Anna Brassey, Baroness Brassey
| Anna Brassey | |
|---|---|
Anna Brassey
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| Born |
Anna Allnutt 7 October 1839 London |
| Died | 14 September 1887 (aged 47) |
| Nationality | British |
| Known for | Travel writing |
| Title | Baroness Brassey |
| Spouse(s) | Thomas Brassey |
| Children | five |
| Parent(s) | John Allnutt |
Anna "Annie" Brassey (née Allnutt), Baroness Brassey (7 October 1839 – 14 September 1887) was an English traveller and writer. Her bestselling book A Voyage in the Sunbeam, our Home on the Ocean for Eleven Months was published in 1878.
The daughter of John Allnutt, she married the English Member of Parliament Thomas Brassey (knighted in 1881 and became Earl Brassey in 1886), with whom she lived near his Hastings constituency. The couple had five children together before they travelled aboard their luxury yacht Sunbeam. The yacht was said to have been named after their daughter - Constance Alberta - who was nicknamed Sunbeam; she died of scarlet fever aged four, on 24 January 1873. The golden figurehead of the yacht depicting her is at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, UK.
A Voyage in the Sunbeam, describing their journey round the world in 1876-77 with a complement of 43, including family, friends and crew, ran through many English editions and was translated into at least five other languages. Her accounts of later voyages include Sunshine and Storm in the East (1880);In the Trades, the Tropics, and the Roaring Forties (1885); and The Last Voyage (1889, published posthumously). She had published privately earlier works including A Flight of the Meteor, detailing two cruises in the Mediterranean on their earlier yacht Meteor and A Voyage in the Eothen a description of their travels to Canada and the United States in 1872. She was also involved with the publication of Colonel Henry Stuart-Wortley's 1882 Tahiti, a Series of Photographs.
In July 1881 King Kalākaua of Hawaii, who had been greatly pleased with her description of his kingdom, was entertained at Normanhurst Castle, and invested Lady Brassey with the Royal Order of Kapiolani.
At home in England, she performed charitable work, largely for the St. John Ambulance Association.
Her collection of ethnographic and natural history material were shown in a museum at her husband's London house until they were moved to Hastings Museum in 1919. There are also several photograph albums and other ephemera held at Hasting Library. However, the vast majority of her photograph albums are now housed in the Huntington Library, San Marino, California. The collection of 70 albums, each containing 72 to 80 thick board pages, is said to be a preeminent example of the historic travel albums. These albums contain works by Brassey and others she collected, including those of commercial photographers. Brassey was also an accomplished photographer. She joined the Photographic Society of London (later Royal Photographic Society) in 1873 and remained a member until her death. and she exhibited some of her photography in the Society's exhibitions in 1873 and 1886.
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