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Lopatcong Township, New Jersey

Lopatcong Township is a rapidly growing township in Warren County, within the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's population was 8,776, an increase of 762 (+9.5%) from the 2010 census count of 8,014,  which in turn reflected an increase of 2,249 (+39.0%) from the 5,765 counted in the 2000 census.

History
What is now Lopatcong Township was created as Phillipsburg Township on March 7, 1851, by an act approved by the New Jersey Legislature from portions of Greenwich Township and Harmony Township. After Phillipsburg was incorporated as an independent municipality on March 8, 1861, the township changed its name to Lopatcong as of March 18, 1863, after the Lopatcong Creek in the area.

The name of the creek and township, Lopatcong, has its origin in four words of the Lenape Native Americans, "Lowan peek achtu onk," which means "winter watering place for deer".

Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the township had a total area of 7.38 square miles (19.10 km2), including 7.32 square miles (18.95 km2) of land and 0.06 square miles (0.16 km2) of water (0.81%).

Delaware Park (2010 Census population of 700 ) and Lopatcong Overlook (population 734 as of 2010 ) are unincorporated communities and census-designated places (CDPs) located within the township.

The township borders the Warren County municipalities of Greenwich Township, Harmony Township, Phillipsburg and Pohatcong Township.

Lopatcong Township is 21.8 mi northeast of Allentown and 70.6 mi west of New York City.

Demographics
The Township's economic data (as is all of Warren County) is calculated by the United States Census Bureau as part of the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ Metropolitan Statistical Area.

2010 census
The 2010 United States census counted 8,014 people, 3,136 households, and 2,089 families in the township. The population density was 1129.0 /sqmi. There were 3,420 housing units at an average density of 481.8 /sqmi. The racial makeup was 87.22% (6,990) White, 6.03% (483) Black or African American, 0.14% (11) Native American, 4.18% (335) Asian, 0.01% (1) Pacific Islander, 0.81% (65) from other races, and 1.61% (129) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 5.99% (480) of the population.

Of the 3,136 households, 30.0% had children under the age of 18; 55.7% were married couples living together; 7.9% had a female householder with no husband present and 33.4% were non-families. Of all households, 29.3% were made up of individuals and 13.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.46 and the average family size was 3.09.

23.1% of the population were under the age of 18, 5.5% from 18 to 24, 25.5% from 25 to 44, 27.8% from 45 to 64, and 18.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 42.3 years. For every 100 females, the population had 88.3 males. For every 100 females ages 18 and older there were 82.6 males.

The Census Bureau's 2006–2010 American Community Survey showed that (in 2010 inflation-adjusted dollars) median household income was $77,320 (with a margin of error of +/− $4,889) and the median family income was $89,317 (+/− $6,056). Males had a median income of $61,771 (+/− $6,980) versus $49,338 (+/− $4,584) for females. The per capita income for the borough was $33,633 (+/− $2,586). About 0.7% of families and 4.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 2.0% of those under age 18 and 8.4% of those age 65 or over.

2000 census
As of the 2000 United States census, there were 5,765 people, 2,143 households, and 1,523 families residing in the township. The population density was 814.6 PD/sqmi. There were 2,429 housing units at an average density of 343.2 /sqmi. The racial makeup of the township was 96.27% White, 1.13% African American, 0.07% Native American, 1.63% Asian, 0.49% from other races, and 0.42% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.99% of the population.

There were 2,143 households, out of which 32.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 62.5% were married couples living together, 5.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 28.9% were non-families. 26.2% of all households were made up of individuals, and 16.6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.55 and the average family size was 3.09.

In the township, the population was spread out, with 24.5% under the age of 18, 4.4% from 18 to 24, 26.7% from 25 to 44, 22.2% from 45 to 64, and 22.2% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 41 years. For every 100 females, there were 85.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 79.3 males.

The median income for a household in the township was $50,918, and the median income for a family was $65,545. Males had a median income of $52,540 versus $30,967 for females. The per capita income for the township was $24,333. About 4.7% of families and 6.4% of the population were below the poverty line, including 8.2% of those under age 18 and 9.3% of those age 65 or over.

Local government
Lopatcong Township is governed by the Small Municipality form of government, which is available under the terms of the Faulkner Act only for those municipalities with a population below 12,000 at the time of adoption. The township is one of 18 municipalities (of the 564) statewide that use this form of government. The governing body is comprised of the Mayor and the four-member Township Council, with all positions elected at-large on a partisan basis as part of the November general election. The Mayor is elected directly by the voters to a three-year term of office. Council members are elected to serve a term of three years on a staggered basis, so that two seats come up for election in the two years that the mayor is not up for election.

, members of the Lopatcong Township Council are Mayor James Mengucci (R, term on committee and as mayor ends December 31, 2020), Council President William D. Wright (R, 2022), Louis Belcaro (R, 2024), Richard McQuade (R, 2024) and James Palitto (R, 2022).

In June 2016, the Township Council unanimously selected Yvonne Reitemeyer from a list of three candidates nominated by the Republican municipal committee to fill the seat expiring in December 2016 that became vacant following the resignation of Donna Schneider.

In the November 2012 general election, Lori Ciesla, who ran as part of the independent slate of Responsible Lopatcong Leadership, won election, as did Maureen McCabe who won an unexpired one-year term when she defeated Republican incumbent Andrew Horun who had been appointed earlier in the year to fill the vacant seat of H. Matthew Curry.

Federal, state and county representation
Lopatcong Township is located in the 7th Congressional District and is part of New Jersey's 23rd state legislative district. Prior to the 2010 Census, Lopatcong Township had been part of the NJ's 5th congressional district, a change made by the New Jersey Redistricting Commission that took effect in January 2013, based on the results of the November 2012 general elections.

Politics
As of March 2011, there were a total of 5,153 registered voters in Lopatcong Township, of which 1,391 (27.0% vs. 21.5% countywide) were registered as Democrats, 1,470 (28.5% vs. 35.3%) were registered as Republicans and 2,288 (44.4% vs. 43.1%) were registered as Unaffiliated. There were 4 voters registered as Libertarians or Greens. Among the township's 2010 Census population, 64.3% (vs. 62.3% in Warren County) were registered to vote, including 83.6% of those ages 18 and over (vs. 81.5% countywide).

In the 2012 presidential election, Republican Mitt Romney received 1,964 votes (52.8% vs. 56.0% countywide), ahead of Democrat Barack Obama with 1,638 votes (44.0% vs. 40.8%) and other candidates with 51 votes (1.4% vs. 1.7%), among the 3,720 ballots cast by the township's 5,386 registered voters, for a turnout of 69.1% (vs. 66.7% in Warren County). In the 2008 presidential election, Republican John McCain received 1,985 votes (51.9% vs. 55.2% countywide), ahead of Democrat Barack Obama with 1,730 votes (45.2% vs. 41.4%) and other candidates with 46 votes (1.2% vs. 1.6%), among the 3,827 ballots cast by the township's 5,090 registered voters, for a turnout of 75.2% (vs. 73.4% in Warren County). In the 2004 presidential election, Republican George W. Bush received 1,994 votes (57.5% vs. 61.0% countywide), ahead of Democrat John Kerry with 1,419 votes (40.9% vs. 37.2%) and other candidates with 30 votes (0.9% vs. 1.3%), among the 3,467 ballots cast by the township's 4,536 registered voters, for a turnout of 76.4% (vs. 76.3% in the whole county).

In the 2013 gubernatorial election, Republican Chris Christie received 70.4% of the vote (1,615 cast), ahead of Democrat Barbara Buono with 27.6% (634 votes), and other candidates with 2.0% (45 votes), among the 2,345 ballots cast by the township's 5,506 registered voters (51 ballots were spoiled), for a turnout of 42.6%. In the 2009 gubernatorial election, Republican Chris Christie received 1,455 votes (58.6% vs. 61.3% countywide), ahead of Democrat Jon Corzine with 736 votes (29.6% vs. 25.7%), Independent Chris Daggett with 228 votes (9.2% vs. 9.8%) and other candidates with 35 votes (1.4% vs. 1.5%), among the 2,484 ballots cast by the township's 4,981 registered voters, yielding a 49.9% turnout (vs. 49.6% in the county).

Education
The Lopatcong Township School District serves public school students in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. As of the 2021–22 school year, the district, comprised of two schools, had an enrollment of 707 students and 58.0 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 12.2:1. Schools in the district (with 2021–22 enrollment data from the National Center for Education Statistics ) are Lopatcong Elementary School with 350 students in grades PreK-4 and Lopatcong Middle School with 355 students in grades 5-8. Before the middle school opened in 2003, students would attend the elementary school through eighth grade; The middle school was constructed in the wake of increasing enrollment, which climbed more than 50% from just over 500 in 1995 to more than 750 by 2001.

Public school students in ninth through twelfth grades attend Phillipsburg High School in Phillipsburg as part of a sending/receiving relationship with the Phillipsburg School District. The high school also serves students from four other sending communities: Alpha, Bloomsbury (in Hunterdon County), Greenwich Township and Pohatcong Township. The site of the new Phillipsburg High School, which began construction in January 2014, is in Lopatcong's borders. The three-story, 330000 sqft building, with more than double the floor space of the existing high school and a capacity to accommodate more than 2,100 students, was completed for the 2016–17 school year and was dedicated in September 2016 at ceremonies attended by Governor of New Jersey Chris Christie. As of the 2021–22 school year, the high school had an enrollment of 1,809 students and 133.5 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 13.6:1.

