Francesca Allinson

Allinson wrote the semi-autobiographical book A Childhood which was published by Hogarth Press in 1937.[3]

She was a musician, a puppeteer, a conductor with the London Labour Choral Union,[4] and wrote extensively on the origins of English folk song, clashing with the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams on the subject.[5] She published editions of Henry Purcell and Orlando Gibbons and her unpublished manuscript on the Irish origins of English folksong is held at the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library.[1]

Allinson was a pacifist and established a community farm in East Grinstead, Surrey, where conscientious objectors worked during World War II.[6]

Her circle of friends and collaborators included the composer Alan Bush, artists Enid Marx and Wilfred Franks, music critic John Amis and poet Douglas Newton.[7] She was a close friend of the composer Michael Tippett who dedicated two of his compositions to her, Piano Sonata no.1 (1936–38) and The Heart's Assurance (1950-51); the latter was written in response to Allinson's death.[8][9] In old age Tippett was asked if he had ever been close to a woman, he replied, "Oh yes. Indeed. All through my life, Francesca Allinson, who I was closer to than almost anybody. It was a strange, tender, extremely tender, gentle relationship."[10]

Through much of the 1930s Allinson was involved in a same-sex relationship with Judith Wogan,[11] a producer of plays and owner of the Grafton Theatre on London's Tottenham Court Road.[12]

Allinson died in 1945 by suicide by drowning in the River Stour in Clare, Suffolk.[1][13] She left suicide notes for both Tippett and Wogan, the one left for Tippett included the following:

"Darling - it's no good - I can't hold on any longer. One has to be a better and stronger character than me to be able to face a life of individualism... I have thought endlessly about whether it is wrong - and perhaps it is. But one would have to feel very sure about its wrongness to go on existing as a helpless unhelping unit in the terrible post-war years that are to come... If we have to live many lives, may I live near those I now love again and make a better job of living... I can't live without the warm enfolding love of another person - and in this life I have smashed up the chance of that (in my love too). Darling forgive me. I am so tired and have been for so many years. All my love, Fresc."[14]