Charles Henry Madge (10 October 1912 – 17 January 1996) was an English poet, journalist and sociologist, now most remembered as a founder of Mass-Observation.

Life

Charles Henry Madge was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, son of Lieut-Col. Charles Madge (1874–1916) and Barbara Hylton-Foster (1882–1967). He was educated at Winchester College and studied at Magdalene College, Cambridge. He was a literary figure from his early twenties, becoming a friend of David Gascoyne; like Gascoyne he was generally classed as a surrealist poet. Madge's essay "Surrealism for the English" (New Verse magazine, December 1933) argued that potential English surrealist poets would need both a knowledge of "the philosophical position of the French surrealists" and "a knowledge of their own language and literature". Madge contributed the essay "Pens Dipped In Poison" (1934) to Left Review, a strong critique of the British intellectuals who had supported the First World War. He worked for a spell as a reporter for the Daily Mirror. By the end of the 1930s, he was more involved in the Mass-Observation social research movement, which he co-founded in 1937, socialist realism (in theory) and Communism. By the 1940s, however, Madge was moving away from Communism. They had two children: a daughter and a son. Inez died in 1976. Charles married his third wife, Evelyn Brown, in 1979.

Books

POETRY

  • The Disappearing Castle. Charles Madge. Faber & Faber, London, 1937.
  • The Father Found. Charles Madge. Faber & Faber, London, 1941.
  • Of Love, Time and Places: Selected Poems. Charles Madge. Anvil Press, London, 1994.

SOCIOLOGY

  • Mass Observation Number One. Charles Madge & Tom Harrisson. Frederick Muller, London, 1937.
  • May the Twelfth: Mass Observation Day – surveys 1937 by over two hundred observers. Charles Madge & Humphrey Jennings (editors). Faber & Faber, London, 1937.
  • First Year’s Work, 1937-1938, by Mass Observation. Charles Madge and Tom Harrisson. Lindsay Drummond, London, 1938.
  • Britain, by Mass-Observation. Charles Madge and Tom Harrisson. Penguin Books, London, 1939.
  • War Begins at Home, by Mass Observation. Charles Madge and Tom Harrisson (editors). Chatto & Windus, London, 1940.
  • The propensity to save in Blackburn and Bristol. Charles Madge. National Institute of Economic and Social Research, London, 1940.
  • Industry after the War: Who is going to run it?. Charles Madge in consultation with Donald Tyerman. Foreword by William Beveridge. Pilot Press, London, 1943.
  • Pilot Guide to the General Election. Charles Madge (editor). Pilot Press, London, 1945.
  • To Start You Talking. An experiment in Broadcasting. Charles Madge, A.W. Coysh & George Dixon, and a commentary on the reactions of listening groups by Inez Madge. Pilot Press, London, 1945.
  • Society in the Mind: Elements of Social Eidos. Charles Madge, The Free Press, New York, 1964.

Notes

  • JISC: Charles Madge Archive (University of Sussex Library)