 The name "Widmerpool" was assumed by many critics to derive from Widmerpool a Nottinghamshire village. In a 1978 interview, Powell said he first came across the name in a 17th-century book, Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson, which features a Captain of Horse, Major Joseph Widmerpoole, who served in Cromwell's army under John Hutchinson during the English Civil War. Powell viewed this Widmerpoole as a mean-spirited and disagreeable character and "had his name down for really quite a long time as a name I was going to use".
