Overview of the Collection
Access
Administrative Information
Biographical Note on Lady Annie Brassey and Timeline of Brassey Family Travel
Sources Consulted
List of Lady Brassey's Publications
Scope and Content
Inventory of albums
Arrangement
Indexing Terms
Overview of the Collection
Title: Lady Annie Brassey Photograph
Collection
Dates (inclusive): approximately 1860-1886
Collection Number: photCL 331
Creator:
Brassey, Annie,
1839-1887.
Extent:
approximately 5,616 photographs in 70 volumes
Repository:
The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
Photo Archives
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, California 91108
Phone: (626) 405-2191
Email: reference@huntington.org
URL: http://www.huntington.org
Abstract: This collection consists of 70 folio volumes containing
approximately 5,616 photographs collected by English writer and traveler Lady Annie
Brassey (1839-1887) during her oceanic voyages around the world. The photographs,
chiefly taken by professional photographers, cover the period between the 1860s to
the late 1880s and reflect Lady Brassey's interests in architectural views and
British fortifications throughout the British Empire, indigenous peoples and living
conditions, and exotic plants and animals. The collection also includes an album
containing photographs of seascapes by Colonel Stuart Wortley (1832-1890) taken in
the 1860s and 1870s.
Language:
English.
Access
Open to qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services
Department. For more information, contact Reader Services.
Administrative Information
Publication Rights
The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to
quote from or publish images of this material, nor does it charge fees for such
activities. The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is
one, and obtaining necessary permissions rests with the researcher.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Lady Annie Brassey Photograph Collection, The
Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
Provenance
Purchased from George Gregory, 1923.
Custodial History
In October 1920, the contents of Earl
Brassey's home, "Normanhurst," were sold at auction over a five-day period by Phillips, Son & Neale,
London, as lot number 1026. The catalog lists 82 folio volumes of "photographs from around the world
mounted and bound in half morocco by Zaehnsdorf." The annotated catalog in the British Library notes that the lot sold for
£44 to
a buyer that can possibly, due to the semi-legible hand, be identified as the London bookselling firm
of James Rimell & Son. Subsequently, in 1921, a listing for “Lord Brassey’s Collection of Photographs
during his Voyages”, priced at £120, appears in a catalog of the bookselling firm of George Gregory of
Bath, England.
Biographical Note on Lady Annie Brassey and Timeline of Brassey Family Travel
Lady Annie Brassey (1839-1887) was an English writer, traveler, and amateur photographer who
documented the extensive cruises she made with her family aboard their private yachts in published memoirs and photographs.
Anna Allnutt was born in London on October 7, 1839, to John
Allnutt and Elizabeth Harriet. Elizabeth died while her child—called Annie—was a
baby. The infant was subsequently sent to live with her paternal grandfather, John
Allnutt Sr., in the London suburb of Clapham. Annie developed a love of nature and
botany during her years in the countryside, a passion which would inform her
collecting interests as an adult. In later childhood, Annie moved to her father’s
Grosvenor Place residence in London to receive formal education from a governess.
Annie married Thomas Brassey (1836-1918) on October 9, 1860, at St. George's Church,
Hanover Square, London. The eldest son of Maria Farringdon and Thomas Brassey Sr.
(1805-1870)—a self-made railroad magnate who constructed railroads throughout
Europe, Canada, India, South America, and Australia—the younger Thomas entered
political life in 1861. Brassey represented Hastings in the House of Commons from
1868 to 1886. Prime Minister William E. Gladstone raised Brassey to the Peerage in
1886 as Baron Brassey of Bulkeley, County Cheshire. He became Earl Brassey in
1911.
Annie and Thomas Brassey had five children together: Thomas A. Allnutt (called
"T.A.B"), Mabelle Annie, Constance Alberta, Muriel Agnes, and Marie Adelaide. The
Brassey family lived at Beauport Park near Hastings, and later at Normanhurst Court,
a house built in 1870 in the parish of Catsfield, Sussex.
The Brasseys were keen yachtsmen, and Thomas Brassey’s professional interests
involved maritime pursuits, including Civil Lord of the Admiralty (1880 -1883);
author of
The British Navy (1882-1883); Parliamentary
Secretary to the Admiralty (1884 -1885); founder of the
Naval
Annual
(1886); President of the Institution of Naval Architects
(1893-1895); Governor of Victoria, Australia (1895-1900); and Warden of the Cinque
Ports (1908).
