'Our home on the ocean': Lady Brassey and the voyages of the Sunbeam, 1874-18871

Journal of Historical Geography

Volumn 32, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 579-604

  Ryan, James R ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Empire; Gender; Home; Ocean voyages; Sea; Ships; Travel writing

Indexed keywords

BIOGRAPHY; OCEAN; VESSEL;

ENGLAND; EURASIA; EUROPE; UNITED KINGDOM; WESTERN EUROPE;

EID: 33745190281     PISSN: 03057488     EISSN: 10958614     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhg.2005.10.007     Document Type: Article

References (115)

1. Initial research for this paper was undertaken during a Fellowship at The Huntington Library, San Marino, California, in 2000. I am grateful to staff at The Huntington Library, in particular Jenny Hunter, for their assistance. Thanks must also go to Joan M. Schwartz and Nancy Mickelwright for so generously sharing their knowledge of Lady Brassey, and to Nicholas Courtney and the late Colin Matthew for information on the Brassey family. I am also grateful for assistance provided by staff at Bexhill Museum, Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex; The County Archives and Record Office, East Sussex County Council; Hastings Museum and Art Gallery; and Hastings Reference Library, Hastings, East Sussex, England. Thanks also go to the convenors and participants of the 'Historical Geographies of the Sea' session at the RGS-IBG annual conference in September 2003, particularly David Lambert, Miles Ogborn and Luciana Martins, for their enthusiasm and helpful comments.
2. J. Conrad, Initiation (first published in Blackwood Magazine 1906). Reprinted in T. Tanner (Ed.), The Oxford Book of Sea Stories, Oxford, 1994, 1-14, 6.
3. Lady Brassey had suffered declining health for many years. Indeed, her searches for warmer climates and sea air had initially been prompted by her doctor's advice. She had regular attacks of bronchitis throughout her travels and seems to have contracted malaria on a visit to Syria in 1869.
4. A.A. Brassey, The Last Voyage, Lady Mary Ann Broome (Ed.), London, 1889.
5. A.A. Brassey, A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam': Our Home on the Ocean for Eleven Months, London, 1878.
6. A.A. Brassey, The Flight of the 'Meteor', London, 1869-1871; A.A. Brassey, A Cruise in the 'Eothen', 1872, London, 1873.
7. S.A. Leonard, Lady Annie (Allnutt) Brassey, in: B. Brothers and J. Gergits (Eds), Dictionary of Literary Biography. Vol. 166: British Travel Writers 1837-1875, Detroit, 1996, 68-78.
8. W.A. Hardie, Notes on Lady Brassey's Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' with Examination Papers, Allahabad, 1894. This volume not only provides factual explanation for pupils who might be unfamiliar with sea-faring terminology. The notes also reinforce the normative quality of the narrator as a representative of English civilization, for instance elaborating on Lady Brassey's occasional disparaging remarks of people based on notions of racial character: By 'Mischievous beady eyes', Hardie explains, Lady Brassey meant: 'By looking at their small eyes one could conclude that these negroes were a mischievous set of fellows', 14. Tellingly Hardie suggests that by 'at home' Lady Brassey means 'In England', 21. As I go on to argue, the sense of home embodied in Lady Brassey's narrative was simultaneously domestic, national and imperial. The examination papers were designed to test geography, language and factual recall. Some again reflect Brassey's colonial encounters: 'Write a brief account of the negroes sent by Mr. Martinez with supplies for the crew of the "Sunbeam"', ii; or 'What does Lady Brassey say regarding the Fuegians with whom some of her party bartered certain goods?', v. Others reflect the centrality of the ship in the narrative; question 1, chapter 1 thus reads: 'Give a brief description of the "Sunbeam"', i.
9. A.A. Brassey, Sunshine and Storm in the East, London, 1880; A.A. Brassey, In the Trades, the Tropics and the Roaring Forties, London, 1885.
10. Brassey A.A. Mr. Gladstone in Norway. Contemporary Review 48 (1885) 480-503
11. W.H.D. Adams, Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century, London, 1883, 341.
12. For an important recent overview of Lady Brassey's voyages and assessment of her travels in the Middle East see N. Micklewright, A Victorian Traveler in the Middle East: The Photography and Travel Writing of Annie Lady Brassey, Aldershot, 2003.
13. C.F. Behrman, Victorian Myths of the Sea, Athens, Ohio, 1977.
14. Behrman, Victorian Myths of the Sea, 18.
15. C. Casarino, Modernity at Sea: Melville, Marx, Conrad in Crisis, London, 2002, 12.
