Esmond Romilly

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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 second cousin Jessica Mitford, the second youngest 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.