Public record
Thomas Orrell
Orrell built most of what the Institute does with its hands, and withdrew from public leadership in 1983.
Born 1938 · Co-organiser of the Thursday gatherings; author of the residential and service-work model
Likeness
No photograph of Thomas Orrell is held in the Common Record. Two group photographs from 1971 and 1978 are annotated as including him; in both, the annotation and the seating disagree.
Account
Thomas Orrell was born in 1938 and co-organised the Thursday gatherings with Eleanor Vale from 1968. Where Vale was concerned with what should be written down, Orrell was concerned with what should be done, and the practical shape of the Institute is largely his: the residential period, the sharing of cooking and repair, the requirement that every house undertake service in the place where it stands.
He argued, against some resistance, that houses should be difficult buildings — old, cold, and in need of work — on the grounds that a community with nothing to maintain will find something to believe instead. The first two houses were chosen on that principle.
Orrell withdrew from public leadership in 1983. The Institute's public record contains no complete account of his later life.
The arrangements he set out were retained without amendment and remain in use at all eleven houses.
Chronology
- 1938
- Born.
- 1968
- Co-convenes the first Thursday gathering with Eleanor Vale.
- 1974
- Takes charge of the works at the North House grange hall.
- 1976
- Sets the practical hour of the Weekly Observance.
- 1979
- Establishes Shore House at Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.
- 1983
- Withdraws from public leadership.
Selected correspondence
Extracts, printed as transcribed. The originals are held in the Common Record and are the authority in any case of doubt.
1975 · to Eleanor Vale · CR-C-0158
Give people a roof to keep on and they will not need a doctrine. The building will ask enough of them.
1982 · to the stewards of Shore House · CR-C-0388
The service work is not a supplement to the practice. If it is dropped in a hard year, what remains is a reading group with an archive.
Related records
Record compiled from the North House papers, the Shore House books, and correspondence held to 1982. Reconciliation status: Continuous. The record is incomplete after 1983.