Dartington Hall and the Quest for ‘Life in its Completeness’, 1925–45

Abstract

Abstract In the wake of the First World War, reformers across the Western world questioned laissez-faire liberalism, the self-oriented and market-driven ruling doctrine of the nineteenth century. This philosophy was blamed, variously, for the war, for industrialization and for urbanization; for a way of life shorn of any meaning beyond getting and keeping; for the too great faith in materialism and in science; and for the loss of a higher, transcendent meaning that gave a unifying purpose to individual existence and to society as a whole. For many, the cure to these ills lay in reforming the liberal social framework in ways that made it more fulfilling to the whole person and that strengthened ties between individuals. This article looks at Dartington Hall as an outstanding practical example of this impulse to promote holistic, integrated living – exploring the project as an interlinked constellation of experiments in education, the arts, agriculture and social organization; and also looking at how Dartington’s philosophy and trajectory matched those of other such enterprises begun in interwar Britain and further afield, making it a bellwether of changes in reformist thinking across the century.