Presentation Transcript

1. Getting to know...
2. Anna Leonowens Researched and prepared by Dennis Elliott
3. Hello! Some of you may recognize me. My name is Anna Leonowens ... the “I” referred to in the title of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I. My life has been long and interesting and I thought it would be a good idea for you to get to know a little bit about me.
4. I was born Anna Hariet Emma Edwards on November 5, 1831 in India. Some people I know don’t think much of those who are born in India so I tell people that I was born in Carnaerfon in Wales. After all, I do want my children to have the best chances in life.
5. I never met my father. He died shortly before I was born. But I do know that he was a sergeant in the British army. He married my mother Mary Ann Glascott on March 15, 1829. Just like my father, my mother’s father was also in the British army.
6. Hello...I’m over here! My mother later re-married a corporal in the British army ...... Patrick Donohue. Unfortunately, my stepfather and I never got on. My sister and I were sent off to school in England. We returned to India where, in 1845, my 15 year old sister married a Sergeant-Major in the British army. My mother and stepfather wanted me to marry a man twice my age as well, but I would have none of it!
7. In 1847 our family moved to Aden, now in modern day Yemen. When I was there, it was administered by the British. In Aden I was taught by the Reverend George Percy Badger and his wife who saw that I was keen to learn, and that I had a special talent in languages. In 1849 I had the most marvellous time travelling with them through Egypt and Palestine.
8. After my travels in Egypt and Palestine I returned with my family to India where I married my childhood sweetheart, Thomas Leon Owens. In my book I tell everyone that he was an army captain but he was really a clerk. My mother and stepfather were not impressed, but I married him anyway!
9. In 1852 my husband, my uncle and I sailed to Australia via Singapore. During the voyage I gave birth to my first child. We called our darling little boy Thomas. The ship was almost wrecked off the coast of Western Australia but, fortunately, we arrived safely in Perth on March 18, 1853. Thomas got a job as a clerk in the colonial administration there.
10. While in Perth I thought it would be a good idea to use my middle name.. Harriett. I even changed the spelling. I also thought it would be a good idea to open a school for young girls.
11. If you look carefully at my picture you may be able to see the tears welling up in my eyes, for in 1854, my darling first born, Thomas, passed away. We were heartbroken. Our poor little boy never got to meet his dear little sister, Avis, who was born later in the same year. I’m sorry.....it still hurts! Let us continue.
12. In 1855 we moved from Perth to the convict settlement at Lynton. Thomas, my husband, was appointed Commissariat Storekeeper there. While there I gave birth to my third child, another boy, Louis. You remember him. In the first scene of The King and I he is with me when we get off the boat in Siam. We sing “I whistle a happy tune” together. Remember?
13. In 1857 the convict settlement at Lynton closed and we were forced to leave Australia. We set out for Penang, another colony under British rule. Shortly after arriving there, my beautiful husband, who had found gainful employment as a Hotelkeeper, died of a stroke. What was I to do? Here I was penniless. And with two children, Avis and Louis to support!
14. I decided to open a school for the children of British army officers in Singapore. After all, I was educated and intelligent...and desperate! Although I didn’t make a great deal of money from the school, everybody could see that I was a good teacher. My reputation as an educator began to grow.
15. In 1862, Tan Kim Ching, the Siamese Consul in Singapore conveyed an invitation to me by King Mongkut to come to Siam to teach his 39 wives and concubines as well as his 82 children. 39 wives and 82 children! And Maria thought the von Trapps were a handful! What a challenge! But what an opportunity! A teacher to the wives and children of a King! I would have been mad not to accept.
16. I sent my daughter Avis back to England to be educated, and Louis, my gorgeous Louis, came with me to the Royal Court of Siam in Bangkok. For almost six years I served the King as a language teacher and secretary but in 1868 my health forced me to return to England. While there King Mongkut fell ill and died.
17. The King’s 15 year old son, Prince Chulalongkorn, succeeded his father and, despite writing a warm letter of thanks, never invited me back to Siam. We did, however, correspond by letter for many years after the King’s death. Louis, however, is another story.
18. By 1868 I was living in New York where I opened a school for girls before launching out on a literary career. At first I wrote travel articles for a Boston journal. These articles were expanded into two volumes of memoirs entitled The English Governess at the Siamese Courtand were published in 1870.
19. In 1873 my Romance of the Harem was published. I also supplemented my income by lecturing on my experiences in the court of Siam. In 1874 my son Louis was in so much debt that he was forced to leave the United States. I did not see him for nineteen long years. I do know that in 1882 he returned to Siam where he was offered a commission as a Captain in the Royal Cavalry.
20. Did you just ask about my daughter Avis? Avis married a Scottish Banker in 1878 and lived in Halifax, Nova Scotia for 19 years. Mercifully, our financial problems were now at an end.
21. In 1880 I accepted a teaching position at Berkeley School in New York and in 1881, after visiting a number of European countries including Russia, I decided to settle in Halifax too. I again became involved in women’s education and took up the fight for women to have the right to vote. Yes...that’s right! I was a suffragette!
22. After nineteen years in Halifax, Nova Scotia, I moved to Montreal in Quebec where I lived out my days. By the way, I am holding a picture of Halifax that was taken in the year I left for Montreal.. around 1900 I think.
23. I do have to tell you though... I met Prince Chulalongkorn... oh, excuse me....I should say, King Rama V, in London, when he visited in 1897. I hadn’t seen him for thirty years but he was most kind to thank me personally for my services all those years ago.
24. Well, I think that my life has been well spent. As a travel writer, educator and social activist, I think I have left my mark on the world. Do you agree? And don’t forget.....I have been a teacher to princes, princesses, Queens and Kings! I am feeling a little tired now. You will excuse me I must rest.
25. Anna Leonowens died on January 19, 1915 in Montreal, Quebec in Canada. Her final resting place is in the Mount Royal Cemetery in Montreal. The dedication on her gravestone reads: “Duty was the guide of her life and the love of her heart To her life was beautiful and good She was a benediction to all who knew her A breath of the spirit of God”