Students from the township and from all of Warren County are eligible to attend Ridge and Valley Charter School in Frelinghuysen Township (for grades K–8) or Warren County Technical School in Washington borough (for 9–12), with special education services provided by local districts supplemented throughout the county by the Warren County Special Services School District in Oxford Township (for Pre-K–12).

Lopatcong Township was featured in a 2003 article in The New York Times, which addressed problems of public school financing in suburban communities and various strategies that Lopatcong and other such communities were adopting to deal with the problem.

Roads and highways
, the township had a total of 45.59 mi of roadways, of which 35.19 mi were maintained by the municipality, 6.56 mi by Warren County and 3.84 mi by the New Jersey Department of Transportation.

The most prominent highway in Lopatcong Township is US 22, which traverses the southern section of the township. Route 57 traverses towards the center from its western end at US 22. The main county road that passes through is County Route 519 which passes through in the eastern part of the township.

Public transportation
NJ Transit bus service is provided on the 890 and 891 routes.

Notable people
People who were born in, residents of, or otherwise closely associated with Lopatcong Township include:

 * Donald J. Albanese (born 1937), politician who served in the New Jersey General Assembly from 1976 to 1982
 * Ned Bolcar (born 1967), linebacker who played three seasons in the NFL, one with the Seattle Seahawks and two with the Miami Dolphins
 * Lou Reda (1925–2017), filmmaker who specialized in television documentaries
 * Harold S. Sloan (1888–1988), economist who wrote extensively and taught in the field of economics, who also served as the executive director of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
 * Doug Steinhardt (born 1968), attorney and politician who served as mayor of Lopatcong Township and is Chairman of the New Jersey Republican State Committee

Film community
Lopatcong Township was the primary location for the independent film Several Ways to Die Trying. The film's writer and director, Glen Tickle, along with members of the cast and crew, are residents of the township.

title: Lopatcong Township, New Jersey


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Nancy Mitford

Nancy Freeman-Mitford (28 November 1904 – 30 June 1973) was an English novelist, biographer, and journalist. The eldest of the Mitford sisters, she was regarded as one of the "bright young things" on the London social scene in the inter-war period. She wrote several novels about upper-class life in England and France, and is considered a sharp and often provocative wit. She also has a reputation as a writer of popular historical biographies.

Mitford enjoyed a privileged childhood as the eldest daughter of David Freeman-Mitford, later 2nd Baron Redesdale. Educated privately, she had no training as a writer before publishing her first novel in 1931. This early effort and the three that followed it created little stir. Her two semi-autobiographical post-war novels, The Pursuit of Love (1945) and Love in a Cold Climate (1949), established her reputation.

Mitford's marriage to Peter Rodd (1933) proved unsatisfactory to both, and they divorced in 1957 after a lengthy separation. During the Second World War she formed a liaison with a Free French officer, Gaston Palewski, who was the love of her life. After the war, Mitford settled in France and lived there until her death, maintaining contact with her many English friends through letters and regular visits.

During the 1950s, Mitford developed the concept of "U" (upper) and "non-U" language, whereby social origins and standing were identified by words used in everyday speech. She had intended this as a joke, but many took it seriously, and Mitford was considered an authority on manners and breeding.

Her later years were bittersweet, as the success of her biographical studies of Madame de Pompadour, Voltaire and King Louis XIV contrasted with the ultimate failure of her relationship with Palewski. From the late 1960s onward, her health deteriorated, and she endured several years of painful illness before her death in 1973.

Family
The Mitford family dates from the Norman era, when Sir John de Mitford held the Castle of Mitford in Northumberland. A later Sir John held several important public offices during the late 14th and early 15th centuries, and the family maintained a tradition of public service for many generations. In the 18th century William Mitford was a leading classical historian, responsible for the definitive history of ancient Greece. His great-grandson (Algernon) Bertram Mitford, born in 1837 and known as "Bertie", was a diplomat and traveller who held minor office in Disraeli's second ministry, from 1874 to 1880. In 1874 he married Clementina, the second daughter of David Ogilvy, 10th Earl of Airlie, a union that linked the Mitfords to some of Britain's most prominent aristocratic families. Blanche Ogilvy, Clementina's elder sister, became the wife of Sir Henry Montague Hozier, a soldier turned businessman. Their four children included daughters Clementine ("Clemmie"), who in 1908 married the future British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Nellie, who married Bertram Romilly. Both Hozier and Blanche were promiscuous, and it is generally accepted by historians and family members that Hozier was not Clemmie's father although he was registered as such. Blanche told her friend Lady Londonderry, shortly before Clemmie's birth, that the father of the expected child was her own brother-in-law, Bertie Mitford. Most historians believe that other candidates for the paternity are more likely.

Bertie Mitford's marriage produced five sons and four daughters. His career in government service ended in 1886 when, after the death of a cousin, he inherited a considerable fortune. A condition of the inheritance was that he adopt the surname "Freeman-Mitford". He rebuilt Batsford House in Gloucestershire, the family's country seat, served briefly as a Unionist MP in the 1890s and otherwise devoted himself to books, writings and travel. In 1902, he was raised to the peerage as 1st Baron Redesdale, a re-creation of a title that had previously been held in the family but had lapsed in 1886.

Parentage
Nancy Mitford's father, David Bertram Ogilvy Freeman-Mitford, was Bertie Mitford's second son, born on 13 March 1878. After several years as a tea planter in Ceylon he fought in the Boer War of 1899–1902 and was severely wounded. In 1903 he became engaged to Sydney Bowles, the elder daughter of Thomas Gibson Bowles, known as "Tap", a journalist, editor and magazine proprietor whose publications included Vanity Fair and The Lady. The couple were married on 16 February 1904, after which they rented a house in Graham Street in West London. Bowles provided his son-in-law with a job, as business manager of The Lady magazine. David had little interest in reading and knew nothing of business; thus, according to Nancy Mitford's biographer Selina Hastings, "a less congenial post ... could hardly have been imagined". He remained in this position for 10 years. The couple's first child, a daughter, was born on 28 November 1904; they had intended to call her Ruby, but after she was born they changed their minds and named her Nancy.

First years
Responsibility for Nancy Mitford's day-to-day upbringing was delegated to her nanny and nursemaid, within the framework of Sydney's short-lived belief that children should never be corrected or be spoken to in anger. Before this experiment was discontinued, the young Nancy Mitford had become self-centred and uncontrollable; Hastings writes that her first years were "characterised by roaring, red-faced rages". Just before her third birthday, a sister, Pamela, was born; the nanny's apparent change of loyalty in favour of the new arrival was a further source of outrage to Mitford, and throughout their childhood and into young adulthood she continued to vent her displeasure on her sister.

In January 1909 a brother, Tom was born, and in June 1910 another sister, Diana, followed. That summer, to relieve the pressure on what was becoming an overcrowded nursery, Nancy Mitford attended the nearby Francis Holland School. The few months she spent there represented almost the whole of her formal schooling; in the autumn the family moved to a larger house in Victoria Road, Kensington, after which Nancy was educated at home by successive governesses. Summers were spent at the family's cottage near High Wycombe, in Buckinghamshire, or with the children's Redesdale grandparents at Batsford Park. In the winter of 1913–14 David and Sydney visited Canada, prospecting for gold on a claim that David had purchased in Swastika, Ontario. It was here that their fifth child was conceived, a daughter born in London on 8 August 1914 and christened Unity.

War, Batsford Park and Asthall Manor
On the outbreak of the First World War on 4 August 1914, David re-joined his regiment and was soon in France. In May 1915, Clement, David's older brother, was killed while serving with the 10th Royal Hussars, which made David heir to the Redesdale title and lands. On 17 August 1916 Bertie Mitford died; David, still serving at the front, became the 2nd Baron Redesdale. Sydney quickly took possession of Batsford House, much of which had been shut up for many years, and occupied the portion of it that she could afford to heat. The children had the run of the house and grounds, and were taught together in the schoolroom. This was a source of frustration for Nancy, whose lively intelligence required greater stimulus. She spent many hours reading in the Batsford House library where, according to Hastings, the foundations of her intellectual life were laid.

The Redesdale estates were extensive, but uneconomical. At the end of the war Redesdale decided to sell Batsford Park and move his increasing family (a fifth daughter, Jessica, had been born in September 1917) to less extravagant accommodation. The house was sold early in 1919, together with much of its contents—including, to Nancy's great dismay, a large part of its library. The new family home was Asthall Manor, a Jacobean mansion near Swinbrook in Oxfordshire. This was intended as a short-term measure while a new house was built on land nearby. The family stayed in Asthall Manor for seven years, and it became the basis of many of the family scenes which Nancy was later to portray in her semi-autobiographical novels.

Growing up proved a difficult process for Nancy. Unable to form a relationship with Pamela, the sister nearest to her in age, she was bored and irritated by her younger siblings, and vented her feelings by teasing and tormenting them. Although there was undoubtedly cruelty in her taunting—the other children, led by Tom, formed a "Leag (sic) against Nancy" —her teasing was also, according to the later reflections of her nephew Alexander Mosley: "a highly-honed weapon to keep a lot of highly competitive, bright, energetic sisters in order. She used it ... as a form of self protection". Not all her interactions with her siblings were hostile; for their amusement she edited and produced a magazine, The Boiler, to which she contributed entertainingly gruesome murder stories.