Between 1869 and 1887, the Brassey family made a series of extensive cruises aboard
their private yachts (see a timeline of these travels below). On these voyages, Lady
Brassey collected photographs by local and regional commercial photographers, as
well as natural and ethnographic specimens and artifacts. She also wrote lively
travel accounts. She privately published recollections from the 1869 and 1872 trips
illustrated with photographs (her own and others) and woodcut illustrations in
The Flight of the Meteor, 1869-1871 (1872) and
A Cruise in
the "Eothen"
(1872).
With the building in 1874 of a steam-powered, three-masted schooner named
Sunbeam, the Brasseys’ travels became ever more
ambitious. In addition to family, the
Sunbeam
accommodated more than 30 crew members and a rotating cast of visitors at its
numerous ports of call. The yacht’s well-appointed common rooms became a floating
museum that displayed Lady Brassey’s growing collections acquired during her
travels.
Lady Brassey’s book about her eleven-month circumnavigation of the globe in
1876-1877— titled
Around the World in the Yacht
"Sunbeam"
(1878)—brought the author international fame. The book went
into a sixth printing in its first year and was issued in nineteen editions
thereafter. In 1881, publisher Longmans, Green adapted
Around the
World
for classroom use; it remained in print for thirty years in both
French and English.
An avid amateur photographer, Lady Brassey fitted out the
Sunbeam with a state-of-the-art darkroom. She became a member of the
Royal Photographic Society and exhibited her photographs at a Society exhibition in
1886. Lady Brassey’s various writings include references to the photographic studios
she visited and the images she made during her travels. In many cases, she used her
own photographs and those she collected as primary sources for the lithographic
illustrations that appear throughout her books. Even so, it is difficult to
definitively attribute images in the volumes to Brassey herself.
Lady Brassey contracted malaria in Syria in 1869 and from that point forward
experienced episodic, debilitating attacks. She also suffered from bronchial
problems and favored warmer climes to gain relief from her illnesses. On November
16, 1886, Lady Brassey left England on what turned out to be her final trip. The
Sunbeam traveled to India, Borneo and Australia.
Brassey died on September 14, 1887, off the coast of Brisbane, and was buried at sea
the same day. A recounting of Brassey’s final trip, edited by Lady Mary Ann Broome
and posthumously published under the title
The Last
Voyage,
appeared in 1889.
During her lifetime, Brassey exhibited her collections in order to raise funds for
the charitable causes in which she believed. She displayed the natural and
enthnographic specimens and other artifacts at Hastings in 1881 and 1885 and at
exhibitions in South Kensington and Swansea in 1883. The collections found a
permanent home in `The Lady Brassey Museum’ at Earl Brassey’s London house, 24 Park
Lane. The museum opened to the public shortly after Lady Brassey’s death. These
collections—as well as items from the family’s Normanhurst Court house—were
dispersed to museums in Hastings and Bexhill in 1919 and 1920 after the death of
Earl Brassey (d. 1918) and Thomas Allnutt Brassey (d. 1919), the Brassey’s only son.
Timeline of Brassey Family Travels, 1869-1887
Date |
Destination |
Ship |
1869 |
Egypt, Holy Land, Syria, Malta |
Meteor |
Sept. – Nov. 1872 |
Canada and United States |
Eothen |
July - Aug. 1874 |
Norway and the Arctic Circle |
Sunbeam |
Sept. 1874 - Jan. 1875 |
Mediterranean, Turkey |
Sunbeam |
July 1876 – May 1877 |
Around-the-World Cruise |
Sunbeam |
1878 |
Mediterranean, Turkey |
Sunbeam |
1883 |
Egypt |
Sunbeam |
Sept. – Dec. 1883 |
West Indies, Bermuda, Jamaica, Azores |
Sunbeam |
1885 |
Norway and Scandinavia, with Prime Minister E.
