River Orwell pre-Celtic; but "-well" probably indicates an Anglo-Saxon naming. In "A tour through England and Wales" written in 1722, Daniel Defoe calls the river "Orwel" (though does this inconsistently). He also mentions that "a traveller will hardly understand me, especially a seaman, when I speak of the River Stour and the River Orwell at Harwich, for they know them by no other names than those of Maningtre-Water, and Ipswich-Water". The writer Eric Blair chose the pen name under which he would later become famous, "George Orwell", because of his love for the river. A few miles north of the Orwell is
Statue of George Orwell of the Orwell Society, responded in "Private Eye"'s letters page that "the plinth on which the statue stands seems to fit in perfectly with the building". On BBC Radio 4's "Front Row", the critic Sarah Gaventa also questioned the use of a plinth for this "man of the people". Gaventa was approving of the sculpture itself. "You can see he wants to get into the conversation and give you his very honest and forthright opinions. It's Orwell. Who else could it be? When you look at the canon of Martin Jennings's work… it's about brave people who speak out. I’m