E. Arnot Robertson (Photographs of Women in McBey's Life)

Eileen Arbuthnot Robertson

1903 - 1961

About MeEileen Arbuthnot Robertson was a British Playwright, novelist, filmmaker, broadcaster and critic born in 1903 to parents Dr. George Arbuthnot Robertson (1860-1942), physician and surgeon and Elsie Margaret. She had one sister, Mary Arbuthnot born 1899. Eileen was educated at Sherborne School for Girls, moved to London with the family in 1917 and continued her education for two years in France and Switzerland.

Robertson took her first job, on the London-based magazine Answers, at the age of 19 and in the same year sat anonymously for the painting "A Red Haired Girl" by James McBey.

On 26 February 1927 she married H. E. Turner (1891-1961) in Kensington, who became Sir Henry Turner from 1951. He was secretary general of the Empire Press Union, and later the Commonwealth Press Union. They adopted a son, Gordon Turner, in the late 1920s. The Turners moved to Heath Street, Hampstead, in 1946, and were passionate sailors. Turner's tragic death from a boating accident in 1961 precipitated Robertson's suicide five months later.