F. Matthias Alexander - England

England

In March 1925, Alexander bought an 18th century farmhouse Penhill with 20 acres (81,000 m2) of grounds, in Bexleyheath, Kent. The property included a lodge, occupied by family of 5, all of whom worked in house or grounds. Edith and their daughter Peggy took up residence, with Alexander joining them at the weekends to ride his horse and tend his garden. They were soon joined by Jack Vicary, who having left her husband, moved to a cottage near Penhill in which she ran a shop. Initially, there was a good relationship between the two households, and the Alexanders' relationship went through a happier period. However, in 1929, the two separated; Edith had become jealous of Alexander's work and relationships, especially those with women, and bitter about her own aging and lack of success. Edith moved back to Little Venice in London, and Peggy spent the weekdays with her, and weekends at Penhill with her father. Edith became an alcoholic, and died in 1938. Alexander had become increasingly attracted to Jack, and the two began an affair, which resulted in the birth of a son, John Vicary, born in the US in June 1931. Jack had travelled there for the sake of respectability, and claimed to have adopted John there. At Ashley Place, the "little school" was founded with Irene Tasker as teacher, not only of the Alexander Technique, but also of academics. About six to eight students, most of whom had disabilities of some sort, attended at first, but the numbers grew to a dozen by 1933, requiring a move to a larger space. After a false start involving Esther Lawrence, a wealthy former principal of the Froebel Institute, who had offered him large, furnished house, in 1934 the school moved to Penhill, and became a boarding school.

In 1924 Alexander's approach received a boost from a theoretical perspective when the German professor Rudolf Magnus published his book about the physiology of posture. As his supporters were quick to note, Magnus' scientific conclusions in many ways mirrored many of Alexander's longstanding principles, including that correct functioning is dependent on the alignment of the head, neck and back, and on correct sensory perception. Critics pointed out differences between the two theories, however, and the current view is that the two theories are related but describe different concepts.

Alexander also attracted several important new pupils, including the statesman Victor Bulwer-Lytton, 2nd Earl of Lytton who drew public attention to the technique in the Times Educational Supplement, the initially skeptical writer Anthony Ludovici who went on to praise Alexander's approach in a book, and the industrialist Robert Best who supported the Alexander Technique, including the expansion of teaching to Birmingham, but also challenged Alexander, including writing an 1941 essay of constructive criticism. In particular, Best complained about Alexander's explanations and dismissive responses to pupils, and his expectation of unquestioning acceptance of his work. He viewed Alexander as limited in his perspective, with little awareness of the artistic and spiritual, and constrained by the view that he had the solution to all problems in life. that his approach answered

The first training course was started in September 1930, at Ashley Place, and continued alongside his own practice until 1940. When the war came he lived and worked in the United States from 1940 until 1943, which was a difficult time as his teachers were disappearing into the services. Fearing that the technique would be lost, he returned to London in 1943 and successfully restarted the training course.

At the end of the war, in 1944, Dr. Dorothy Morrison (née Drew), hoping for improvement to her own 'use' (following injury in a car crash) and to the health of her disabled mother, joined the small group of Alexander's pupils at Ashley Place. Dorothy became a close friend of Alexander's at that time, gave medical evidence at the Libel case in South Africa and soon after lived there in Johannesburg with her family.