In 1921, after years of pleading for proper schooling, Nancy was allowed a year's boarding at Hatherop Castle, an informal private establishment for young ladies of good family. Laura Thompson, in her biography of Nancy, describes Hatherop as not so much a school, "more a chaste foretaste of debutante life". Here Nancy learned French and other subjects, played organised games and joined a Girl Guide troop. It was her first extended experience of life away from home, and she enjoyed it. The following year she was allowed to accompany four other girls on a cultural trip to Paris, Florence and Venice; her letters home are full of expressions of wonder at the sights and treasures: "I had no idea I was so fond of pictures ... if only I had a room of my own I would make it a regular picture gallery".

Debutante and socialite
Nancy's eighteenth birthday in November 1922 was the occasion for a grand "coming-out" ball, which marked the beginning of her entry into Society. That was followed in June 1923 by her presentation at Court, a formal introduction to King George V at Buckingham Palace, after which she was officially "out" and could attend the balls and parties that constituted the London Season. She spent much of the next few years in a round of social events, making new friends and mixing with the "Bright Young People" of 1920s London. Nancy declared that "we hardly saw the light of day, except at dawn". In 1926 Asthall Manor was finally sold. While the new house at Swinbrook was made ready, the female members of the family were sent for three months to Paris, a period which, says Hastings, began Nancy's "lifelong love affair" with France.

Among Nancy's new London friends was Evelyn Gardner who, Nancy informed her brother Tom, was engaged "to a man called Evelyn Waugh who writes, I believe, very well". She and Waugh later developed a lasting friendship. Although she was now of age, her father maintained an aggressive hostility towards most of her male friends, particularly since, as Hastings remarks, these tended towards the frivolous, the aesthetic and the effeminate. Among them was Hamish St Clair Erskine, the second son of the 5th Earl of Rosslyn, an Oxford undergraduate four years Nancy's junior. He was, according to Hastings, the least suitable partner of all, "the most shimmering and narcissistic of all the beautiful butterflies"—and the one most likely to offend Lord Redesdale. The pair met in 1928 and became unofficially engaged, despite his homosexuality (of which Nancy may not have been aware). Against a backdrop of hostility from family and friends—Waugh advised her to "dress better and catch a better man" —the engagement endured sporadically for several years.

Incipient writer
As a means of augmenting the meagre allowance provided by her father, Mitford began writing, encouraged by Waugh. Her first efforts, anonymous contributions to gossip columns in society magazines, led to occasional signed articles, and in 1930 The Lady engaged her to write a regular column. That winter, she embarked on a full-length novel, Highland Fling, in which various characters—mostly identifiable among her friends, acquaintances and family—attend a Scottish house-party which develops chaotically. The book made little impact when it was published in March 1931, and she immediately began work on another, Christmas Pudding, illustrated by her close friend Mark Ogilvie-Grant. Like the earlier novel, the plot centres on a clash between the "Bright Young People" and the older generation. Hamish Erskine is clearly identifiable in the character of "Bobby Bobbin", and John Betjeman is the basis for the supporting role of Bobby's tutor. The thinly disguised caricatures pervading the book shocked Lady Redesdale, who thought it could not possibly be published under Mitford's own name.

The affair between Erskine and Mitford continued intermittently. While she often despaired of the relationship, she refused other offers of marriage, saying that she would "never marry anyone except Hamish." In 1932 her plight was overshadowed by a family scandal involving her younger sister Diana, who had married Bryan Guinness in 1928 and was the mother of two young sons. In 1932 Diana deserted her husband to become the mistress of Sir Oswald Mosley, the leader of the British Union of Fascists, himself married with three children. Almost alone of her family, Mitford offered her sister support, regularly visiting her and keeping her up to date with family news and social gossip. Her own love affair with Erskine came to an abrupt end when, in June 1933, he informed her that he intended to marry the daughter of a London banker. In a final letter after their parting, Mitford wrote to him: "I thought in your soul you loved me & that in the end we should have children & look back on life together when we are old".

Marriage, writing and politics

Within a month of Erskine's departure, Mitford announced her engagement to Peter Rodd, the second son of Sir Rennell Rodd, a diplomat and politician who was ennobled that year as Baron Rennell. According to Mitford's friend Harold Acton, Rodd was "a young man of boundless promise ... he had abundant qualifications for success in any profession he deigned to choose". Other biographers describe him as irresponsible, unfaithful, a bore and unable to hold down a regular job, and as the model for Waugh's unscrupulous, amoral character Basil Seal from Black Mischief. They were married on 4 December 1933, after which they settled into a cottage at Strand-on-the-Green on the western edges of London. Mitford's initial delight in the marriage was soon tempered by financial worries, Rodd's fecklessness and her dislike of his family.

In 1934, Mitford began her third novel, Wigs on the Green, a satire on Sir Oswald Mosley's fascist "Blackshirt" movement. Mitford herself had briefly flirted with Mosley's New Party in 1931, although her enthusiasm was short-lived, and she soon became a vociferous opponent of the British Union of Fascists and of fascism. When the novel was published in 1935, its book cover illustrated by Bip Pares, it made little critical impact and seriously offended members of her own family, particularly her sisters Diana and Unity, both of whom were supporters of Mosley's movement and devotees of the German dictator Adolf Hitler. Diana eventually forgave Nancy, but Nancy's rift with Unity, who was outraged by her depiction in the book as the ridiculous "Eugenia Malmains", was never fully healed.

By 1936, Nancy Mitford's marriage was largely a sham. Rodd was engaged in an affair with the wife of a friend, a situation that continued into the new year, when the Mitford family was further shaken by the 19-year-old Jessica's elopement with her cousin Esmond Romilly. A rebellious ex-Wellington schoolboy and avowed Communist, Romilly fought on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War. The young couple were traced to Bilbao, and Nancy was despatched to bring them home but failed to persuade them, and Jessica and Esmond were married in May 1937.

Through the winter of 1937–1938, Mitford's main literary task was editing the letters of her cousins the Stanleys of Alderley, with whom she was connected through her great-grandmother Blanche Airlie. Her preoccupation with the project, nine or ten hours a day, she informed her friend Robert Byron, further damaged her relationship with Rodd, who resented the time thus spent. Nevertheless, in the summer of 1938, she discovered that she was pregnant. She hoped for a girl: "2 Peter Rodds in 1 house is unthinkable", but in September, she miscarried. Early in 1939, Rodd left for southern France to work with the relief organisations assisting the thousands of Spanish refugees who had fled from General Franco's armies in the final stages of the civil war. In May, Mitford joined him and spent several weeks there as a relief worker. She was much affected by what she saw: "I have never cried so much in all my life". The experience hardened her antifascism to the extent that she wrote: "I would join hands with the devil himself to stop any further extension of the disease".

Having rejected the political extremes within her family, Nancy Mitford was a moderate socialist, but some of her works, such as her introductions to the Stanley letter collections, and her "U–non-U" essay of 1955, are staunch defences of the aristocratic traditions and values that she grew up with.

Second World War
The outbreak of war in September 1939 divided the Mitford family. Nancy and Rodd supported the Allies in the war. The Romillys had by this time departed for America, but the others either hoped for an Anglo-German détente or, as with Unity, were openly pro-Nazi. Unity was in Munich when war was declared. In despair, she attempted suicide by shooting herself in the head. She survived, and was sent home through neutral Switzerland. Mosley and Diana, who had married secretly in 1936, were detained under Defence Regulation 18B. Nancy, in full antifascist mode, had described her sister to the British Intelligence agency MI5 as "a ruthless and shrewd egotist, a devoted fascist and admirer of Hitler [who] sincerely desires the downfall of England and democracy in general". During the "Phoney War" of 1939–1940, Nancy was briefly an Air Raid Precautions (ARP) driver, and later worked shifts at a first-aid post in Paddington. She drew on those experiences in her fourth novel, Pigeon Pie, a comedy about spying. It was published by Hamish Hamilton in May 1940, while there was little public appetite for lighthearted war satire, and the book was a commercial failure.

In April 1940, Mitford suffered her second miscarriage. Shortly afterward, Rodd, who had been commissioned into the Welsh Guards, departed overseas. Alone in London, Mitford moved to the family's Rutland Gate house where she remained during the London Blitz. The main house had been requisitioned to provide a refuge for Jewish families evacuated from the bombed areas of the East End. Mitford spent much of her time looking after those families: "so hard-working, clean and grateful". A brief affair with a Free French officer, André Roy, resulted in a third pregnancy. Mitford again miscarried, with complications that led, in November 1941, to a hysterectomy. After convalescence, at loose ends, she began working as an assistant at the Heywood Hill bookshop in Curzon Street. The shop became the centre of Mitford's daily activities and was a favoured meeting place for London's literati. In September 1942, she met Gaston Palewski, a French colonel attached to General Charles de Gaulle's London staff. She found him fascinating, and he became the love of her life though her feelings were never fully reciprocated. He was an inspiration for much of her future writing. For the sake of Mitford's reputation, the affair was pursued with discretion before Palewski left for Algeria in May 1943. Thereafter, the relationship was conducted mainly by letters and occasional phone calls since Palewski was only intermittently in England before the end of the war.