Gladstone
|
Sunbeam |
1886-1887 |
India, Africa, Australia |
Sunbeam |
|
Lady Brassey dies at sea on Sept. 14,
1887
|
|
Sources Consulted
Copy of a letter from Joan Hayes, Library Assistant, The Royal Photographic
Society to Pamela Haines, Local Studies Librarian, Hastings Central Library, dated
12 February 1985 (Copy held in photCL 331 collection files, The Huntington
Library).
"Mrs. Brassey’s Dark Room On Board the 'Sunbeam,'" in
Journal for Amateur
Photographers
26 (January 27, 1882), 48.
A Catalogue of the Valuable Contents of the Mansion "Normanhurst" near
Battle Sussex, Monday the 4th day of October 1920 and four following
days
(London: Messrs. Phillips, Son & Neale, Auctioneers, 1920), 69.
Katherine DiGuilio,
Natural Variations: Photographs by Colonel Stuart
Wortley
(San Marino, Calif.: Henry E. Huntington Library and Art
Gallery, 1994).
Capt. S. Eardley-Wilmot, ed.
Voyages and Travels of Lord Brassey from
1862 to 1894
(London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1895)
Scott A. Leonard, "Lady Annie (Allnutt) Brassey," in
British Travel
Writers, 1837-1875,
eds. Barbara Brothers and Julia Gergits,
Dictionary of Literary Biography 166: (Detroit, Michigan: Gale
Research, 1996), 68-78.
H.C.G. Matthew and Brian Harrison, eds.
Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography,
vol. 7 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 385-390.
Nancy Mickelwright,
A Victorian Traveler in the Middle East: The
Photography and Travel Writing of Lady Annie Brassey
(Burlington, VT:
Ashgate, 2003).
Julian Porter,
Annie Brassey, 1839-1887, Victorian Traveler, Collector,
and Writer
(East Sussex: Bexhill Museum, 1996).
James R. Ryan, "`Our home on the ocean’: Lady Brassey and the voyages of the
Sunbeam, 1874-1887,"
Journal of Historical
Geography
32 (2006), 579-604.
List of Lady Brassey's Publications
-
The Flight of the Meteor, 1869-1871 (Printed for private
circulation, 1872)
-
A Cruise in the
"Eothen"
(London: Printed for private circulation,
1872) (Call numbers: 484483; 470767)
-
Natural History of a Voyage in the "Sunbeam" (London: Longmans,
1878)
-
Around the World in the Yacht
"Sunbeam"
(New York: Holt, 1878) (Call
Number: 486650); republished as
A Voyage in the Sunbeam, Our Home on the
Ocean for Eleven Months
(London: Longmans, Green, 1878)
-
Sunshine and Storm in the East; or,
Cruises to Cyprus and Constantinople
(London: Longmans, Green, 1880) (Call number: 112925)
-
Sunshine and Storm in the East; or, Cruises to Cyprus and
Constantinople
(New York: Holt, 1880)
-
Tahiti: A Series of Photographs Taken
by Colonel Stuart-Wortley, with Letterpress by Lady
Brassey
(London: Sampson Low, 1882) (Call
number: 480596)
-
In the Trades, the Tropics, & the
Roaring Forties
(London: Longmans, Green,
1885) (Call number: 112846)
-
In the Trades, the Tropics, & the
Roaring Forties
(New York: Holt, 1885) (Call
number: 332649)
-
Lady Brassey’s Three Voyages in the "Sunbeam" (London:
Longmans, Green, 1887)
-
The Last
Voyage,
edited by Lady Mary Ann Broome (London &
New York: Longmans, Green, 1889) (Call number: 112922)
Scope and Content
The Lady Annie Brassey Collection consists of 70 bound folio volumes containing
approximately 5,616 photographs collected and made by Lady Brassey during her
oceanic voyages, spanning from the 1860s to the late 1880s. The majority of
photographs are by professional photographers of the era.
The photographs primarily date from 1874 through 1887 when the Brassey family toured
aboard their yacht
Sunbeam. Some of the photographs
were collected and taken by Lady Brassey during several pre-
Sunbeam voyages—including images in volumes 20 and 21 depicting Canada,
the United States, and Mexico when the Brassey’s sailed in the yacht
Eothen.
