Dartington: the “English experiment” that became a personal paradise 

“Detachment is something I have no claim to. The book is a memoir to them and also of the institution which they made.”

Featured image is of Dorothy’s 5 Children in 1931: Bill & Ruth Elmhirst, Beatrice, Whitney and Michael Straight – Image Courtesy Dartington Trust.

This is a line from a compelling book by the great social innovator Michael Young about Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst, the wealthy visionaries who established the Dartington estate in its present form in 1925 and turned it into a hub for innovation in the arts, education, agriculture and industry.

The Elmhirsts of Dartington – the Creation of a Utopian Community – was  published in 1982. It is being reissued to coincide with the centenary of the Elmhirsts’ arrival at Dartington The new edition will be on sale for £10 from Dartington Hall Trust outlets including the new heritage centre. It will be available at the showings at the Barn Cinema on 24th and 25th August of Peter Nicholson’s film about Dartington’s first 100 years, All Things to All People.

Young was a trustee of the Dartington Hall Trust – the charity started by the Elmhirsts to run their institution – for 50 years. He first met the couple in 1929 after starting at a school they established at Dartington, soon after their purchase of what was then a neglected medieval estate, much of it close to ruin. They came to regard him as a surrogate son who they affectionally called “Youngster”.

The peer went on to became the driving force behind some 50 different organisations including the Open University and the Consumers’ Association as well as writing the Labour Party Manifesto in 1945 with its blueprint for the NHS and Welfare State. He died in 2002.

Sophie Young , Michael’s daughter, writes In a preface to the book’s new edition: “They [the Elmhirsts] thought of him [Michael] as one of the founders of Dartington, but Dartington was also one of his ‘founders’, providing the foundation and nourishment for the development of his unique and brilliant mind, enabling him to turn dreams into reality in the form of successful organisations that have benefitted so many and continue to do so today.”

 

The preface adds : “Dartington was…  a place made possible by vast riches, extraordinary, gifted minds, and the hard work and determination of so many. It can seem now as if the establishment of Dartington was somehow a foregone conclusion, made easy by Dorothy’s fortune, but we see in this book how many near misses, huge obstacles and setbacks, and pure chance there were along the way.”

It took three marriage proposals until she finally accepted him

Sophie says of Michael’s arrival at Dartington as a 14-year-old:  “He later described this as the most important change in his life and the most marvellous luck. Up until that point he had been constantly on the move, from England to Australia and back again, from one parent to the other with their various lovers….At Dartington it was as if the doors of paradise had opened and he had come home.”   The republishing of the book has been financed by a grant from Elmgrant, a Dartington-based charity of which Sophie Young is a trustee.

The context for the Elmhirsts’ creation – described in the book as the “English experiment” – is set out further in the preface;  “This book is the story of the last century embodied in these two people, tracking the major social and political changes until Leonard’s death [in 1974, Dorothy having died  six years earlier] and beyond. Dorothy was a very wealthy heiress from the East coast American elite, widowed with three young children and determined not to marry again.

 “He was a Yorkshire country gentleman studying agriculture, six years her junior. As in the best fairy stories, Leonard was tested by her again and again, with a courtship that crossed three continents over five years. It took three marriage proposals until she finally accepted him, and off they went as a married couple to their medieval English castle where they set about creating their utopia.”

Despite the personal ties, Michael Young in his book does not shrink from identifying what he says were key failings that held Dartington back in the first 50 years. They included a poor choice of managers. People were hired mainly for technical competence rather than broader abilities in areas such as marketing.  There was also, he recounts, an “underlying failure to resolve the Dartington contradiction. Leonard never entirely stopped being the squire, Dorothy never entirely gave up being the grand lady even though they were surrounded with all the outward forms of modern commerce in limited liability companies managing directors and accountants”.

In a reference to Dartington’s current financial and organisational difficulties, Sophie Young adds in her preface: “Looking back clearly at the past, as this book does, may even help to inform and guide those now steering the Dartington ship through 21st century storms. What happened in the 50 years after their deaths is for other books. What happens next to Dartington is a question yet to be answered.”