The failure of Pigeon Pie had cooled Mitford's desire to write, but in 1944, with Waugh's encouragement, she began planning a new novel. In March 1945, she was given three months' leave from the shop to write it. The Pursuit of Love is a heavily autobiographical romantic comedy in which many of her family and acquaintances appear in thin disguises. Despite the distraction of learning that her brother Tom had died fighting in Burma, she finished the book and, in September, went to Paris. Ostensibly, that was to establish a French branch of Heywood Hill, but in reality, she wished to be close to Palewski, who was now a member of de Gaulle's postwar provisional government. She was back in London in December 1945 for the publication of The Pursuit of Love which was, Hastings records, "an instant and phenomenal success ... the perfect antidote to the long war years of hardship and austerity, providing the undernourished public with its favourite ingredients: love, childhood and the English upper classes". The book sold 200,000 copies within a year of publication, and firmly established Mitford as a best-selling author.

Move to Paris
At the end of the war, Rodd returned home, but the marriage was essentially over. Although remaining on friendly terms, the couple led separate lives. Mitford's visit to France in late 1945 had revived her longing to be there, and in April 1946, having given up working in the shop the previous month, she left London to make her permanent home in Paris and never lived in England again. She was a prolific letter writer and kept contact with her large cohort of friends by a voluminous correspondence. According to Hastings, she developed many of her friendships far further on paper than she could have done through normal social intercourse.

Rue Monsieur
During her first 18 months in Paris, Mitford lived in several short-term lodgings while she enjoyed a hectic social life, the hub of which was the British Embassy under the regime of the ambassador, Duff Cooper, and his socialite wife, Lady Diana Cooper. Eventually Mitford found a comfortable apartment, with a maid, at No. 7 rue Monsieur on the Left Bank, close to Palewski's residence. Settled there in comfort, she established a pattern to her life that she mostly followed for the next 20 years, her precise timetable being determined by Palewski's varying availability. Her socialising, entertaining and working were interspersed with regular short visits to family and friends in England and summers generally spent in Venice.

In 1948, Mitford completed a new novel, a sequel to The Pursuit of Love that she called Love in a Cold Climate, with the same country house ambience as the earlier book and many of the same characters. The novel's reception was even warmer than that of its predecessor. Waugh was one of the few critics to qualify his praise; he thought that the descriptions were good but the conversations poor. In 1950 she translated and adapted André Roussin's play La petite hutte ('The Little Hut'), in preparation for its successful West End début in August, The Times's critic noted the "habit of speech at once colloquial and unexpected which instantly declares itself the creation of Miss Mitford." The play ran for 1,261 performances, and provided Mitford with a steady £300 per month in royalties. The same year The Sunday Times asked her to contribute a regular column, which she did for four years. The busy period in her writing life continued in 1951 with her third postwar novel, The Blessing, another semi-autobiographical romance this time set in Paris, in which an aristocratic young Englishwoman is married to a libidinous French marquis. Harold Acton deems it her most accomplished novel, "permeated with her joyous love of France". This time Waugh (to whom the book was dedicated) had no criticism; he found the book "admirable, deliciously funny, consistent and complete, by far the best of your writings".

Mitford then began her first serious non-fiction work, a biography of Madame de Pompadour. The general view of the critics when the book was published in March 1954 was that it was "marvelous entertainment, if hardly to be taken as history". The historian AJP Taylor likened Mitford's evocation of 18th-century Versailles to "Alconleigh", the fictitious country house that formed the background to her recent best-selling novels, a comparison that she found offensive.

Noblesse Oblige
In 1954 Alan Ross, a University of Birmingham professor of linguistics, devised the terms "U" and "Non-U" to differentiate the speech patterns of the social classes in England. "U" indicated upper-class usage, and "Non-U" the conventions of the lower strata of society. His article, in a learned Finnish journal and with an illustrative glossary, used The Pursuit of Love to exemplify upper-class speech patterns. In a spirit of mischief, Mitford incorporated the U and Non-U thesis into an article she was writing for Encounter on the English aristocracy. Although the aspect formed only a small section of Mitford's article, when it was published in September 1955 it caused a major stir. Few recognised the tongue-in-cheek aspect. Mitford received hundreds of letters from worried readers desperate to know if they were snobs or merely "common". The level of anxious or amused interest was sustained to such an extent that in 1956 Hamish Hamilton reproduced the article in a short book, Noblesse Oblige. The book also included an abbreviated version of Ross's original article, and contributions from Waugh, Betjeman, Peter Fleming and Christopher Sykes, It was a tremendous success; as Lovell records, "'U and Non-U' was the buzz phrase of the day ... Nancy's comments made her the arbiter of good manners for several generations". Thompson notes the irony that the U and Non-U labels, perhaps Mitford's best-known legacy, were not her own but were borrowed for the purpose of a "tease".

Later career
In October 1957 Palewski was appointed as France's ambassador to Italy. Mitford's meetings with him, which had become increasingly rare because of his many political and social commitments, were now reduced to a single visit a year, supplemented with occasional letters. Mitford mainly concealed her true feelings on this separation, although one acquaintance noted her increasingly "savage" teasing of friends, which was perhaps a safety valve: "If she would only tell one she is unhappy one would do what one could to comfort her". In March 1958 Mitford's father, Lord Redesdale, died. After the cremation, she informed her sister Jessica, "the ashes were done up in the sort of parcel he used to bring back from London, rich thick brown paper & incredibly neat knots".

Meanwhile Mitford had completed her latest book, Voltaire in Love, an account of the love affair between Voltaire and the Marquise du Châtelet. She considered it her first truly grown-up work, and her best. Published in 1957, it sold well, was taken seriously by the critics and was warmly praised by Mitford's friends. Its writing had been hampered by painful headaches arising from her apparently failing eyesight and worries that she might be going blind. The problem was resolved after a visit to the ophthalmic surgeon Patrick Trevor-Roper, who gave her new spectacles: "It is heavenly to be able to read for a long time on end & now I see how handicapped I was when doing Voltaire". She then returned to writing fiction, with Don't Tell Alfred, in which she revived Fanny Wincham, the narrator of The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, and placed her in a Paris setting as wife of the British ambassador. Several characters familiar from the earlier novels appear in minor roles. The book, published in October 1960, was popular with the public, but received indifferent reviews. Some of Mitford's friends disliked it, and she decided she would write no more fiction.

In August 1962 Palewski was appointed a minister in Georges Pompidou's government, and returned to Paris. This did not mean more regular or frequent meetings, and the affair with Mitford continued at arm's length. In April 1963 Mitford was in England for the wedding of her cousin Angus Ogilvy to Princess Alexandra. A month later she was back for the funeral of her mother, Lady Redesdale, who died on 25 May. Mitford's friends were dying, too, "in middle age", she informed her long-time friend Violet Hammersley. The premature deaths included that of Evelyn Waugh, who died on 10 April 1966. Mitford saw the kindness and humour concealed behind his hostile public image, and said after his death: "What nobody ever remembers about Evelyn is everything with him was jokes. Everything". Thompson calls their relationship "one of the great literary friendships of the twentieth century".

Amidst these personal upheavals Mitford continued writing. In 1964 she began work on The Sun King, a biography of King Louis XIV. Her publishers decided to issue it as a lavishly illustrated "coffee table" book. When it was published in August 1966, among the many tributes to the book was that of President de Gaulle, who recommended it to every member of his cabinet. By this time, Mitford's relationship with Palewski had become dormant, and she recognised that the best days would never return. Under pressure from her landlords to leave her rue Monsieur apartment—they had raised her rent "exorbitantly"— she decided to leave Paris and buy herself a house in Versailles.

Final years
Mitford moved to No. 4 rue d'Artois, Versailles, in January 1967. The modest house had a half-acre (0.2 hectare) garden, which soon became one of her chief delights. In 1968 she began work on her final book, a biography of Frederick the Great. While confined at home in March 1969 after a series of illnesses she learned from a newspaper announcement that Palewski had married the Duchesse de Sagan, a rich divorcée. Mitford had long accepted that Palewski would never marry her. Nevertheless, she was deeply hurt by the news, although she affected a typical nonchalance. Shortly after, she entered hospital for the removal of a tumour. After the operation she continued to suffer pain, although she was able to continue working on her book. In October 1969 she undertook a tour of East Germany, to visit former royal palaces and battlefields. She finished the book, but in April 1970 was back in hospital for further tests, which did not lead to either a diagnosis or effective treatment.

Frederick the Great was published later in 1970 to a muted reception. Mitford's remaining years were dominated by her illness, although for a time she enjoyed visits from her sisters and friends, and working in her garden. In April 1972 the French government made her a Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur, and later that year the British government appointed her a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). She was delighted by the former honour, and amused by the latter—which she remembered Waugh had called an "insult" and turned down. At the end of 1972 she entered the Nuffield Clinic in London, where she was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer of the blood. She lived for another six months, unable to look after herself and in almost constant pain, struggling to keep her spirits up. She wrote to her friend James Lees-Milne: "It's very curious, dying, and would have many a drôle amusing & charming side were it not for the pain". She died on 30 June 1973 at her home in the rue d'Artois and was cremated in Versailles, after which her ashes were taken to Swinbrook for burial alongside her sister Unity.

