Alfred Richard Orage

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Alfred Richard Orage bigraphy, stories - Journalists

Alfred Richard Orage : biography

22 January 1873 – 6 November 1934

Alfred Richard Orage (22 January 1873 – 6 November 1934) was a British intellectual, now best known for editing the magazine The New Age. While working as a schoolteacher in Leeds, he pursued various interests, including Plato, the Independent Labour Party, and theosophy. In 1900 Orage met Holbrook Jackson and three years later they co-founded the Leeds Arts Club, which became a centre of modernist culture in pre-World War I Britain. In 1905, Orage resigned his teaching position and moved to London. There, in 1907, he bought and edited the English weekly The New Age, at first with Holbrook Jackson, and became an influential figure in socialist politics and modernist culture, especially at the height of the magazine’s fame before the First World War.

In 1924 Orage sold The New Age and went to France to work with George Gurdjieff, the spiritual teacher P. D. Ouspensky had recommended to him. After spending some time of preliminary training in the Gurdjieff System, Orage was sent to America by Gurdjieff himself to raise funds and lecture on the new system of self-development which emphasized the harmonious work of intellectual, emotional and moving functions. Orage also worked with Gurdjieff in translating the first version of Gurdjieff’s All and Everything as well as Meetings With Remarkable Men from Russian to English; however, neither book was ever published in their lifetime.

In 1927 his first wife, Jean, granted him a divorce and in September he married Jessie Richards Dwight (1901–1985), the co-owner of the Sunwise Turn bookshop where Orage first lectured on the Gurdjieff System. Orage and Jessie had two children, a boy and a girl: Richard and Ann. While in New York, Orage and Jessie often catered to celebrities such as Paul Robeson fresh from his London Tour. In 1930, Orage returned to England and in 1931 he published the New English Weekly, remaining in London until his death on 6 November 1934.

Last years

In May 1930, Orage returned to England and became seriously involved with political issues and was paramount in re-sparking interest in the Social Credit Movement. He was temporarily back in New York on 8 January 1931 to meet Gurdjieff’s new demands. As Orage would confess to his wife, he would not be teaching the Gurdjieff System to any group past the end of the Spring. Orage was on the pier on 13 March 1931 to bid Gurdjieff farewell on his way back to France; the Orages sailed back to England on 3 July of the same year. Back in England, Orage founded a new journal, The New English Weekly, in April 1932. By the beginning of 1933, The New English Weekly was an established success with the critics but the economic effects of the Great Depression made it difficult as a monetary venture; they were hard put for money. On 18 May 1933, Orage published Dylan Thomas first poem, And Death Shall Have No Dominion. On September 1933, Jessie gave birth to a daughter, Ann. On January 1934, Senator Bronson Cutting presented before the Senate of the United States Orage’s Social Credit Plan as one of the tools of Roosevelt’s economic policies; the news appeared in the 2 February issue of The New English Weekly. At the beginning of August 1934, Gurdjieff asked Orage to revise a new edition of The Herald of Coming Good. On 20 August, Orage wrote his last letter to Gurdjieff: "Dear Mr. Gurdjieff, I’ve found very little to revise…"

Toward the end of his life, Orage was attacked by a severe pain below the heart, an ailment that had been diagnosed a couple of years back as simply functional and he did not again seek medical advice.

He was working on Social Credit and prepared a speech to be broadcast on "Property in Plenty". During the broadcast, he experienced an excruciating pain but continued the speech as if nothing were happening. After leaving the studio, he spent the evening with his wife and friends and made plans to see the doctor next day. On reaching home after midnight, he went to bed and died in his sleep.Philip Mairet A. R. Orage, A Memoir, pp. 118-120, University Books, 1966 ASIN: B000Q0VV8E; 1st ed. 1936