West Dean House - Edward James

Edward James

Edward James was born on 16 August 1907, the only son of William Dodge James who had inherited a fortune from his father on his 25th birthday in 1879 (Daniel James's will, CODICIL 13th day of April 1876) and who became an adventurer, accompaning his brother Frank Linsly James on many of his expeditions, often drawing maps of uncharted lands. He married Evelyn Forbes, a Scots socialite, who was reputedly fathered by the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII). Edward James had four older sisters: Audrey, Millicent, Xandra, and Silvia. He was educated briefly at Eton, and then at Le Rosey in Switzerland, followed by Christ Church, Oxford, where he was a contemporary of Evelyn Waugh and Harold Acton. In 1912 he inherited the 8,000-acre (32 km2) West Dean House in Sussex, on the death of his father. He was only aged 4 at the death of his father in March of that year; however Edward did not take control of the Estate until he was 25.

James' first sponsorship of note was in publishing John Betjeman's first book of poems when at Oxford. He worked with Brian Howard on the Glass Omnibus. After Oxford, James had a brief career as a trainee diplomat at the embassy in Rome. He was asked to send a coded message to London that the Italians had laid the keels for three destroyers, but got the code wrong; the message said "300 destroyers". Shortly after this he was sent "on indefinite leave". After studying at Eton and Oxford, Edward tried to establish himself as a writer and poet. He became more famous being a patron to the arts, particularly the Surrealist movement. The first example of this was when Edward established the ‘James Press’ and published friend John Betjemen’s first book of poems, ‘Mount Zion’. Edward went on to support various other artists in a wide variety of arts, but particularly artists Salvador Dalí and Rene Magritte during the early stages of their careers. He commissioned many pictures from those artists, which formed the nucleus of what became one of the largest collections of surrealist works in the world.

In the early 1930s, James married Tilly Losch, an Austrian dancer choreographer, actress and painter. He had several productions created expressly for her, the most notable of which was Les Ballets 1933, which included Kurt Weill, Lotte Lenya and George Balanchine. He and Boris Kochno commissioned that year Brecht and Weill's last collaboration, The Seven Deadly Sins, which Balanchine produced, directed and choreographed.

In 1939 Edward James wrote to Aldous Huxley expressing his fear that after the war, certain arts, and particularly the techniques of the craftsmen would be lost. As a solution James suggested that his Estate be set up as an educational community where the techniques of craftsmanship could be preserved and taught, whilst restoring old work and creating new art works.

In 1956 Wispers School, an independent boarding school for girls aged between 11 and 18, moved to West Dean House. In 1964 James gave the House to a charitable trust, The Edward James Foundation, but the school was able to remain at West Dean until 1968.