Fiction
Mitford had no training as a writer or journalist; her style, particularly in the pre-war novels, is chatty and informal, much as in her letters. She may have inherited some of her natural wit and sharpness of expression from her maternal grandfather Thomas Bowles, who in his youth during the Franco-Prussian War had provided dispatches which Acton describes as "extremely graphic and amusing". Mitford's fiction, based on upper-class family life and mores, belongs to the genre of the comedy of manners. Her protagonists—typically, intelligent women surrounded by eccentric characters determined to find life amusing—are broadly autobiographical. It is unsurprising, says Thompson, that Mitford should first attempt to write a novel in the early 1930s, since many of her friends were doing the same thing. What is surprising, Thompson adds, is the ease with which she found a publisher for this first book. Perhaps, says Thompson, her publishers Thornton Butterworth "liked the idea of this pretty, well-connected girl who wrote in the style du jour". Mitford was later embarrassed by her prewar novels; Rachel Cooke, writing on their reissue in 2011, believes she had no reason to be: "There is a special kind of energy here, and its engine is the admirable and irresistible commitment of a writer who would rather die than be boring".

Critics generally place the postwar novels in a different league from the earlier efforts; Cooke describes The Pursuit of Love as "an immaculate novel that soars many miles above what came before". In Acton's view it and its companion volume Love in a Cold Climate present an entirely authentic picture of country house life in England between the wars, and will long be consulted by historians of the period. In these later novels Zoë Heller of the Daily Telegraph hears in the prose, behind a new level of care and artfulness, "the unmistakeable Mitford trill, in whose light, bright cadences an entire hard-to-shock and easy-to-bore view of life is made manifest". At times a more serious undertone, contrasting with the "bright, brittle, essentially ephemeral" nature of her early works, becomes evident; Olivia Laing in the Guardian, discerns "a faint and beguiling pessimism about love's pursuit and its consequences" beneath the light superficiality.

The Blessing has provoked a more divided response. Waugh's judgement was that those who criticised the book were "lazy brutes ... [who] ... can't bear to see a writer grow up". More recently, Philip Hensher and others have argued that although the novel is immensely enjoyable and that Mitford's "marvellous voice" is undiminished, she is on less sure ground with her "Frenchness" than with the English country house ambience, and her picture of France as the embodiment of everything civilised is less than convincing. Similar mixed comments greeted Mitford's final novel, Don't Tell Alfred, Waugh again hailing it as her best, "clamouring for a sequel". In this judgement he was largely alone; other critics perceived in the anecdotal framework of the book an uncertainty as to what it was about. An American reviewer wondered what parts were to be taken seriously: "What exactly goes on? ... Can you always tell an Etonian, even when he goes beat? Is all modern architecture a fraud? Do U-people really talk this way?" Similar questions were raised in the Times Literary Supplement's review, in relation to Mitford's fictional output as a whole: "Would she have been a better novelist if she had 'tried harder', gone in further, dropped the pose of amateurishness, cut the charm, looked beyond the worlds that she knew and, more importantly, loved?"

Biographical works
The gift for vivid characterisation, which Mitford developed in her fiction, was used to full effect in her four biographical works. In the first of these, Madame de Pompadour, she followed Waugh's advice not to write for experts but to fashion "a popular life like Strachey's Queen Victoria", with "plenty of period prettiness". This remained her yardstick in her subsequent biographical writings. Her own description of Voltaire in Love is "a Kinsey report of his romps with Mme de Châtelet and her romps with Saint-Lambert and his romps with Mme de Boufflers ... I could go on for pages". Acton thought The Sun King the most entertaining introduction to the subject in the English language. Mitford's informal style was remarked on by the literary critic Cyril Connolly, who wrote that her facility for transforming unpromising source material into readable form was a skill that any professional historian might envy. The historian Antonia Fraser considered Mitford an important contributor to the "remorseless process by which historical and biographical sales have soared since 1950".

Journalism, letters and other works
Mitford did not regard herself as a journalist: nevertheless, her articles were popular, particularly those she contributed on Paris life to The Sunday Times. Thompson describes this series as "a more sophisticated version of A Year in Provence, bringing France to the English in just the way that they most like it". Thompson adds that although Mitford was always a competent writer, it is in her letters, with their freedom of expression and flights of fancy, that her true character emerges. Many have been published within collections; they are, according to The Independent's reviewer: "a delight, full of the sparks of an abrasive and entertaining wit, refreshingly free from politeness".

List of works
(Publisher details are for first publication only)

Biographies

 * Illustrated edition (1968)

Translation

 * (play translated and adapted from André Roussin's La petite hutte)

As editor

 * The book includes Mitford's essay "The English Aristocracy", first published in Encounter, September 1955.
 * The book includes Mitford's essay "The English Aristocracy", first published in Encounter, September 1955.
 * The book includes Mitford's essay "The English Aristocracy", first published in Encounter, September 1955.

Other works
Mitford was a prolific writer of articles, reviews, essays and prefaces, some of which were published in two collections: The Water Beetle (Hamish Hamilton, 1962) and A Talent to Annoy (Hamish Hamilton, 1986). Her translation of Madame Lafayette's romantic novel La Princesse de Clèves was published in America in 1950, but was heavily criticised.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Nancy Mitford


text:
Jessica Mitford

Jessica Lucy "Decca" Treuhaft (née Freeman-Mitford, later Romilly; 11 September 1917 – 23 July 1996) was an English author, one of the six aristocratic Mitford sisters noted for their sharply conflicting politics.

Jessica married her second cousin Esmond Romilly, who was killed in World War II, and then American civil rights lawyer Robert Treuhaft, with whom she joined the Communist Party USA and worked closely in the Civil Rights Congress. Both refused to testify in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee. They resigned from the party in 1958.

Her 1960 memoir Hons and Rebels and her 1963 book of social commentary The American Way of Death both became classics.

Early life and ancestry
Born at Asthall Manor, Oxfordshire, the sixth of seven children, Jessica Mitford was the daughter of David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale, and his wife Sydney (daughter of politician and publisher Thomas Bowles). She grew up in a series of her father's country houses. She had little formal education. Her sisters Unity and Diana were well-known Fascists.

Jessica (known as "Decca" to family and friends) later described her conservative father as "one of nature's fascists", renounced her privileged background while still a teenager, and became an adherent of communism. Mitford said that her parents had "appeased Hitler and Nazism. ... He had crushed the trade unions, he had crushed the Communist Party and he had crushed the Jews ... and don't forget there's a huge strain of anti-Semitism that runs through that class in England." She was known as the "red sheep" of the family.

Life with Esmond Romilly
At the age of 19, Mitford fell in love with her second cousin, Esmond Romilly, who was recuperating from dysentery caught while defending Madrid with the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War. Romilly was a nephew (by marriage) of Winston Churchill. The cousins eloped to Spain, where Romilly picked up work as a reporter for the News Chronicle. After some legal difficulties caused by their relatives' opposition, they married. They moved to London and lived in the East End, then mostly a poor industrial area. Mitford gave birth at home to a daughter, Julia Decca Romilly, on 20 December 1937. The baby died in a measles epidemic the following May. Jessica Mitford rarely spoke of Julia in later life, and she is not referred to by name in Mitford's 1960 autobiography, Hons and Rebels.

In 1939, Romilly and Mitford emigrated to the United States. They travelled around, working odd jobs. At the outset of World War II, Romilly enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force; Mitford was living in Washington D.C., and considered joining him once he was posted to England. While living in D.C, with contemporaries Virginia Foster Durr and Clifford Durr, she gave birth to another daughter, Constancia Romilly ("the Donk" or "Dinky") on 9 February 1941. Her husband went missing in action on 30 November 1941, on his way back from a bombing raid over Nazi Germany. Mitford was devastated.

Life with Robert Treuhaft
Mitford threw herself into war work. Through this, she met and married the American civil rights lawyer Robert Treuhaft in 1943 and eventually settled in Oakland, California. She became an American citizen in 1944.

There, the couple had two sons; Nicholas, born in 1944 (who was killed in 1955 when hit by a bus), and Benjamin, born in 1947. Mitford approached her motherhood in a spirit of "benign neglect", described by her children as "matter-of-fact" and "not touchy-feely". She became closer to her own mother by letter over the decades, but remained estranged from her sister Diana for the rest of her life.

Communism and left-wing politics
Mitford and Treuhaft became active members of the Communist Party in 1943. Mitford spent much of the early 1950s working as executive secretary of the local Civil Rights Congress chapter. Through this and her husband's legal practice, she was involved in a number of civil rights campaigns, notably the failed attempt to stop the execution of Willie McGee, an African American convicted of raping a white woman. In 1953, as Communist Party members at the height of McCarthyism and the 'Red Scare', they were summoned to testify in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Both refused to name radical groups and friends or testify about their participation in Communist organisations, and were dismissed as 'unresponsive'.

In 1956, Mitford published a pamphlet, "Lifeitselfmanship or How to Become a Precisely-Because Man". In response to Noblesse Oblige, the book her sister Nancy co-wrote and edited on the class distinctions in British English, popularizing the phrases "U and non-U English" (upper class and non-upper class), Jessica described L and non-L (Left and non-Left) English, mocking the clichés used by her comrades in the all-out class struggle. (The title alludes to Stephen Potter's satirical series of books that included Lifemanship.)

Mitford and Treuhaft resigned from the American Communist Party in 1958, because they had come to the conclusion they could pursue their ideals more effectively outside the party. Mitford felt the party had become "rather useless".

In 1960, Mitford published her first book Hons and Rebels (US title: Daughters and Rebels), a memoir covering her youth in the Mitford household.

