Mary Anne Barker

Mary Anne Barker with her husband Frederick Broome (around 1866)

Mary Anne Barker (birth name: Mary Anne Stewart ; alternative name: Mary Anne Broome ; born January 29, 1831 in Spanish Town , Jamaica , † March 6, 1911 in London ) was a British writer who wrote numerous books about her experiences as a settler and shepherdess in New Zealand and thus gave a first insight into the life of the colonists there in the mid- 19th century . She was married to the colonial official Frederick Broome for the second time and dealt with life in the colony of Natal , Mauritius , Western Australia and Trinidad in literary works as well.

Life

Marriage to George Robert Barker and children

Mary Anne Stewart was the eldest daughter of the British colonial official Walter George Stewart, who was most recently secretary of the colonial administration of Jamaica. After the family returned to England in 1833 , they received their school education there. In 1852 she married George Robert Barker, an officer of the Royal Artillery , who was beaten to a Knight Bachelor in 1859 for his outstanding services in the Indian uprising of 1857 and from then on carried the suffix "Sir". From this marriage the son John Stewart Barker, born in 1853, and the son Walter George Barker, born in 1857, emerged.

While she stayed in England during her husband's war missions in the Crimean War in 1856 and in the Indian uprising in 1857, she followed him with her two sons to Bengal in 1860 during the Indigo Riots , where he died in July 1861.

Married Frederik Broome, raised sheep in New Zealand and returned to England

Mary Anne Barker then returned to England with her two sons and lived there with her family before she met Frederick Napier Broome , eleven years her junior, and later colonial administrator , whom she married on June 21, 1865 in Shropshire . While her sons continued their schooling in England, she and her husband traveled on the HMS Albion to New Zealand, where they arrived in Lyttelton in October 1865 together with 300 gold diggers . On February 8, 1866, Broome and his business partner HP Hill acquired the 9,700 acre Steventon sheep farm on the south bank of the Selwyn River in the Canterbury region . The previous owner of this farm was Richard Knight, a nephew of the writer Jane Austen , who named the farm after his aunt's house in Hampshire .

While she was still in a guest house in Christchurch , the first son of her and Broome, Hopton Napier Broome, was born on March 12, 1866. Shortly afterwards they moved into their first house, Broomielaw , where their son died just two months after he was born. Despite this fate, “three supremely happy years” followed. After Broome had lost 4,000 of his 7,000 sheep in a great snow storm in 1867, he sold his stake in Steventon Farm in December 1868 and returned to England with his wife, who was now called Lady Barker.

Beginning of the writing career

Station Life in New Zealand

In London both started working as journalists . Broome has written articles for the daily newspaper The Times and the magazines The Cornhill Magazine and Macmillan's Magazine , and two volumes of poetry, but was surpassed in the literary work of his wife.

At the instigation of her friend, the publisher Alexander Macmillan, she published Station Life in New Zealand in 1870 , a collection of letters she had written to her younger sister Jessie Stewart. This very successful book, which appeared in several new editions as well as in French and German translations , started Mary Anne Barker's literary career. Intimate in the language and written with a contagious enthusiasm for the pioneering life, the book tells of the vagaries of housekeeping and the entertainment of the sheep farm in the highlands, the excitement of the rides, the hunt for wild animals and the burning of the tussock areas, but also about the natural dangers of blizzards and floods. Her refreshingly unconventional demeanor becomes evident when describing the pursuit of wild cattle:

"I'm afraid it doesn't sound like a very neat and feminine occupation, but I thoroughly enjoy it and I cover myself with fame and honor through my strength all day that I walk around."

'I am afraid that it does not sound a very orderly and feminine occupation, but I enjoy it thoroughly, and have covered myself with glory and honor by my powers of walking all day.'

Station amusements in New Zealand , other works and activities

Mary Anne Barker's next published work was A Christmas Cake in Four Quarters (1872), which contained a story for children about Christmas in Steventon. Traveling about over old and new Ground was also published in 1872, while Station Amusements in New Zealand was a sequel to Station Life in New Zealand in 1873 . In it, she wrote in an entertaining style similar to her first book, about amusements such as eel fishing, pig farming, ice skating and sledding in Canterbury. To edify future colonialists, she provided first-hand information on issues such as buying pasture in New Zealand, dealing with braggers and servants, and providing first aid . Although written from the perspective of an upper-middle-class English woman whose experiences were in some ways atypical, Station Life and Station Amusements painted a vivid picture of colonial life in New Zealand.