Lady Brassey’s photographic interests included architectural views, British
fortifications, indigenous peoples (she collected many photographs showing native
"types," a genre popular in the period), exotic plants, and animals, all subjects
reflected in the volumes. An avid amateur photographer who equipped the
Sunbeam with a darkroom, Brassey wrote often about visits
to photography studios and her attempts to make pictures in various locales.
Assigning attribution to photographs in the collection is difficult, if not
impossible. Many photographs have been trimmed and studio imprints excised; none of
the images appear to be signed by Lady Brassey herself. A typescript, item-level
description of the photographs contained in each volume was completed sometime in
the late 1980s by curator of historical photographs Brita Mack and Huntington
volunteer Robert Weinstein. Lists of the source materials they consulted for
identifying photographers and locales is included in the collection files.
Particular volumes of interest include: Volume 31 depicting the aftermath of the
bombardment of Alexandria in 1882, with images by J. Pascal Sebah, Émile Béchard,
and L. Fiorillo; Volume 64 is a rare set of seascapes by Colonel Henry Stuart
Wortley, an artist whom Lady Brassey championed during her lifetime; Volume 69, with
its series of amateur photographs that may have been made by Brassey or members of
her family, and includes examples of single images printed using a variety of papers
and techniques; Volume 70 depicts life aboard the
Sunbeam, including photographs of Lady Brassey, Earl Brassey and their
children, crew members, and the staterooms with displays of artifacts and specimens.
The volumes measure 45 x 37 cm and are identically bound in quarter morocco with
marbled end papers and a small stamp, "Bound by Zaehnsdorf," at the lower left edge
of the first page. Spines are stamped in gold with the contents of each volume; a
"B" topped with a coronet is stamped near the lower edge of the spine. Each album
contains 72 thick cards onto which the photographs are pasted. Many of the albums
are not completely filled, while others are filled to capacity. Some images are
captioned in an unknown hand. There is no evidence indicating when or in what order
the albums were assembled, nor who assembled them.
Identified photographers consist of:
- Baldus, Edouard, 1813-1889 (France): Volumes 54 and 66
- Bayliss, George (Sydney, Australia): Volume 6
- Béchard, Émile 1844-1891 (Egypt): Volumes 29-33
- Bell & Langford (New Zealand): Volume 15
- Bingham, A. H. Volume 66
- Bisson frères (France): Volume 54
- Burton Brothers (Firm) (Dunedin, New Zealand): Volume 15
- Cazabon, S. C. (India): Volume 12
- Chase, Henry (Honolulu, Hawaii): Volume 16
- Chuck Photo (Ballarat, Australia): Volumes 3 and 6
- Cotter, James (Canada): Volume 21
- Deen Dayal, Raja, 1844-1905 (India): Volume 12
- Dumas (Egypt): Volume 33
- Fiorillo, L. (Egypt): Volume 31
- Fong, A. (China): Volume 9
- Foster & Martin (Melbourne, Australia): Volume 6
- Gibson (Penzance) (Great Britain): Volume 57
- Godard, A. (Italy): Volume 42
- Graziani (Venice, Italy): Volumes 39 and 51
- Hammerschmidt, William (Egypt): Volumes 28 and 33
- Henderson, Alexander (Canada): Volumes 21 and 70
- Horetzky, Charles (Canada): Volume 21
- Kerry & Jones. (Sydney, Australia): Volumes 1, 2, and 6
- Le Gray, Gustave Volume 66
- MacPherson, R. (Italy): Volume 44
- Mage, E. (France): Volume 54
- Notman, William (Canada): Volumes 21 and 57
- Ponti, Carlo (Venice, Italy): Volumes 39 and 67
- Rose, C. (Denmark): Volume 60
- Scherer & Marholz (St. Petersburg and Moscow, Russia): Volume 63
- Sebah, J. Pascal (Cairo, Egypt): Volumes 28-34 and 62
- Sommer, Georgio (Naples, Italy): Volumes 40, 42, and 61
- Stuart Wortley, Henry, 1832-1890 Volume 64
- Tagliarini, T. (Sicily): Volume 42
- Valentine, James (England): Volume 57
- Voland Volume 66
- Washbourne Photo (Melbourne, Australia): Volume 7
- West & Son (Southsea and Gosport, England): Volume 70
- Wilson, George Washington (England): Volume 57
Inventory of albums
Arrangement
The volumes are arranged geographically in the following series:
- Australia (Vols. 1-7)
- Asia (Vols. 8-14)
- Oceania and Pacific Islands (Vols. 15-17)
- Caribbean and Atlantic Ocean Islands (Vols. 18-19)
- North America (Vols. 20-21)
- Africa (Vols. 22-34)
- Europe (Vols. 35-63)
- Colonel Stuart Wortley seascape photographs (Vol. 64)
- Artwork (Vols. 65-67)
- "The Sunbeam" photographs (Vols. 68-70)
Indexing Terms
Subjects
Brassey, Annie,
1839-1887 -- Travel -- Photographs.
