Family
Bernal had two children (Mike, b.1926 and Egan, b.1930) with his wife Agnes Eileen Sprague (referred to as Eileen), who was a secretary. He married Sprague on 21 June 1922, the day after having been awarded his BA degree. Bernal was 21, Sprague 23. Sprague was described as an active socialist and their marriage 'open' which they both lived up to 'with great gusto'.
In the 1930s he became involved in a long-term relationship with the artist Margaret Gardiner, with whom he had a son Martin Bernal, (born 1937) who became a professor of philosophy and author of the controversial Afrocentric work Black Athena. She had had a brief relationship about 1920 with Solly Zuckerman. Gardiner referred to herself as "Mrs. Bernal", though the two never married. Eileen is mentioned as his widow in 1990.
He also had a child (Jane, b.1953) with Margot Heinemann and had a brief intimate relationship with Dorothy Hodgkin, whose scientific research work he mentored.
Read more about this topic: John Desmond Bernal
Famous quotes containing the word family:
“The law is equal before all of us; but we are not all equal before the law. Virtually there is one law for the rich and another for the poor, one law for the cunning and another for the simple, one law for the forceful and another for the feeble, one law for the ignorant and another for the learned, one law for the brave and another for the timid, and within family limits one law for the parent and no law at all for the child.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“If you are a genius and unsuccessful, everybody treats you as if you were a genius, but when you come to be successful, when you commence to earn money, when you are really successful, then your family and everybody no longer treats you like a genius, they treat you like a man who has become successful.”
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
“For most women who are considering it, single motherhood is not their first choice, but it’s not their last one either. They would prefer a husband in their family, but they’d rather have a family without one than no family at all.”
—Anne Cassidy. “Every Child Should Have a Father But....,” McCall’s (March 1985)