Investigative journalism
In May 1961, Mitford travelled to Montgomery, Alabama, while working on an article about Southern attitudes for Esquire. While there, she and a friend went to meet the arrival of a group of Freedom Riders and became caught up in a riot when a mob, led by the Ku Klux Klan, attacked the civil rights activists. After the riot, Mitford proceeded to a rally led by Martin Luther King Jr. The church at which this was held was also attacked by the Klan, and Mitford and the group spent the night barricaded inside until the siege was ended by the arrival of Alabama National Guard troops.

Through his work with unions and death benefits, Treuhaft became interested in the funeral industry and persuaded Mitford to write an investigative article on the subject. Though the article, "Saint Peter Don't You Call Me", published in Frontier magazine, was not widely disseminated, it caught considerable attention when Mitford appeared on a local television broadcast with two industry representatives. Convinced of public interest, she wrote The American Way of Death, which was published in 1963. In the book, Mitford harshly criticized the industry for using unscrupulous business practices to take advantage of grieving families. The book became a major best-seller and led to Congressional hearings on the funeral industry. The book was one of the inspirations for filmmaker Tony Richardson's 1965 film The Loved One, which was based on Evelyn Waugh's short satirical 1948 novel of the same name, subtitled "An Anglo-American Tragedy".

After The American Way of Death, Mitford continued with her investigative journalism. In 1970, she published an article in the Atlantic Monthly, "Let Us Now Appraise Famous Writers", an exposé of the Famous Writers School, a correspondence course of questionable business practices founded by Bennett Cerf. She published The Trial of Dr. Spock, the Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., Michael Ferber, Mitchell Goodman and Marcus Raskin, an account of the five men's 1970 trial on charges of conspiracy to violate the draft laws, followed by a harsh critique of the American prison system entitled Kind and Usual Punishment: The Prison Business (1973), an allusion to the phrase "cruel and unusual punishment".

Mitford was a distinguished professor for the one semester in 1973 at San Jose State University, where she taught a course called "The American Way" that covered the Watergate scandal and the McCarthy era. Because of disagreements with the dean over her taking a loyalty oath and submitting to fingerprinting, the campus was thrown into protests and she was forced to go to court to remain able to teach.

Books and music
Mitford's second memoir, A Fine Old Conflict (1977), comically describes her experiences joining and eventually leaving the Communist Party USA. Mitford titled the book after what, in her youth, she thought were the lyrics to the Communist anthem, "The Internationale", which actually are "'Tis the final conflict". Mitford recounts how she was invited to join the Communist Party by her co-worker Dobby, to whom she responded, "We thought you'd never ask!" She bristled against the conservative structure in the CP, at one point upsetting the women's caucus by printing a poster with "Girls! Girls! Girls!" to draw people to an event. She mercilessly teased an elder Communist about what she perceived as his paranoia when he wrote out the name of a town where she could get chickens donated from "loyal party members" for a fund raiser. When he wrote Petaluma on a scrap of paper to avoid being overheard by possible bugs, she asked in jest how the chickens should be prepared, and wrote, "Fried or broiled".

In addition to writing and activism, Mitford tried her hand at music as singer for "Decca and the Dectones", a cowbell and kazoo orchestra. She performed at numerous benefits and opened for Cyndi Lauper on the roof of the Virgin Records store in San Francisco. She recorded two short albums: one contains her rendition of "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" and "Grace Darling", and the other, two duets with friend and poet Maya Angelou. Her last work was an update entitled The American Way of Death Revisited.

Death
Mitford died of lung cancer in 1996, aged 78. She died in Oakland, California, where she also spent most of her life. In keeping with her wishes, she had an inexpensive funeral, costing $533.31 – she was cremated without a ceremony, her ashes scattered at sea. At the time of her death, the San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen wrote "In this strangely flat era of 'diversity,' she was the rarest of birds, an exotic creature who rose each morning to become the sun around whom thousands of lives revolved."

Her widower, Robert Treuhaft, survived her by five years.

Descendants
Two of her four children pre-deceased her.

Her surviving daughter, Constancia Romilly, continued the activist tradition, working for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which campaigned for African American civil rights; she eventually became an emergency room nurse. Romilly had two children with Committee director James Forman: James Forman Jr., a Yale professor and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, and Chaka Forman, an actor.

Her younger son, Ben Treuhaft, is a piano tuner based in Coventry, UK.

Legacy and influence
John Pilger, who had interviewed Mitford in 1983 for his series Outsiders, said she "combined a finely honed social conscience and a wonderful gallows humor. She inverted stereotypes. I liked her enormously".

The author Christopher Hitchens expressed his admiration for Jessica Mitford and praised Hons and Rebels.

J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, stated in 2002:

"My most influential writer, without a doubt, is Jessica Mitford. When my grand-aunt gave me Hons and Rebels when I was 14, she instantly became my heroine. She ran away from home to fight in the Spanish Civil War, taking with her a camera that she had charged to her father's account. I wished I'd had the nerve to do something like that. I love the way she never outgrew some of her adolescent traits, remaining true to her politics — she was a self-taught socialist — throughout her life. I think I've read everything she wrote. I even called my daughter Jessica Rowling Arantes after her."

Rowling reviewed Mitford's book of letters, Decca, in The Sunday Telegraph in 2006.

In 2010, Leslie Brody's biography of Mitford, Irrepressible, The Life and Times of Jessica Mitford was published by Counterpoint Press.

In 2013, the singer David Bowie named The American Way of Death as one of his favorite books.

Works

 * Hons and Rebels (U.S.: Daughters and Rebels), 1960
 * The American Way of Death, 1963
 * The Trial of Dr. Spock, the Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., Michael Ferber, Mitchell Goodman, and Marcus Raskin, Macdonald, 1969
 * Kind and Usual Punishment: The Prison Business, Alfred A. Knopf, 1973
 * A Fine Old Conflict, London: Michael Joseph, 1977
 * The Making of a Muckraker, London: Michael Joseph, 1979
 * Poison Penmanship: The Gentle Art of Muckraking, 1979
 * Grace Had an English Heart: The Story of Grace Darling, Heroine and Victorian Superstar, E. P. Dutton & Co, 1988. ISBN 0-525-24672-X
 * The American Way of Birth, 1992
 * The American Way of Death Revisited, 1998
 * Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford, edited by journalist Peter Y. Sussman. Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. ISBN 0-375-41032-5

Dramatizations and portrayals

 * Extracts from Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford were dramatized for Book of the Week, BBC Radio 4, five 15-minute programs broadcast in November 2006. The readers were Rosamund Pike and Tom Chadbon; the producer was Chris Wallis.
 * Mitford is portrayed by Sienna Guillory in the 2020 film Son of the South.

title: Jessica Mitford


text:
Mansfield Township, Warren County, New Jersey

Mansfield Township is a township in Warren County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's population was 7,781, its highest decennial census count ever, and an increase of 56 (+0.7%) from the 2010 census count of 7,725,  which in turn reflected reflected an increase of 1,072 (+16.1%) from the 6,653 counted in the 2000 census.

What is now Mansfield Township was formed on May 30, 1754, as Mansfield-Woodhouse Township from portions of Greenwich Township, while the area was still part of Sussex County, and was incorporated as Mansfield Township on February 21, 1798, as one of New Jersey's initial group of 104 townships by an act of the New Jersey Legislature. The township became part of the newly formed Warren County on November 20, 1824. Portions of the township were taken to form Franklin Township (April 8, 1839) and Washington Township (April 9, 1849). The township was named after William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield.

Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the township had a total area of 29.69 square miles (76.90 km2), including 29.59 square miles (76.63 km2) of land and 0.11 square miles (0.27 km2) of water (0.35%).

Anderson (with a 2010 Census population of 342 ), Beattystown (4,554 ) and Port Murray (129 ) are unincorporated communities and census-designated places (CDPs) located within the township.

Other unincorporated communities, localities and place names located partially or completely within the township include Karrsville, Mount Bethel, Penwell, Rockport and Stephensburg.

The township borders the municipalities of Hackettstown, Independence Township, Liberty Township, Oxford Township and Washington Township in Warren County; Lebanon Township in Hunterdon County; and Washington Township in Morris County.

Demographics
The Township's economic data (as is all of Warren County) is calculated by the U.S. Census Bureau as part of the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ Metropolitan Statistical Area.

2010 census
The 2010 United States census counted 7,725 people, 2,972 households, and 2,000 families in the township. The population density was 259.1 per square mile (100.0/km2). There were 3,316 housing units at an average density of 111.2 per square mile (42.9/km2). The racial makeup was 86.73% (6,700) White, 4.89% (378) Black or African American, 0.18% (14) Native American, 3.21% (248) Asian, 0.03% (2) Pacific Islander, 3.06% (236) from other races, and 1.90% (147) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 10.94% (845) of the population.

Of the 2,972 households, 31.4% had children under the age of 18; 51.8% were married couples living together; 10.7% had a female householder with no husband present and 32.7% were non-families. Of all households, 25.5% were made up of individuals and 7.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.54 and the average family size was 3.08.

22.9% of the population were under the age of 18, 7.9% from 18 to 24, 26.8% from 25 to 44, 29.7% from 45 to 64, and 12.8% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40.7 years. For every 100 females, the population had 94.6 males. For every 100 females ages 18 and older there were 93.4 males.

