Ethel Brilliana Tweedie F.R.G.S. (1862–1940) was a prolific English author, travel writer, biographer, historian, editor, journalist, photographer and illustrator. She wrote as Mrs. Alec Tweedie, Mrs. Alec-Tweedie and as Ethel B. Harley.[1]
Early life
Ethel Tweedie was born 1 January 1862 in London, the daughter of George Way Harley F.R.S. and Emma Jessier (Musprat) Harley, into an early life of wealth and privilege. Her siblings included a sister (Olga) and three brothers (Vaughan B., Vernon De V. and Harold S.), She was named by her father for a famous relative, Lady Brilliana Harley (wife of Sir Robert Harley, of Brampton Bryan). She was educated at Queen's College, London, and abroad in Germany.
In 1886 she visited Iceland on holiday with her brother Vaughan B. Harley, her future husband Alexander (Alec) Leslie Tweedie, a woman friend, and two other men.[2] At the suggestion of her father, she kept a journal of her travels and published it afterwards as her first book, A Girl's Ride in Iceland' in 1895 [1][3][4] (even including an appendix on Icelandic geysers by her father). She married Alexander Tweedie two years later on January 1, 1887.
In 1893, following a telegram warning of the sudden serious illness of her brother Vaughan in Christiania, Norway she and her sister traveled to see him.[5] She returned to Norway again within two years, then later published her second book A Winter Jaunt to Norway: with Accounts of Nansen, Ibsen, Bjornson, Brandes, and Many Others [6] outlining her travel experiences and meetings with a number of famous people while abroad. Then, tragically, her whole life changed in the early summer of 1896 with the sudden death of her husband. She never remarried.
In 1897, still upset and stunned by his death, she agreed to accompany her sister and a Finnish companion, Frau von Lilly, on a trip abroad to Finland. During that time she gathered material that eventually made its way into a third book, Through Finland in Carts ,[7] published later in 1898 and beginning her career as a popular writer.
Author, photographer, painter, philanthropist
Writing,[8] Mrs Alec Tweedie by Hoppé 1911
Tweedie's extensive bibliography spans the years from 1889 to 1936. Though she may be best known as a travel writer today, her works also include a biography of her father (George Harley, F.R.S. The Life of a London Physician[9]), some works that are essentially a layperson's studies in early 20th century ethnography :Cremation the World Around [10] and America As I Saw It; or, America Revisited,.[11] A great number of her short works were written and published in the London popular press. After 1912 her works became more autobiographical.[1]
She was a photographer, a prolific painter and a watercolorist; her published works included her own sketches and paintings. Returning from a two-year journey in the Near East, she exhibited three hundred watercolor sketches in 1921 at the Alpine Gallery in London,[1] and continued with other exhibitions and one-woman shows over following years. A year before her death in 1940 she presented over five hundred sketches to various foreign governments, institutions, the Navy League, the Royal Empire Society and the Royal Central Asian Society.
Tweedie was an early and enthusiastic advocate of women's rights and women's suffrage. She was astute and flexible in adapting the practical habits of others she met in her travels. When traveling in Iceland in 1886, rather than riding sidesaddle she quickly adapted the Icelandic women's habit of riding astride a horse or pony as a sensible necessity—radical behavior for a British woman of her era. She wrote, "Necessity gives courage in emergencies. I determined therefore to throw aside conventionality, and do in 'Iceland as the Icelanders do.' ... Society is a hard task-master. Nothing is easier than to stick on a side-saddle, of course, and nothing more difficult than to ride gracefully. For comfort and safety, I say ride like a man."[3]
Likely as a result of her own tragic situation, she felt strongly that families should provide early safeguards for both boy and girl children (an unusual sentiment for her times) for their education and upbringing. ("...It is a cruel thing to let a girl leave a home without a safeguard in proportion to the income of her family. It is a crueller thing to bring boys and girls into the world with insufficient provision for their education and maintenance... I feel strongly that every child born should have some kind of provision made for its education and maintenance and to give it a start in life. Both boys and girls should be treated exactly alike." [12] )
During her life she served on many charitable committees of the International Council of Women (1899). She was a life governor of University College Hospital and St. Mary's Hospital.[1]
Family life
When First A Widow [8] - Ethel Tweedie shortly after the death of her husband
On January 1, 1887 she married Alexander Leslie Tweedie a marine insurance broker born in India, and heir to a considerable fortune.[13] They lived happily and well, in modest luxury, and had two sons, Harley Alexander Tweedie (6 May 1888 – 1926) and Leslie Kinloch Tweedie (11 January 1890 – 17 January 1916). Sadly, her husband died suddenly and unexpectedly at their home in Aldburgh, Suffolk nine years later, 25 May 1896, killed by the shock and responsibilities of financial disaster following the catastrophic failure of his marine insurance syndicate (caused by unforeseen British Admiralty court findings in the case of the ship the Benwell Tower [14] which ruined both Alexander and his brother George Straton Tweedie, and a third partner Frederick Stumore). A few weeks later her father also died suddenly intestate, leaving her nothing of his estate. She was left essentially destitute, with two young boys to raise. With no capital to draw on and no other means of income she turned to writing, relying on her writing skills and publishing contacts made during earlier, happier times.
