Mary Anne Barker
Encyclopedia
Biography
Born Mary Anne Stewart in Spanish TownSpanish Town
Spanish Town is the capital and the largest town in the parish of St. Catherine in the county of Middlesex, Jamaica. It was the former Spanish and English capital of Jamaica from the 16th to the 19th century...
, Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
, she was the eldest daughter of Walter Steward, Island Secretary of Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
. She was educated in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, and in 1852 married Captain George Robert Barker
George Robert Barker
Brigadier-General Sir George Robert Barker KCB was a British soldier.Born in London, he was the youngest son of John Barker, a former deputy-storekeeper general in HM Treasury. Barker was educated at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich and joined the Royal Artillery in 1834. After the Crimean War...
of the Royal Artillery
Royal Artillery
The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery , is the artillery arm of the British Army. Despite its name, it comprises a number of regiments.-History:...
, with whom she would have two children. When Barker was knighted for his leadership at the Siege of Lucknow
Siege of Lucknow
The Siege of Lucknow was the prolonged defense of the Residency within the city of Lucknow during the Indian Rebellion of 1857. After two successive relief attempts had reached the city, the defenders and civilians were evacuated from the Residency, which was abandoned.Lucknow was the capital of...
, Mary Anne became "Lady Barker". Eight months later Barker died.
On 21 June 1865, Mary Anne Barker married Frederick Napier Broome
Frederick Broome
Sir Frederick Napier Broome KCMG was a colonial administrator in the British Empire.He was born in Canada, but was living in England in 1865, when he married Mary Anne Barker...
. The couple then sailed for New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, leaving her two children in England. The couple's first child was born in Christchurch
Christchurch
Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the country's second-largest urban area after Auckland. It lies one third of the way down the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula which itself, since 2006, lies within the formal limits of...
in February 1866, but died in May. By this time, they had moved to the sheep station
Sheep station
A sheep station is a large property in Australia or New Zealand whose main activity is the raising of sheep for their wool and meat. In Australia, sheep stations are usually in the south-east or south-west of the country. In New Zealand the Merinos are usually in the high country of the South...
Steventon, which Broome had partnered with H. P. Hill to buy. They remained there a little over a year; they lost more than half their sheep in the winter of 1867, and in response Broome sold out and the couple returned to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
Both Mary Anne and her husband then became journalists
Journalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
. Still calling herself "Lady Barker", Mary Anne Broome became a correspondent for The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, and also published two books of verse, Poems from New Zealand (1868) and The Stranger from Seriphos (1869). In 1870, she published her first book Station Life in New Zealand, a collection of her letters home. The book was reasonably successful, going through several editions and being translated into French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
.
Over the next eight years, Lady Barker wrote ten more books, including A Christmas Cake in Four Quarters (1871), a sequel to Station Life entitled Station Amusements in New Zealand (1873), and First Lessons in the Principles of Cooking (1874). This last title led to her being appointed Lady Superintendent of the National Training School of Cooking in South Kensington
South Kensington
South Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London. It is a built-up area located 2.4 miles west south-west of Charing Cross....
.
When Frederick Broome was appointed Colonial Secretary of Natal in 1875, Lady Barker accompanied him there. Broome's subsequent colonial appointments had him traveling to Mauritius
Mauritius
Mauritius , officially the Republic of Mauritius is an island nation off the southeast coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about east of Madagascar...
, Western Australia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...
, Barbados
Barbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles. It is in length and as much as in width, amounting to . It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about east of the islands of Saint...
, and Trinidad
Trinidad
Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands and numerous landforms which make up the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. It is the southernmost island in the Caribbean and lies just off the northeastern coast of Venezuela. With an area of it is also the fifth largest in...
. Drawing on these experiences, Lady Barker published A Year's Housekeeping in South Africa (1880) and Letters to Guy (1885).
Frederick Broome was knighted on 3 July 1884, and thereafter Mary Anne called herself "Lady Broome". She published the last of her 22 books, Colonial Memories under this name. After Sir Frederick Broome's death in 1896, Lady Broome returned to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, dying there on 6 March 1911.
Further reading
- The Seven Lives of Lady Barker: Betty Gilderdale. Publisher: David Bateman, Auckland, NZ, 1996. ISBN 1-86953-289-9 (A full biography)
- The Seven Lives of Lady Barker: Betty Gilderdale. Publisher: Canterbury University Press, Christchurch, NZ, 2009. ISBN 978-1-877257-81-0 (New Edition)
- Station Life in New Zealand: Lady Barker. With an introduction and notes by Betty Gilderdale. Publisher: Vintage, Auckland, NZ, 2000. ISBN 1-86941-423-3