....
, Edward Goldsmith
Edward Goldsmith
Edward René David Goldsmith , widely known as Teddy Goldsmith, was an Anglo-French environmentalist, writer and philosopher....
and Fritz Schumacher provided a stream of articles for the journal Resurgence
Resurgence
Resurgence is a British bi-monthly magazine which has been described as the artistic and spiritual voice of the green movement in Great Britain. Resurgence was founded in the 1960s by John Papworth....
edited from 1966–1970 by John Papworth.
In 1963 the family moved to a farm near Newport in Pembrokeshire. The 1970s saw Seymour's publication rate reach a maximum, In 1976 The Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency was published, a guide for real and dreaming downshifter
Downshifting
Downshifting is a social behavior or trend in which individuals live simpler lives to escape from the rat race of obsessive materialism and to reduce the “stress, overtime, and psychological expense that may accompany it.” It emphasizes finding an improved balance between leisure and work and...
s. Published shortly after E. F. Schumacher
E. F. Schumacher
Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher was an internationally influential economic thinker, statistician and economist in Britain, serving as Chief Economic Advisor to the UK National Coal Board for two decades. His ideas became popularized in much of the English-speaking world during the 1970s...
's Small is Beautiful - a study of economics as if people mattered (1973) and, more mundanely, The Good Life's first showing on British television (1975), the sales of the new book exceeded all expectations. It was also set to establish the reputation of two young publishers, Christopher Dorling and Peter Kindersley
Dorling Kindersley
Dorling Kindersley is an international publishing company specializing in illustrated reference books for adults and children in 51 languages. It is currently part of the Penguin Group....
who had commissioned and edited the work. His writing was not restricted to self-sufficiency: he wrote four guide books in the Companion Guide series and was now being asked to speak of his vision at conferences.
In the 1970s and 1980s he was also making television programmes: an early series followed the footsteps of George Borrow
George Borrow
George Henry Borrow was an English author who wrote novels and travelogues based on his own experiences around Europe. Over the course of his wanderings, he developed a close affinity with the Romani people of Europe. They figure prominently in his work...
's Wild Wales (1862), later he spent three years making the BBC series Far From Paradise (with Herbert Girardet
Herbert Girardet
Herbert Girardet is co-founder of the World Future Council. His ten books include Earthrise , The Gaia Atlas of Cities , Creating Sustainable Cities , Cities, People, Planet , Shaping our Future , and Surviving the Century...
) which examined the history of human impact on the environment
Environment (biophysical)
The biophysical environment is the combined modeling of the physical environment and the biological life forms within the environment, and includes all variables, parameters as well as conditions and modes inside the Earth's biosphere. The biophysical environment can be divided into two categories:...
.
His farm in Wales welcomed visitors seeking guidance on the smallholders life, a project which expanded to the School for Self-Sufficiency when he moved to County Wexford in Ireland during the 1980s. Here in 1999 he was taken to court for damaging a crop of GM sugar beet.
John lived back on his old Pembrokeshire farm with his daughter's family for the last years of his life. He died on September 14, 2004.
The Memory
John Seymour spoke and wrote with a memorable turn of phrase, with humour and, not shrinking from technical detail, a chemical formula where it made an explanation clearer. Television provided a means of leaving more memories: like that of him quoting George Borrow as he tramped across a wet Welsh upland under a battered umbrella.- John was as much at home in the humblest house on a hillside, as in the manor house of landed gentry. He was like a force of nature, always willing to listen, always interested in learning about new - or very old - ways of working the land. He was a one-man rebellion against modernism ... Herbert Girardet, 2005.
External links
- http://www.carninglipress.co.uk/ John Seymour's family website containing information on John and Sally as well as their extended family
- John Seymour - Obituary from The Times