She wrote for the popular press in London when possible. She wrote books based on her journeys, including detailed and fascinating portraits of celebrities she met abroad. She traveled widely and wrote of peoples in lands that were not usual British or European holiday destinations. She continued to write and publish even after her boys reached their majority and moved away, though her youngest son Leslie was killed in the first world war, and her eldest son Harley died in an aircraft accident while serving with the Royal Air Force in Transjordan.[15]
She settled into a life of international travel and reflection, and eventually became a very successful travel writer. When she was at home in her flat in Devonshire House, Mayfair, London, she hosted popular weekly receptions that brought together important people of her era and many international travelers.
In addition to sketching and painting, her wide range of interests included embroidery and textiles: she even bequeathed to the Victoria and Albert Museum in February 1927 some fine examples of English silks, laces and needlework acquired in her travels.
She continued to write and publish until only a few years before her death in London, 15 April 1940, aged 78.[1] Following her death, several other items including two icons were bequeathed in 1940 to the Victoria and Albert Museum by her estate.
Related Information
The Tweedie Archive -- This website [1] once hosted much detailed information on Tweedie (Tweedy) genealogy. Unfortunately that website is no longer functioning but much of the information is still available via the web archive "Way Back Machine" (see next entry).
The Wayback Machine -- The website [2] is a partial recreation of the original 'Tweedie Archive' site. See especially this dated list of main events in Ethel's life. It cites many lesser publications from the popular press, including quite a few from The Times.
Hanson Acutioneers -- The website [3] includes an undated photograph of Ethel in later years, as well as information on an estate sale of her possessions.
NORA (the Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research) [4] [Vol. 17, No. 4, 273-288, December 2009] -- The organization published an interesting study of her travels in the North in "Europe's Northern Periphery and the Future of Women in the Travel Narratives of Ethel Tweedie".
Bibliography
Novels and longer works
A Girl's Ride In Iceland (1889)
The Oberammergau Passion Play (1890)
A Winter Jaunt To Norway: with Accounts of Nansen, Ibsen, Bjornson, Brandes, and Many Others (1894)
Wilton, Q.C.; Or, Life in a Highland Shooting-Box (1895)
Danish versus English Butter-Making (1895)
Through Finland In Carts (1897)
The First College Open To Women: Queens College, London: Memories and Records of Work Done, 1848–1898 (1898)
George Harley, F.R.S.; or, The Life of a London Physician (1899)
Mexico As I Saw It (1901)
Behind The Footlights (1904)
Sunny Sicily: Its Rustics and Its Ruins (1904)
Porfirio Diaz: Seven Times President of Mexico (1906)
Porfirio Diaz: The Maker Of Modern Mexico (1906)
Hyde Park: Its History And Romance (1908)
Thirteen Years of a Busy Woman's Life (1912)
America As I Saw It; Or, America Revisited (1913)
Busy Days: A Birthday Book (1913)
Women the World Over: A Sketch Both Light and Gay, Perchance Both Dull and Stupid (1914)
My Table-Cloths; A Few Reminiscences (1916)
Mexico: From Diaz To The Kaiser (1917)
Women And Soldiers (1918)
A Woman On Four Battle-Fronts (1919)
Mainly East (In Prose – Perhaps Prosey) (1922)
An Adventurous Journey: Russia-Siberia-China (1926)
Me and Mine: A Medley Of Thoughts And Memories (1932)
Cremation the World Around (1932)
Manchuria, Japan and China: water colour drawings by Mrs. Alec-Tweedie (1932)
Tight Corners of My Adventurous Life (1933)
My Legacy Cruise (the Peak Year of My Life) (1936)
The Preface to Prescott's History of Mexico (?)
A Chat With Dr. Nansen (?)
Essays and shorter works
Women and War Economy (April 1916, The English Review Volume XXII No 4)
References
"Obituary – Mrs. Alec-Tweedie". Obituaries. The Times (48591). London. 16 April 1940. col F, p. 9.
A Girl's Ride in Iceland. Horace Cox, Windsor House, London. 1895. p. 3.
A Girl's Ride In Iceland. London: Horace Cox, Windsor House, Bream's Buildings, E.C. 1894.
Supplemental Volume II. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 1901. p. 393.
Thirteen Years of a Busy Woman's Life. John Lane, The Bodley Head, London. 1912. p. 49.
A Winter Jaunt to Norway. London, Bliss, Sands, and Foster. 1894.
Through Finland in Carts. New York : Macmillan Co.; London : A. and C. Black. 1898.
Thirteen Years of a Busy Woman's Life. John Lane, The Bodley Head, London. 1912. p. 64.
George Harley, F.R.S. The Life of a London Physician. London: Scientific Press. 1899.
Cremation the World Around.
America As I Saw It. New York, The Macmillan company. 1913.
Thirteen Years of a Busy Woman's Life. John Lane, The Bodley Head, London. 1912. p. 62.
The Lancet, Volume II, "Wills of Medical Men". London: John James Croft, at the office of "The Lancet", 423, Strand. 1884. p. 165.
The Law Times Reports of Cases Decided, Volume LXXII. London: Horace Cox, Windsor House, Bream's Buildings, E.C. 1895. p. 665.
Commonwealth War Graves Commission – Second Lieutenant Leslie Kinloch Tweedie, Royal Field Artillery
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