Florence Dixie
Florence Caroline Douglas , also known as Lady Florence Dixie , (born May 24, 1855 in Dumfries , † November 7, 1905 in London ) was a British traveler , journalist , writer and feminist eccentric in the Victorian era .
Life
Florence Caroline Douglas' family comes from the Scottish - English aristocracy . She was the second daughter of the politician Archibald William Douglas, 8th Marquess of Queensberry (1818-1858) and his wife Caroline Margaret Clayton (1821-1904) and the twin sister of Lord James Edward Sholto Douglas (1855-1891). Her other siblings were Lady Gertrude Georgiana Douglas (1842-1893) and three older brothers: John Sholto Douglas (1844-1900), later 9th Marquess of Queensberry , Lord Francis Douglas (1847-1865), died on the Matterhorn , and Lord Edward Archibald Douglas (1850-1938), a Roman Catholic clergyman .
When she was three years old, her father died from a gunshot wound that he sustained while cleaning his gun; it was widely believed that the marquess had committed suicide. She grew up in a world of Anglicans who had converted to Catholicism . Her mother fled with the children to Paris in 1862 , where Lady Florence was taught first at home and later in a girls' school run by nuns.
On April 3, 1875, she married Sir Alexander Beaumont Churchill , 11th Baronet Dixie (1851-1924), better known as Sir ABCD or Beau . After the marriage, she took her husband's name and was henceforth known as Lady Florence Dixie . The marriage, which all reports said was a happy one, had two sons, George Douglas (1876-1948) and Albert Edward Wolstan (1878-1940). The Prince of Wales and later King Edward VII was her youngest son . The couple lived at "Bosworth Hall" at Bosworth Market in Leicestershire .
In the late 1870s, Lady Florence traveled to Patagonia , South America with her husband, twin brother and children . After returning to England, she wrote down her experiences. These were published in the book Riding Across Patagonia , which became a bestseller . Lady Florence Dixie brought back a jaguar called Affums from her journey through Patagonia and kept it like a pet . After killing several deer in Windsor Castle Park, the animal was taken to London Zoo .
Lady Florence was the first war correspondent for the London Morning Post during the Zulu War (1879) between the Zulu people and the British Empire in South Africa . After her return to England, she published the book In the Land of Misfortune in 1882 . A year later, she got an exclusive interview with the Zulu King Cetshwayo after his arrival and audience with Queen Victoria aroused tremendous public interest. That same year, Lady Florence survived an assassination attempt by the Fenians after she wrote an article (The Case of Ireland) in Vanity Fair about the Irish Home Rule League party . Queen Victoria had the case investigated by her body servant and personal companion, John Brown . Brown died during the investigation.
Lady Florence also wrote novels with political messages. They advocated the equality of the sexes in marriage in which divorce , dress code and the royal succession rules . In other books, Lady Florence Dixie argued against hunting wild animals, in The Horrors of Sport (1891), The Evolution of a Mind (1903) and in Joseph McCabe's Religion of Woman (1905) she voiced the growing atheism and her views on it Liberation of women in society. In 1891, her family hit the headlines after their twin brother committed suicide and her husband Lord Dixie got into serious financial trouble and was forced to sell the family property at Bosworth Hall . The couple then lived in their city apartment in London. In 1894 the first British women's soccer team, the British Ladies by Nettie Honeyball , was founded. Its first president was Lady Florence Dixie and a year later the first official football game took place, which was followed by a good 10,000 spectators. The press was amused as the players wore hats on their heads and skirts over knickerbockers to maintain decency. In 1902, the British Football Association banned games against the Ladys teams.
Lady Florence Dixie was also an active member of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS).
Works (selection)
Novels
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Short stories
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Secondary literature
- Monica Anderson: Role-Play and Florence Dixie's "In the land of misfortune". In: Dies .: Women and the Politics of Travel, 1870–1914 . Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. Madisomn, NJ 2006, ISBN 0-8386-4091-5 .
- Margo MacLoone: Women Explorers of the World. Gertrude Bell , Isabella Bird Bishop , Nellie Bly , Margaret Bourke-White , Florence Dixie . Capstone Books, Mankato, Minn. 2000, ISBN 0-7368-0313-0 .
- Marion Tinling: Lady Florence Dixie, 1855-1905. In: Dies .: Women into the unknown. A sourcebook on women explorers and travelers . Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn. 1989, ISBN 0-313-25328-5 .
Worth mentioning
- A hotel in Puerto Natales , Chile , bears the name Hotel Lady Florence Dixie in her honor .
Web links
- Spartacus - Lady Florence Dixie (English)
- Jutta Duhm-Heitzmann: November 7th, 1905 - The anniversary of the death of Lady Florence Dixie WDR ZeitZeichen from November 4th, 2015 (Podcast)
Remarks
- ^ Douglas Murray: Bosie: a biography of Lord Alfred Douglas. New York: Hyperion (2000)
- ↑ Spartacus - Nettie Honeyball
- ↑ Hotel Lady Florence Dixie ( Memento of the original from July 4, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Dixie, Florence |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Douglas, Florence Caroline; Dixie, Florence Caroline |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British traveler, journalist and writer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 24, 1855 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Dumfries |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 7, 1905 |
| Place of death | London |