16. For two well known contemporary examples by male travellers, see J.A. Froude, Oceana or England and Her Colonies, London, 1886; J. Slocum, Sailing Alone Around the World, London, 1900. For a selection of other sea narratives see J. Raban (Ed.), The Oxford Book of the Sea, Oxford, 1992.
17. L. Norling, Captain Ahab Had a Wife: New England Women and the Whalefishery, 1720-1870, London, 2000, 2.
18. See, for example, M.S. Creighton and L. Norling (Eds), Iron Men, Wooden Women: Gender and Seafaring in the Atlantic World, 1700-1920, London, 1996; J. Druett, Hen Frigates: Wives of Merchant Captains Under Sail, New York, 1998; R. Stott, Darwin's barnacles: mid-century Victorian natural history and the marine grotesque, in: R. Luckhurst and J. McDonagh (Eds), Transactions and Encounters: Science and Culture in the Nineteenth Century, Manchester, 2002, 151-181; N. Pagh, At Home Afloat: Women on the Waters of the Pacific Northwest, Calgary, 2001.
19. V. Dickerson, Introduction: housekeeping and housekept angels, in: V. Dickerson (Ed.), Keeping the Victorian House: A Collection of Essays, New York, 1995, xiii-xxxi; L. Davidoff and C. Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Classes, 1780-1850, London, 1987.
20. Vickery A. Golden age to separate spheres? A review of the categories and chronology of English women's history. Historical Journal 36 (1993) 383-414
21. D.O. Helly and S.M. Reverby (Eds), Gendered Domains: Rethinking Public and Private in Women's History, London, 1992
22. Blunt A., and Varley A. Introduction: geographies of home. Cultural Geographies 11 (2004) 3-6
23. Mallett S. Understanding home: a critical review of the literature. The Sociological Review (2004) 62-89
24. M. Hepworth, Privacy, security and respectability: the ideal Victorian home, in: T. Chapman and J. Hockey (Eds), Ideal Homes?: Social Change and Domestic Life, London, 1999
25. Tosh J. New men? The bourgeois cult of home. History Today 46 (1996) 9-16
26. I. Bryden and J. Floyd (Eds), Domestic Space: Reading the Nineteenth-century Interior, Manchester, 1999; S. McKellar and P. Sparke (Eds), Interior Design and Identity, Manchester, 2004.
27. A. Blunt, Travel, Gender, and Imperialism: Mary Kingsley and West Africa, New York, 1994; C. McEwan, Gender, Geography, and Empire: Victorian Women Travellers in West Africa, Aldershot, 2000
28. Guelke J.K., and Morin K.M. Gender, nature, empire: women naturalists in nineteenth-century British travel literature. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers NS 26 (2001) 306-326
29. Blunt A. Imperial geographies of home: British domesticity in India, 1886-1925. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 24 (1999) 421-440
30. Blunt A. 'Land of our mothers': home, identity and nationality for Anglo-Indians in British India, 1919-1947. History Workshop Journal 54 (2002) 49-72
31. Gowans G. Imperial geographies of home: memsahibs and miss-sahibs in India and Britain, 1915-1947. Cultural Geographies 10 (2003) 424-441
32. Blunt, Imperial geographies of home.
33. Froude, Oceana, 18.
34. Stevenson R.L. The English admirals. Cornhill Magazine 38 (1878) 36 cited in Behrman, Victorian myths of the sea, 26
35. All Lady Brassey's books were well illustrated with maps and wood engravings, the latter often derived from artist friends on board. For example, Lady Brassey's In the Trades (1885), an account of a leisurely two month cruise in the Sunbeam, included numerous wood engravings based on drawings by the ship's artist, the marine illustrator and gunmaker Robert Taylor Pritchett.
36. Anon. The last voyage in the Sunbeam. Daily Telegraph (28 January 1889)
37. Anon. The last voyage in the Sunbeam. Home News (1 February 1889)
38. See, for example, L. Martins, O Rio de Janeiro dos Viajantes: O Olhar Britânico, 1800-1850, Rio de Janeiro, 2001;
39. Martins L., and Driver F. John Septimus Roe and the art of navigation, c. 1815-1830. History Workshop Journal 54 (2002) 144-161
40. L. Martins, Mapping tropical waters, in: D. Cosgrove (Ed.), Mappings, London, 1999, 148-168;
41. Clayton D. The creation of imperial space in the Pacific Northwest. Journal of Historical Geography 26 (2000) 327-350
42. Ogborn M. Writing travels: power, knowledge and ritual on the English East India Company's early voyages. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 27 (2002) 155-171 156
43. An important argument for the continued material significance of ships and maritime space is made in A. Sekula, Fish Story, Rotterdam, 1995.
