Fredric Warburg - Life

Life

Warburg was born on 27 November 1898, to John Cimon Warburg (1867, London - 1931, London) (a photographer) and Violet Amalia (1868 - ) (née Sichel), both of Jewish descent. John Cimon was the oldest son of Fredric Elias Warburg (1832, Gothenburg, Sweden - 1899, London) and Emma (1844–1925) (née Raphael).

At the age of 9 Fredric Warburg was sent to Wilkinson's boys' preparatory school and then later won a scholarship to attend the prestigious Westminster School. He was to describe his first two years there as 'among the most hateful of my life'. Whilst he excelled academically, as a Jew he often felt an outsider and he was to find refuge and solace in his love of books.

In summer 1917 Warburg was commissioned to serve as an officer in the Royal Artillery and was stationed in the Ypres area until the end of the war. After demobilization, Warburg was to read chemistry at Christ Church, Oxford, but later switched to classics and philosophy, proceeding to become an MA in 1922. That same year he was to start his publishing life as an apprentice at the publishing firm of Routledge & Sons Ltd.

Warburg's first marriage (July 5, 1922), to May Nellie Holt (born May 1902), was to produce three sons, David (born in 1923); Hew Francis (born 8 April 1925 died 10 April 1983) and Jeremy Fredric (born 14 October 1928 died 9 June 1986), but ended in divorce in 1932. A year later, on January 21, 1933, Warburg married the painter and designer Pamela Bryer (née de Bayou, widowed) (born in 1905) and they were to have a son who died of a brain haemorrhage within twenty-four hours of birth on 13 March 1933.

During World War II, Warburg served as a corporal in the Home Guard, in the same section where Orwell held the rank of sergeant. Fredric Warburg died of heart failure at University College Hospital, London, on 25 May 1981 at the age of 82.