Sir George Trevelyan, 4th Baronet

Sir George Lowthian Trevelyan 4th Baronet, 1906 – 1996, was a New Age thinker, and the son of Sir Charles Trevelyan, 3rd Baronet.

Sir George was proud of this ancestry which he imagined linked him to Sir Trevillian, one of King Arthur's knights, who swam ashore on horseback when Lyonesse finally sank. Legend says that Sir Trevillian emerged with a mighty effort from the waves and landed safely on the dry land of Cornwall.

Sir George grew up in his family's Northumberland home, Wallington Hall, which his father gave to the National Trust, effectively disinheriting George.

Sir George read history at Cambridge University. Whilst there he began his 42-year long association with the famous 'Trevelyan Man Hunt', an extraordinary annual event which involved a chase on foot over the wild Lakeland fells, with human 'hunters' hunting after human 'hares'. This exciting and highly taxing event was started in 1898 by George's historian uncle G. M. Trevelyan and the Wynthrop Youngs, and still continues today (hide and seek game without guns!).

After leaving Cambridge, George went on to teach at Gordonstoun, which at that time was a school pioneering a radical education. Later, he became involved as a teacher of the Alexander Technique for postural integration, and apprenticed himself to a furniture designer and master craftsman in wood, Peter Waals, working at Waals' workshop in the Cotswold hills. Sir George himself made many fine pieces of furniture, including a bed in which he finally died, as he wished.

In 1942, after hearing a lecture given by Dr Walter Stein, a student of Rudolf Steiner, Trevelyan discovered a spiritual world-view. During his lifetime he explored beliefs in angels, the calming effects of crystals and the power of ley lines, alongside organic farming and communal living.

On retirement from the army, in 1948 he was appointed Warden and Principal of Attingham Park, an adult training college in Shropshire, where he carried out his pioneering work in the teaching of spiritual knowledge as adult education. The courses ranged from chamber music and drama to esoteric subjects such as 'Finding the Inner Teacher' and 'Holistic Vision', the latter attracting large numbers of participants, many of them from other countries as well as Britain. The college was jointly sponsored by the local authority and the University of Birmingham, both of whom looked askance at Sir George's attraction towards the mystical; and so it took immense moral courage, for instance, for him to present a course on 'Death and Becoming', a subject that was in those days virtually taboo.

He was involved in the establishment of the Findhorn Foundation, the Gatekeeper Trust, and through his friendship with Wellesley Tudor Pole, the Chalice Well and the Lamplighter Movement.

In 1971, he set up the Wrekin Trust to promote spiritual education and knowledge

In 1982, he was a recipient of the Right Livelihood Award, the 'alternative Nobel Prize'.

Bibliography

*Twelve Seats At The Round Table (written with Edward Matchett) (1976, Neville Spearman)
*The Active Eye in Architecture(1977, Wrekin Trust, also illustrated by Sir George. Now available online only)
*A Tent In Which To Pass A Summer Night (written with Belle Valerie Gaunt) (1977, Coventure)
*A Vision of the Aquarian Age (1979, Coventure UK and 1984, Stillpoint USA, now available online only)
*Magic Casements - The Use of Poetry in the Expanding of Consciousness (1980, Coventure and republished 1996, Gateway Books, now available online only). Includes poems by various authors, and much of the Trevelyan text previously published in A Tent In Which To Pass A Summer's Night
*Operation Redemption: A Vision Of Hope In An Age Of Turmoil (1981, Turnstone)
*The Pattern of Initiation in the Evolution of Human Consciousness (written with Peter Dawkins). (Francis Bacon Research Trust, 1981).
*Summons To A High Crusade (1986, Findhorn Press: 12 of Sir George's lectures at the Findhorn Foundation)
*Exploration into God: A Personal Quest For Spiritual Unity (1991, Gateway Books, now available online only)
*Aquarian Redemption: A Trilogy (1994, Stillpoint. Slipcase bound edition collecting together A Vision Of The Aquarian Age, Operation Redemption & Exploration Into God)
*Sir George Trevelyan And The New Spiritual Awakening (biography of Sir George by Frances Farrer, 2002, Floris Books)

External links

* [http://www.sirgeorgetrevelyan.org.uk/home.html Sir George's homepage]
* [http://www.gatekeeper.org.uk/index.html Gatekeeper Trust]