Shipwrecks --
Photographs.
Voyages and travels -- Photographs.
Yachting --
Photographs.
Africa --
Photographs.
Alexandria (Egypt) --
Photographs.
Algiers (Algeria) --
Photographs.
Australia --
Photographs.
Austria --
Photographs.
Azores --
Photographs.
Bermuda Islands --
Photographs.
Burma --
Photographs.
Cairo (Egypt) --
Photographs.
Canada --
Photographs.
China --
Photographs.
Cyprus --
Photographs.
England --
Photographs.
Europe --
Photographs.
Denmark --
Photographs.
France --
Photographs.
Germany --
Photographs.
Gibraltar --
Photographs.
Greece --
Photographs.
Hawaii --
Photographs.
Hong Kong (China) --
Photographs.
Egypt --
Photographs.
India --
Photographs.
Ireland --
Photographs.
Islands of the Pacific
-- Photographs.
Italy --
Photographs.
Japan --
Photographs.
Madeira (Madeira
Islands) -- Photographs.
Malta --
Photographs.
Mauritius --
Photographs.
Middle East --
Photographs
Portugal --
Photographs.
Russia --
Photographs.
South Africa --
Photographs.
Scotland --
Photographs.
Spain --
Photographs.
Sri Lanka --
Photographs.
Sweden --
Photographs.
Switzerland --
Photographs.
Taiwan --
Photographs.
Tangier (Morocco) --
Photographs.
Tenerife (Canary
Islands) -- Photographs.
Trinidad --
Photographs.
Turkey --
Photographs.
United States --
Photographs.
Forms/Genres
Albumen prints.
Cyanotypes.
Salted paper prints.
Photographs.
Photograph albums.
Contributors
Bell & Langford,
photographer.
Bisson frères,
photographer.
Burton Brothers (Firm),
photographer.
Chuck Photo, photographer.
Foster & Martin,
photographer.
Goupil et Cie, publisher.
Kerry & Jones,
photographer.
Scherer & Marholz,
photographer.
Washbourne Photo,
photographer.
West & Son,
photographer.
Baldus, Edouard, 1813-1889,
photographer.
Bayliss, George,
photographer.
Béchard, Émile, 1844-1891,
photographer.
Bingham, A. H.,
photographer.
Cazabon, S. C.,
photographer.
Chase, Henry, photographer.
Cotter, James,
photographer.
Deen Dayal, Raja, 1844-1905,
photographer.
Dumas, photographer.
Fiorillo, Luigi,
photographer.
Fong, A., photographer.
Gibson, John, 1827-
photographer.
Godard, Adolphe,
photographer.
Graziani (photographer),
photographer.
Hammerschmidt, William,
photographer.
Henderson, Alexander, 1831-1913,
photographer.
Horetzky, Charles, 1838-1900,
photographer.
Le Gray, Gustave, 1820-1882,
photographer.
Macpherson, Robert, 1815 or 1816-1872,
photographer.
Mage, E. (Eugène), 1837-1869,
photographer.
Notman, William,
photographer.
Ponti, Carlo, photographer.
Rose, C., photographer.
Sebah, Pascal, 1823-1886 ,
photographer.
Sommer, Georgio,
photographer.
Stuart Wortley, Henry, 1832-1890,
photographer.
Tagliarini, T.,
photographer.
Valentine, James, 1815-1879,
photographer.
Voland (photographer),
photographer.
Wilson, G. W. (George Washington),
1823-1893, photographer.