Esmond Romilly, Date of Birth, Date of Death
TweetEsmond Romilly
British communist
Date of Birth: 10-Jun-1918
Date of Death: 30-Nov-1941
Profession: military personnel
Nationality: United Kingdom
Zodiac Sign: Gemini 
About Esmond Romilly
- Esmond Marcus David Romilly (10 June 1918 – 30 November 1941) was a British socialist, anti-fascist and journalist, who was in turn a schoolboy rebel, a veteran with the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War and, following the outbreak of the Second World War, an observer with the Royal Canadian Air Force.
- He is perhaps best remembered for his teenage elopement with his distant cousin Jessica Mitford, the youngest-but-one of the Mitford sisters.
- Born into an aristocratic family – he was a nephew of Clementine Churchill – he emerged in the 1930s as a precocious rebel against his background, openly espousing communist views at the age of fifteen.
- He ran away from Wellington College, and campaigned vociferously against the British public school system, by publishing a critical left wing magazine, Out of Bounds: Public Schools' Journal Against Fascism, Militarism and Reaction, and (jointly with his brother) a memoir analysing his school experiences.
- At the age of eighteen he joined the International Brigades and fought on the Madrid front during the Spanish Civil War, of which he wrote and published a vivid account. Before departing for Spain, Romilly had largely abandoned communism (he never formally joined the party) in favour of democratic socialism.
- Unable to settle in London, he and his wife relocated to America in 1939.
- When the Second World War broke out Romilly enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force and began training as a pilot, but was discharged on medical grounds.
- He re-enlisted, and retrained as an observer.
- Posted back to England, he lost his life when his plane failed to return from a bombing raid in November 1941.
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