44. Thomas Brassey (1836-1918) published a number of works on labour relations, wages and, most notably, naval matters. See, for example, T. Brassey, Work and Wages, London, 1872; T. Brassey, British Seamen, London, 1877; T. Brassey, The British Navy, London, 1882-1883. He was a tireless advocate of naval reforms and support for naval defence. However, as a later biographer noted, 'his productions, while full of facts, seldom led up to any concrete conclusion, and the effect of them was rather to ventilate the subject than to produce any tangible results.' V.W., Brassey, Thomas, first Earl Brassey, of Bulkeley, Cheshire (1836-1918), in H. Davis and J. Weaver, Dictionary of National Biography 1912-1921, Oxford, 1927, 62. Perhaps Thomas Brassey's greatest legacy in naval matters was Brassey's Naval Annual, the widely regarded review of world naval affairs, first published in 1886. Thomas Brassey remarried in 1890, served as lord-in-waiting to Queen Victoria (1893-1895) and as governor of Victoria, Australia (1895-1900). He continued to speak widely on issues of naval defence, imperial federation and industrial relations. In 1908 Brassey was appointed Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and in 1911 he was created Earl Brassey and Viscount Hythe. See also V.W. Baddeley, Brassey, Thomas, first Earl Brassey (1836-1918), rev. H.C.G. Matthew, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford, 2004 [accessed 10 Nov 2004: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/32047].
45. Although not the prime focus of this paper, it is worth noting that there is a large and varied literature on collecting and travel. See, for example, S. Bann, Travelling to collect: the booty of John Bargrave and Charles Waterton, in: G. Robertson et al. (Ed.), Travellers' Tales, London, 1994, 155-163; S. Stewart, On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection, London, 1993.
46. E.H. Marshall, Brassey, Anna, Lady Brassey (1839-1887), rev. D. Middleton, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford, 2004 [accessed 10 Nov 2004: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/3288].
47. H. Callan and S. Ardner (Eds), The Incorporated Wife, London, 1984.
48. Cited in J.V. Beckett, The Aristocracy in England 1660-1914, Oxford, 1986.
49. D. Cannadine, Ornamentalism, London, 2002.
50. For a broader discussion of Lord and Lady Brassey within the context of the British aristocracy see D. Cannadine, Lords and Landlords: The Aristocracy and the Towns 1774-1967, Leicester, 1980; D. Cannadine, The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy, London, 1990; D. Cannadine, Aspects of British Aristocracy: Grandeur and Decline in Modern Britain, London, 1994.
51. T. Brassey Preface, in Brassey, A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam', vii-viii.
52. See J. Robinson, Wayward Women: A Guide to Women Travellers, Oxford, 1990, 295-296.
53. Brassey, A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam', 505-511.
54. Brassey, A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam', 510.
55. Brassey, A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam', 196.
56. Robinson, Wayward Women, 204.
57. Froude, Oceana, 78.
58. J. Raban, Introduction in Raban (Ed.), The Oxford Book of the Sea, 18.
59. Anon. Sunday Times (29 January 1889)
60. East Sussex Record Office A5634/3/5: Newspaper Gleanings.
61. C. Hall, White, Male and Middle Class: Explorations in Feminism and History, Cambridge, 1992, 13-18. Lady Brassey pursued a range of philanthropic causes whilst on her travels, supporting and organising St John Ambulance Association meetings and hospital visits, and visiting settlers, including former household staff, in British colonies.
62. D. David, Rule Britannia: Women, Empire, and Victorian Writing, Ithaca, 1995, 204-205.
63. N. Armstrong, Desire and Domestic Fiction: A Political History of the Novel, New York, 1987.
64. M. Girouard, Life in the English Country House: A Social and Architectural History, New Haven, 1978, 270; cited in Armstrong, Desire and Domestic Fiction, 74.
65. Brassey, A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam', 200.
66. See J. Gerard, The Chatelaine: women of the Victorian landed classes and the country house, in: Dickerson (Ed.), Keeping the Victorian House, 175-206.
67. Casarino, Modernity at Sea.
68. Sorrenson R. The ship as a scientific instrument in the eighteenth century. Osiris 2nd Series (1996) 221-236
69. Sorrenson, The ship as a scientific instrument, 222.
70. Robinson, Wayward Women, 200.
71. Brassey, A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam', 505-511.
72. Brassey, A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam', 11.
73. Brassey, A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam', 199.
74. See J. Flanders, The Victorian House: Domestic Life from Childbirth to Deathbed, London, 2003, 93-130.
75. Brassey, A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam', 503. Pt. De Galle is located at the southern tip of Ceylon (Sri Lanka).
76. Brassey, A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam', 20.
77. Brassey, A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam', 424-425.
