Iris Vivienne Morley (10 May 1910 – 27 July 1953) was an English historian, writer and journalist. Morley was born at

Carshalton Carshalton () is a town, with a historic village centre, in south London, England, within the London Borough of Sutton. It is situated south-southwest of Charing Cross, in the valley of the River Wandle, one of the sources of which is Carshal ...

, Surrey, the daughter of Colonel Lyddon Charteris Morley CBE and Gladys Vivienne Charteris Braddell. She married Ronald Gordon Coates of the Devonshire Regiment on 10 January 1929. The couple divorced in 1934 and she married

Alaric Jacob Harold Alaric Jacob (8 June 1909 – 26 January 1995) was an English writer and journalist. He was a Reuters correspondent in Washington in the 1930s and a war correspondent during World War II in North Africa, Burma and Moscow. Early life Alar ...

on 2 August 1934. With Jacob, she was in America for a period where he was based as a foreign correspondent, and they stayed there until the beginning of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. During the war, she wrote her trilogy of historical novels - ''Cry Treason'' (1940), ''We Stood For Freedom'' (1941) and ''The Mighty Years'' (1943) - with James Scott, the Duke of Monmouth, and William III, as central characters. Jacob was away for two years at this time reporting from war zones. She accompanied her husband to

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

in January 1944 and wrote her work ''Soviet Ballet'' published in 1945. Morley was a journalist for ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper Sunday editions, published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group, Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. ...

'' and ''

The Yorkshire Post ''The Yorkshire Post'' is a daily broadsheet newspaper, published in Leeds in Yorkshire, England. It primarily covers stories from Yorkshire although its masthead carries the slogan "Yorkshire's National Newspaper". It was previously owned by ...

''. She became a

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a ...

and her ideas strongly influenced her husband. She appears in Jacob's book ''

Scenes from a Bourgeois Life Harold Alaric Jacob (8 June 1909 – 26 January 1995) was an English writer and journalist. He was a Reuters correspondent in Washington in the 1930s and a war correspondent during World War II in North Africa, Burma and Moscow. Early life Alar ...

'' published in 1949 as Miranda Ireton. That same year, she and her husband were included on

Orwell's list In 1949, shortly before he died, the English author George Orwell prepared a list of notable writers and other people he considered to be unsuitable as possible writers for the anti-communist propaganda activities of the Information Research De ...

of people he considered unsuitable to be authors for the

Information Research Department The Information Research Department (IRD) was a secret Cold War propaganda department of the British Foreign Office, created to publish anti-communist propaganda, including black propaganda, provide support and information to anti-communist po ...

. This list was prepared in March 1949 by

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalita ...

for his friend Celia Kirwan at the IRD, a propaganda unit set up at the Foreign Office by the Labour government. In August 1948, Jacob had joined the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

monitoring service at Caversham, but in February 1951 he was "suddenly refused establishment rights, which meant he would receive no pension." By this, time Jacob and his wife were separated but his establishment and pension rights were only restored shortly after Iris Morley died in 1953.Timothy Garton Ash: "Orwell's List", ''The New York Review of Books'', Nr. 14, 25 September 2003 Jacob and Morley had a daughter. After her death he married the actress

Kathleen Byron Kathleen Elizabeth Fell (11 January 1921 – 18 January 2009), known professionally as Kathleen Byron, was an English actress. Early life Byron was born in Manor Park (then part of Essex) to what she described as "staunch working-class social ...

Publications

* ''The Proud Paladin'' New York: William Morrow & Co, 1936 * ''Cry Treason'' London: Peter Davies, 1940 * ''We Stood for Freedom'' New York: William Morrow and Co, 1942 * ''The Mighty Years'' London: Peter Davies, 1943 * ''Soviet Ballet'' London: Collins, 1945 * ''Nothing but Propaganda'' London: Peter Davies, 1946 * ''Not Without Fantasy'' London: Peter Davies, 1947 * ''The Rose and the Star'' In collaboration with Phyllis Manchester 1949 *''The Rack'' London: Peter Davies, 1952 *''A Thousand Lives'' London: Andre Deutsch

References

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Brian Pearce, ‘Morley , Iris Vivienne (1910–1953)’, rev., first published September 2004
{{DEFAULTSORT:Morley, Iris 1910 births 1953 deaths English journalists British expatriates in the Soviet Union