Mary Anne Barker, who was described as “a fine tall woman, with well-designed proportions and somewhat decided manners” (“a fine tall woman, with well-marked features and a somewhat decided manner”), balanced what she did with her charm lacking physical beauty. She was interested in almost everything around her, especially birds and animals, and was full of concern for the well-being of her loved ones and neighbors. She revealed an adaptability and sense of humor that served her both as a traveler and as a writer. In fact, her ingenuity and energy as a settler characterized her the rest of her life.

Her literary output between 1870 and 1880 was astonishing. She has published 15 books on subjects ranging from travel to children's stories, home decor to cooking. In relation to her cooking skills, which she was forced to acquire in New Zealand, she published First Lessons in the Principles of Cookery in 1874 . This led to her becoming the first female director of the new National Training School for Cookery in South Kensington .

From the marriage of Frederick Broome and Mary Anne Barker, who was also editor of the family magazine Evening Hours in 1874 , two other sons emerged, Guy Saville Broome, born in 1870, and Louis Egerton Broome, born in 1875.

Life in Natal, Mauritius, Western Australia and Trinidad as well as late literary work

After Frederick Broome had become in February 1875 Colonial Secretary of Natal, Mary Anne Barker traveled with her sons in mid 1875 to him before she returned with the children in 1877 to England, where your most important experiences in Natal in A Year's Housekeeping in South Africa published . Even after her husband was appointed lieutenant governor of Mauritius in 1880, she lived with him before she was forced to return to England after suffering from malaria in 1881.

In December 1882 Broome was appointed governor of Western Australia . In the spring of 1883 she traveled from Mauritius to Australia with her husband and youngest son Louis, while their son Guy stayed in England to attend school. Although Broome's irascible temper led him to make enemies as governor, they spent six happy and eventful years in Western Australia. In addition to her numerous ceremonial duties as the governor's wife, Mary Anne Barker wrote Letters to Guy (1885), a vivid description of her first year in Australia, and edited her friend Anna Brassey's travel books . After her husband was promoted to Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George in 1884 and was henceforth allowed to call himself "Sir", she took the name Lady Broome.

The family left Australia in 1889 and went to Trinidad in 1891 after Broome was appointed governor there. His early death on November 26, 1896 left Mary Anne Barker in a difficult position with insufficient financial resources. Following a petition to the government of Western Australia, she was guaranteed an annual widow's pension of £ 150 sterling from there in 1897 . This enabled her to live the last years of her life without need in the London borough of Eaton Terrace. During this time she wrote articles as well as her last book Colonial Memories , which appeared in 1904.

Publications

• Station Life in New Zealand , 1870
• Spring Comedies , 1871
• A Christmas Cake in Four Quarters , 1872
• Traveling about over old and new Ground , 1872
• Station Amusements in New Zealand , 1873
• First Lessons in the Principles of Cookery , 1874
• Sibyl's Book , 1874
• Houses and Housekeeping , 1876
• A Year's Housekeeping in South Africa , 1877
• The Bedroom and Boudoir , 1878
• Letters to Guy , 1885
• Colonial Memories , 1904

Background literature

• A. Hasluck: Lady Broome . In: Historical Studies: Australia and New Zealand 7, No. 27 (Nov. 1956), pp. 291-302
• B. Gilderdale: The seven lives of Lady Barker , 1996
• Zenón Luis-Martínez / Jorge Figueroa-Dorrego (editor): Re-shaping the genres: restoration women writers , 2003, ISBN 3-906769-86-0

Web links

Wikisource: Mary Anne Barker  - Sources and full texts

• Literature by and about Mary Anne Barker in the catalog of the German National Library
• Cherry Hankin : Barker, Mary Anne . In: Dictionary of New Zealand Biography . Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand , June 4, 2013, accessed February 23, 2016 . 
• Proof of publication in Open Library