78. Lady Brassey records how, for example, on 'crossing the line' on 8th August 1876: 'Jim Allen, one of our tallest sailors, and coxswain of the gig, dressed in blue, with long oakum wig and beard, gilt paper crown and trident, and fish impaled in one hand, was seated on a gun carriage, and made a capital Father Neptune. Our somewhat portly engineer, Mr. Rowbotham, with fur-trimmed dressing gown and cap...made an equally good doctor to his Marine Majesty, while the part of Mrs. Trident was ably filled by one of the youngest sailors, dressed in some of the maids' clothes.' Brassey, A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam', 40.
79. M. Donald, Tranquil havens? Critiquing the idea of home as the middle-class sanctuary, in: Bryden and Floyd (Eds), Domestic Space, 118.
80. Brassey, A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam', 136.
81. E. Edwards, Negotiating spaces: some photographic incidents in the Western Pacific, 1883-84, in: J.M. Schwarz and J.R. Ryan (Eds), Picturing Place: Photography and the Geographical Imagination, London, 261-279. As Edwards notes, the ship's deck was a complex and socially produced space on which colonial encounters were often acted out.
82. A. Briggs, Victorian Things, London, 1988, 213-259.
83. C.L. Eastlake, Hints on Household Taste, in Furniture, Upholstery and Other Details, London, 1868.
84. See also Pagh, At Home Afloat, 132-137.
85. Here the public could view Brassey's collections housed within the Oriental setting of the Durbar Hall, purchased from the 1886 Colonial and India Exhibition in London.
86. See, for example, T. Logan, Decorating domestic space: middle-class women and Victorian interiors, in: Dickerson (Ed.), Keeping the Victorian House, 207-234; T. Logan, The Victorian Parlour, Cambridge, 2001; S. Lasdun, Victorians at Home, London, 1981; Flanders, The Victorian House.
87. Brassey A. The decoration of a yacht. The Magazine of Art 5 (1882) 103-108 103
88. 'A Cozy Corner', Brassey, A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam', 22.
89. See Flanders, The Victorian House, 143-144; see also J. Gloag, Victorian Comfort: A Social History of Design from 1830-1900, London, 1961, 72.
90. Brassey, The decoration of a yacht, 104.
91. Brassey, The decoration of a yacht, 105.
92. See K. Halttunen, From parlor to living room: domestic space, interior decoration, and the culture of personality, in: S. Bronner (Ed.), Consuming Visions, New York, 1989; S. Sidlauskas, Psyche and sympathy: staging interiority in the early modern home, in: C. Reed (Ed.), Not at Home: The Suppression of Domesticity in Modern Art and Architecture, London, 1996, 65-80.
93. Brassey, The decoration of a yacht, 107.
94. Brassey, The decoration of a yacht, 104.
95. Brassey, The decoration of a yacht, 105.
96. Brassey, The decoration of a yacht, 106.
97. For further discussion of this notion of home see. Ahmed S. Home and away: narratives of migration and estrangement. International Journal of Cultural Studies 2 (1999) 329-347
98. A. Brah, Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities, London, 1996.
99. Behrman, Victorian Myths of the Sea, 21.
100. Conrad, Initiation. Reprinted in Tanner (Ed.), The Oxford Book of Sea Stories.
101. Anon. Sunday Times (29 January 1889)
102. East Sussex Record Office A5634/3/5: Newspaper Gleanings.
103. Micklewright, A Victorian Traveler in the Middle East, 42-43.
104. For an elaboration of this argument see D.C. Archibald, Domesticity, Imperialism, and Emigration in the Victorian Novel, London, 2002.
105. See E. Langland, Nobody's Angels: Middle-Class Women and Domestic Ideology in Victorian Culture, Ithaca, 1985.
106. Behrman, Victorian Myths of the Sea, 18.
107. R. Barthes, Mythologies, selected and translated from the French by Annette Lavers, London, 1972, 66; cited in P. Osborne, Travelling Light: Photography, Travel, and Visual Culture, Manchester, 2000, 60.
108. S. Kern, The Culture of Time and Space 1880-1918, London, 1983, 156.
109. P. Sparke, Introduction, in: McKellar and Sparke (Eds), Interior Design and Identity, 1-9, 6.
110. Brassey, In the Trades, cited in Leonard, Lady Annie (Allnutt) Brassey, 75.
111. M. Brassey, Sunshine and Storm in the East, Or Cruises to Cyprus and Constantinople, London, 1880, 15. For a comment on the significance of the popular Victorian song 'Home, sweet home' see Blunt, Imperial geographies of home, 421.
112. Brassey, The Last Voyage, 219.
113. Brassey, Sunshine and Storm in the East, 431.
114. Adams, Celebrated Women Travellers, 377.
115. Anon. The Sunbeam at Cardiff. Kent and Sussex Post (29 April 1893). The reporter went on to note how women visitors were most interested in the sleeping quarters whilst Cardiff men were more interested in seeing the engine room.