The Census Bureau's 2006–2010 American Community Survey showed that (in 2010 inflation-adjusted dollars) median household income was $74,063 (with a margin of error of +/− $8,316) and the median family income was $87,434 (+/− $8,330). Males had a median income of $56,567 (+/− $5,612) versus $41,583 (+/− $1,597) for females. The per capita income for the borough was $32,259 (+/− $2,751). About 5.1% of families and 6.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 8.3% of those under age 18 and 3.9% of those age 65 or over.

2000 census
As of the 2000 United States census there were 6,653 people, 2,334 households, and 1,750 families residing in the township. The population density was 222.3 PD/sqmi. There were 2,415 housing units at an average density of 80.7 /sqmi. The racial makeup of the township was 90.91% White, 4.51% African American, 0.24% Native American, 1.22% Asian, 1.59% from other races, and 1.53% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 4.37% of the population.

There were 2,334 households, out of which 39.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 61.3% were married couples living together, 9.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 25.0% were non-families. 18.9% of all households were made up of individuals, and 6.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.76 and the average family size was 3.18.

In the ownship the population was spread out, with 27.0% under the age of 18, 6.2% from 18 to 24, 32.4% from 25 to 44, 22.7% from 45 to 64, and 11.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 37 years. For every 100 females, there were 94.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 91.2 males.

The median income for a household in the township was $61,763, and the median income for a family was $76,102. Males had a median income of $50,295 versus $35,737 for females. The per capita income for the township was $26,277. About 2.7% of families and 3.9% of the population were below the poverty line, including 3.9% of those under age 18 and 5.9% of those age 65 or over.

Local government
Mansfield Township is governed under the Township form of New Jersey municipal government, one of 141 municipalities (of the 564) statewide that use this form, the second-most commonly used form of government in the state. The Township Committee is comprised of five members, who are elected directly by the voters at-large in partisan elections to serve three-year terms of office on a staggered basis, with either one or two seats coming up for election each year as part of the November general election in a three-year cycle. At an annual reorganization meeting conducted during the first week of January, the Township Committee selects one of its members to serve as Mayor and another to serve as Deputy Mayor.

, members of the Mansfield Township Committee are Mayor Joseph E. Watters (R, term on committee ends December 31, 2024; term as mayor ends 2022), Deputy mayor Glen McGuinness (R, term on committee and as deputy mayor ends 2022; elected to serve an unexpired term), Desiree Mora Dillon (R, 2022) and Joseph D. Farino (R, 2023) and Ronald Hayes (R, 2023).

In January 2020, Tony Cardell, who had been elected as a Republican in November 2019, announced that he would not be taking office for the seat expiring in December 2022. Glen McGuinness was elected in November 2021 to fill the balance of the term of office.

Federal, state, and county representation
Mansfield Township is located in the 7th Congressional District and is part of New Jersey's 23rd state legislative district.

Politics
As of March 2011, there were a total of 4,443 registered voters in Mansfield Township, of which 779 (17.5% vs. 21.5% countywide) were registered as Democrats, 1,784 (40.2% vs. 35.3%) were registered as Republicans and 1,877 (42.2% vs. 43.1%) were registered as Unaffiliated. There were three voters registered as Libertarians or Greens. Among the township's 2010 Census population, 57.5% (vs. 62.3% in Warren County) were registered to vote, including 74.6% of those ages 18 and over (vs. 81.5% countywide).

In the 2012 presidential election, Republican Mitt Romney received 1,789 votes (57.6% vs. 56.0% countywide), ahead of Democrat Barack Obama with 1,232 votes (39.7% vs. 40.8%) and other candidates with 45 votes (1.4% vs. 1.7%), among the 3,105 ballots cast by the township's 4,596 registered voters, for a turnout of 67.6% (vs. 66.7% in Warren County). In the 2008 presidential election, Republican John McCain received 1,925 votes (57.5% vs. 55.2% countywide), ahead of Democrat Barack Obama with 1,328 votes (39.7% vs. 41.4%) and other candidates with 50 votes (1.5% vs. 1.6%), among the 3,349 ballots cast by the township's 4,504 registered voters, for a turnout of 74.4% (vs. 73.4% in Warren County). In the 2004 presidential election, Republican George W. Bush received 2,043 votes (64.6% vs. 61.0% countywide), ahead of Democrat John Kerry with 1,076 votes (34.0% vs. 37.2%) and other candidates with 34 votes (1.1% vs. 1.3%), among the 3,163 ballots cast by the township's 4,227 registered voters, for a turnout of 74.8% (vs. 76.3% in the whole county).

In the 2013 gubernatorial election, Republican Chris Christie received 74.1% of the vote (1,251 cast), ahead of Democrat Barbara Buono with 23.7% (401 votes), and other candidates with 2.2% (37 votes), among the 1,715 ballots cast by the township's 4,683 registered voters (26 ballots were spoiled), for a turnout of 36.6%. In the 2009 gubernatorial election, Republican Chris Christie received 1,415 votes (66.5% vs. 61.3% countywide), ahead of Democrat Jon Corzine with 482 votes (22.6% vs. 25.7%), Independent Chris Daggett with 171 votes (8.0% vs. 9.8%) and other candidates with 29 votes (1.4% vs. 1.5%), among the 2,129 ballots cast by the township's 4,360 registered voters, yielding a 48.8% turnout (vs. 49.6% in the county).

Education
Students in public school for pre-kindergarten through sixth grade are served by the Mansfield Township School District at Mansfield Township Elementary School. As of the 2018–19 school year, the district, comprised of one school, had an enrollment of 607 students and 56.8 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 10.7:1.

Public school students in seventh through twelfth grades attend the schools of the Warren Hills Regional School District, which also serves students from the municipalities of Franklin Township, Washington Borough and Washington Township, along with those from Oxford Township (for 9–12 only, attending on a tuition basis). Schools in the district (with 2018–19 enrollment data from the National Center for Education Statistics ) are Warren Hills Regional Middle School with 542 students in grades 7 and 8 (located in Washington Borough) and Warren Hills Regional High School with 1,205 students in grades 9–12 (located in Washington Township). Seats on the high school district's nine-member board of education are allocated to based on the population of the constituent municipalities, with three seats assigned to Mansfield Township.

Students from the township and from all of Warren County are eligible to attend Ridge and Valley Charter School in Frelinghuysen Township (for grades K–8) or Warren County Technical School in Washington borough (for 9–12), with special education services provided by local districts supplemented throughout the county by the Warren County Special Services School District in Oxford Township (for PreK–12).

Roads and highways
, the township had a total of 72.40 mi of roadways, of which 46.85 mi were maintained by the municipality, 16.79 mi by Warren County and 8.76 mi by the New Jersey Department of Transportation.

The only major roads that pass through are Route 31 which passes through briefly in the west and Route 57 runs for 7.9 mi in the southern part.

No limited access roads traverse through. However, they are accessible two towns over such as Interstate 78 (in Franklin, Union, Clinton and Tewksbury townships) and Interstate 80 (in Knowlton, Hope, Allamuchy and Mount Olive townships).

Public transportation
A small general aviation airport, named Hackettstown Airport and holding the official database designation of is in Mansfield Township, only a few hundred yards from the municipal border with Hackettstown.

Rail service is provided into Hackettstown by NJ Transit. South of Hackettstown, Norfolk Southern's Washington Secondary passes the location of the Rockport Wreck, a train accident that occurred on June 16, 1925, that resulted in 50 fatalities.

Notable people
People who were born in, residents of, or otherwise closely associated with Mansfield Township include:
 * John Eugene Kunzler (1923– 2006), scientist and physicist who conducted pioneering research into the field of superconducting magnets.
 * Michael Weiner (1961–2013), attorney who served as the fifth executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association


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Oxford Township, New Jersey

Oxford Township is a township in Warren County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's population was 2,444, a decrease of 70 (−2.8%) from the 2010 census count of 2,514, which in turn reflected an increase of 207 (+9.0%) from the 2,307 counted in the 2000 census.

Oxford Township was formed from portions of Greenwich Township on May 30, 1754, while the area was still part of Sussex County. It was incorporated on February 21, 1798, as one of New Jersey's initial group of townships by an act of the New Jersey Legislature. Mansfield Township became part of the newly formed Warren County on November 20, 1824. Over the centuries since its creation, portions of the township were taken to form Knowlton Township (February 23, 1763), Franklin Township, Harmony Township and Hope Township (all on April 8, 1839), Belvidere (April 7, 1845) and White Township (April 9, 1913).

The origin of the name and the exact date of the township's creation is in dispute. One source says that the township was named for the University of Oxford in England, and was formed in either 1753 or 1755, but other sources claim that the township was named after an early settler named John Axford, who came to settle in the area with others between 1735 and 1739, and affirms that the township's creation was in 1755.

Oxford Furnace, constructed in 1741, was the third furnace in Colonial New Jersey and the first constructed at a site where iron ore was mined. Other furnaces used ore extracted from bogs in South Jersey, impure deposits called bog iron. Oxford Furnace operated the longest of any of the Colonial-era furnaces, not being "blown out" until 1884. In 1835, it was the site of America's first successful use of the hot blast in which preheated air was blown into the furnace, cutting production time. Though worn down by time, much of the site still stands. Oxford Furnace is listed on the State and the National Register of Historic Places.

Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the township had a total area of 6.06 square miles (15.70 km2), including 5.96 square miles (15.43 km2) of land and 0.10 square miles (0.26 km2) of water (1.67%).

Oxford CDP (with a 2010 Census population of 1,090 ) is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) located within the township. Oxford CDP and Oxford Township are not coextensive, with the CDP covering 11.7% of the 5.89 mi of the township as a whole.

Other unincorporated communities, localities and place names located partially or completely within the township include Pequest.

The township borders the Warren County municipalities of Mansfield Township, Washington Township and White Township.

Climate
Being in the Northeast U.S., Oxford experiences all four seasons with hot humid summers and cold, snowy winters.

Demographics
The township's economic data (as is all of Warren County) is calculated by the US Census Bureau as part of the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ Metropolitan Statistical Area.

2010 census
The 2010 United States census counted 2,514 people, 950 households, and 675 families in the township. The population density was 434.5 per square mile (167.8/km2). There were 1,033 housing units at an average density of 178.5 per square mile (68.9/km2). The racial makeup was 94.99% (2,388) White, 1.63% (41) Black or African American, 0.00% (0) Native American, 1.51% (38) Asian, 0.00% (0) Pacific Islander, 0.68% (17) from other races, and 1.19% (30) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 3.78% (95) of the population.

Of the 950 households, 32.3% had children under the age of 18; 56.1% were married couples living together; 10.3% had a female householder with no husband present and 28.9% were non-families. Of all households, 22.6% were made up of individuals and 9.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.63 and the average family size was 3.13.

24.0% of the population were under the age of 18, 7.4% from 18 to 24, 25.2% from 25 to 44, 31.0% from 45 to 64, and 12.4% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 41.1 years. For every 100 females, the population had 94.7 males. For every 100 females ages 18 and older there were 93.7 males.

The Census Bureau's 2006–2010 American Community Survey showed that (in 2010 inflation-adjusted dollars) median household income was $66,268 (with a margin of error of ± $3,864) and the median family income was $76,186 (± $8,432). Males had a median income of $56,731 (± $11,282) versus $36,816 (± $5,060) for females. The per capita income for the borough was $29,948 (± $2,220). About 1.5% of families and 3.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 3.6% of those under age 18 and 5.2% of those age 65 or over.

2000 census
As of the 2000 United States census, there were 2,307 people, 886 households, and 618 families residing in the township. The population density was 388.7 PD/sqmi. There were 938 housing units at an average density of 158.0 /sqmi. The racial makeup of the township was 96.58% White, 1.21% African American, 0.22% Native American, 0.52% Asian, 0.65% from other races, and 0.82% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 3.47% of the population.

There were 886 households, out of which 37.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 58.1% were married couples living together, 6.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 30.2% were non-families. 26.3% of all households were made up of individuals, and 12.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.60 and the average family size was 3.18.

In the township the population was spread out, with 27.5% under the age of 18, 5.0% from 18 to 24, 35.9% from 25 to 44, 20.3% from 45 to 64, and 11.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females, there were 97.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 95.0 males.

The median income for a household in the township was $53,359, and the median income for a family was $63,750. Males had a median income of $45,667 versus $31,210 for females. The per capita income for the township was $23,515. About 2.6% of families and 4.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 2.1% of those under age 18 and 7.9% of those age 65 or over.

Local government
Oxford Township is governed under the Township form of New Jersey municipal government, one of 141 municipalities (of the 564) statewide that use this form, the second-most commonly used form of government in the state. The Township Committee is comprised of three members, who are elected directly by the voters at-large in partisan elections to serve three-year terms of office on a staggered basis, with one seat coming up for election each year as part of the November general election in a three-year cycle. At an annual reorganization meeting held during the first week of January, the Township Committee selects one of its members to serve as Mayor and another to serve as Deputy Mayor.

, members of the Oxford Township Committee are Mayor Gerald S. Norton (R, term on committee ends December 31, 2024; term as mayor ends 2022), Deputy Mayor Georgette Miller (R, term on committee and as deputy mayor ends 2022) and Linda Koufodonetes (R, 2023; elected to serve an unexpired term).

In August 2021, the committee selected Linda Koufodontes to fill the vacant seat expiring in December 2023 that had been held by Robert Nyland until he resigned from office. Koufodontes served on an interim basis until the November 2021 general election, when she was chosen to serve the balance of the term of office.

After committee member Keith Gibbons resigned in July 2014 in the wake of harassment claims, Mayor Jade White and committee member Jim Williams resigned in August 2014 after realizing that Williams should have been up for election the previous November following his appointment to office. This left the township with no serving council members. In September 2014, Governor Chris Christie appointed Democrat Bill Bray and Republicans Marck Pasquini and Bill Ryan to fill the three vacant seats on an interim basis until the November 2014 general election, with the committee selecting Pasquini as mayor and Ryan as deputy mayor. In the November 2014 general election, Ryan was elected to serve the balance of the term expiring in December 2016.

Federal, state, and county representation
Oxford Township is located in the 7th Congressional District and is part of New Jersey's 23rd state legislative district.

Politics
As of March 2011, there were a total of 1,464 registered voters in Oxford Township, of which 338 (23.1% vs. 21.5% countywide) were registered as Democrats, 555 (37.9% vs. 35.3%) were registered as Republicans and 569 (38.9% vs. 43.1%) were registered as Unaffiliated. There were two voters registered as either Libertarians or Greens. Among the township's 2010 Census population, 58.2% (vs. 62.3% in Warren County) were registered to vote, including 76.6% of those ages 18 and over (vs. 81.5% countywide).

In the 2012 presidential election, Republican Mitt Romney received 591 votes (57.4% vs. 56.0% countywide), ahead of Democrat Barack Obama with 403 votes (39.1% vs. 40.8%) and other candidates with 20 votes (1.9% vs. 1.7%), among the 1,030 ballots cast by the township's 1,495 registered voters, for a turnout of 68.9% (vs. 66.7% in Warren County). In the 2008 presidential election, Republican John McCain received 662 votes (58.0% vs. 55.2% countywide), ahead of Democrat Barack Obama with 417 votes (36.5% vs. 41.4%) and other candidates with 22 votes (1.9% vs. 1.6%), among the 1,142 ballots cast by the township's 1,517 registered voters, for a turnout of 75.3% (vs. 73.4% in Warren County). In the 2004 presidential election, Republican George W. Bush received 698 votes (63.1% vs. 61.0% countywide), ahead of Democrat John Kerry with 379 votes (34.3% vs. 37.2%) and other candidates with 19 votes (1.7% vs. 1.3%), among the 1,106 ballots cast by the township's 1,443 registered voters, for a turnout of 76.6% (vs. 76.3% in the whole county).

In the 2013 gubernatorial election, Republican Chris Christie received 73.6% of the vote (514 cast), ahead of Democrat Barbara Buono with 24.2% (169 votes), and other candidates with 2.1% (15 votes), among the 725 ballots cast by the township's 1,516 registered voters (27 ballots were spoiled), for a turnout of 47.8%. In the 2009 gubernatorial election, Republican Chris Christie received 503 votes (64.0% vs. 61.3% countywide), ahead of Democrat Jon Corzine with 176 votes (22.4% vs. 25.7%), Independent Chris Daggett with 83 votes (10.6% vs. 9.8%) and other candidates with 12 votes (1.5% vs. 1.5%), among the 786 ballots cast by the township's 1,468 registered voters, yielding a 53.5% turnout (vs. 49.6% in the county).

Education
The Oxford Township School District serves public school students in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade at Oxford Central School. As of the 2018–19 school year, the district, comprised of one school, had an enrollment of 275 students and 30.0 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 9.2:1.

Public school students in ninth through twelfth grades are served by the Warren Hills Regional School District, which is a district for grades 7–12 that also serves students from the municipalities of Franklin Township, Mansfield Township, Washington Borough and Washington Township, with students from Oxford Township attending on a tuition basis as part of a sending/receiving relationship. Schools in the district (with 2018–19 enrollment data from the National Center for Education Statistics ) are Warren Hills Regional Middle School with 542 students in grades 7 and 8 (located in Washington Borough) and Warren Hills Regional High School with 1,205 students in grades 9–12 (located in Washington Township).

Students from the township and from all of Warren County are eligible to attend Ridge and Valley Charter School in Frelinghuysen Township (for grades K–8) or Warren County Technical School in Washington borough (for 9–12), with special education services provided by local districts supplemented throughout the county by the Warren County Special Services School District in Oxford Township (for Pre-K–12).

Transportation
, the township had a total of 21.69 mi of roadways, of which 13.02 mi were maintained by the municipality, 6.47 mi by Warren County and 2.20 mi by the New Jersey Department of Transportation.

The main road that passes through is Route 31.

The closest limited access roads (Interstate 78 and Interstate 80) are at least 20 minutes away.

Notable people
People who were born in, residents of, or otherwise closely associated with Oxford Township include:

 * Kirk Alyn (1910–1999), actor best known for being the first actor to play the DC Comics character Superman, appearing on screen in the 1948 film serial Superman, and its 1950 sequel Atom Man vs. Superman
 * Keith Jarrett (born 1945), jazz pianist and composer
 * George M. Robeson (1829–1897), Union Army general during the American Civil War, and United States Secretary of the Navy during the Grant administration

Points of interest

 * Oxford Furnace
 * Shippen Manor

title: Oxford Township, New Jersey