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| Notable Sussex Women |
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WORTH
Lady Anne Blunt née King; Baroness Wentworth (1837–1917)
Breeder of Arab horses, traveller and author
Her grandfather was Lord Byron, her mother the Hon. Ada Byron, her father William King, 1st
Earl Lovelace, and she was raised and well educated by her grandmother Lady Byron.
Having a private income of £3,000 a year (worth £175,000 today) enabled her to study the
arts and sciences at a high level: she learned four languages, was taught to draw by John
Ruskin, and owned two Stradivarius violins, upon which she practised daily. In 1869 she
married poet Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, who in 1872 inherited the 400-acre Crabbet Park estate,
and other property; by 1898 they were living at New Place, Shipley (near Horsham) and in
1911 at Dragon’s Green Rd, near Brooks Green, and Hillside, Worth.
Lady Anne was probably the first Western woman to cross the Arabian desert on horseback
and the first to visit the Arabian Peninsula. She translated texts from Arabic to English for
publication. She also wrote several books, including Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates (1879,
reprinted 2006) and A Pilgrimage to Nejd, the Cradle of the Arab Race (1881). Her
watercolours were exhibited in Saudi Arabia, where the couple purchased Arab stallions and
mares from sheikhs and shipped them to Crabbet Park, where they founded a world-famous
private stud. A second stud was developed on their thirty-acre estate in Egypt.
Lady Anne had much misfortune in her life. Her many pregnancies resulted in a
heartbreaking series of miscarriages, stillbirths and cradle-deaths, and just one surviving
child, Judith [below]. Crabbet Park was targeted by burglars in 1881, and in 1887 she was
injured and fell unconscious during a rowdy political meeting In Ireland at which her husband
was arrested. He pursued numerous affairs (and even moved his mistresses into Crabbet
Park), and so Lady Anne preferred to live in Egypt.
In 1906 the Blunts separated and the stud was divided: half went to Wilfred (at Newbuildings
Place, Southwater) and half to Lady Anne (at Crabbet Park). She moved to Shaykh Ubayd,
Egypt, remaining there for most of the rest of her life while Judith ran the stud in Sussex. In
1917 Lady Anne became the 15th Baroness Wentworth (in her own right), but died in Cairo
later that year. Her journals are housed in the British Library in London.
Further reading: Winstone, H. (2005) Lady Anne Blunt: A Biography.
Lady Anne Blunt née King; Baroness Wentworth (1837–1917)
Breeder of Arab horses, traveller and author
Her grandfather was Lord Byron, her mother the Hon. Ada Byron, her father William King, 1st
Earl Lovelace, and she was raised and well educated by her grandmother Lady Byron.
Having a private income of £3,000 a year (worth £175,000 today) enabled her to study the
arts and sciences at a high level: she learned four languages, was taught to draw by John
Ruskin, and owned two Stradivarius violins, upon which she practised daily. In 1869 she
married poet Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, who in 1872 inherited the 400-acre Crabbet Park estate,
and other property; by 1898 they were living at New Place, Shipley (near Horsham) and in
1911 at Dragon’s Green Rd, near Brooks Green, and Hillside, Worth.
Lady Anne was probably the first Western woman to cross the Arabian desert on horseback
and the first to visit the Arabian Peninsula. She translated texts from Arabic to English for
publication. She also wrote several books, including Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates (1879,
reprinted 2006) and A Pilgrimage to Nejd, the Cradle of the Arab Race (1881). Her
watercolours were exhibited in Saudi Arabia, where the couple purchased Arab stallions and
mares from sheikhs and shipped them to Crabbet Park, where they founded a world-famous
private stud. A second stud was developed on their thirty-acre estate in Egypt.
Lady Anne had much misfortune in her life. Her many pregnancies resulted in a
heartbreaking series of miscarriages, stillbirths and cradle-deaths, and just one surviving
child, Judith [below]. Crabbet Park was targeted by burglars in 1881, and in 1887 she was
injured and fell unconscious during a rowdy political meeting In Ireland at which her husband
was arrested. He pursued numerous affairs (and even moved his mistresses into Crabbet
Park), and so Lady Anne preferred to live in Egypt.
In 1906 the Blunts separated and the stud was divided: half went to Wilfred (at Newbuildings
Place, Southwater) and half to Lady Anne (at Crabbet Park). She moved to Shaykh Ubayd,
Egypt, remaining there for most of the rest of her life while Judith ran the stud in Sussex. In
1917 Lady Anne became the 15th Baroness Wentworth (in her own right), but died in Cairo
later that year. Her journals are housed in the British Library in London.
Further reading: Winstone, H. (2005) Lady Anne Blunt: A Biography.
SHOREHAM-BY-SEA
Phyllis Pearsall MBE, FRGS née Gross (1906–1996)
Creator of the A–Z
The daughter of a mapmaker and an artist, she was born in London (the house now boasts a
blue plaque). She boarded at Roedean until her father’s cartographic company went
bankrupt, then lived in France. At twenty she married an artist and lived in Europe before
leaving him and returning to London.
Working as a portrait painter in the 1920s she was weary of getting lost while trying to find
her way to her clients’ homes using the only map available, the 1919 Ordnance Survey. She
decided to create a proper street plan. For six years she worked for up to eighteen hours a
day and walked 3,000 miles to catalogue the capital’s 23,000 streets. When the plan was
complete, no one would publish it. Using money earned from painting, and hiring only a
draughtsman, she designed the pioneering, book-format layout herself, performed the
proofreading and indexing, and had 10,000 copies printed under the imprint ‘the
Geographers’ A–Z Map Company’. She took 250 copies in a wheelbarrow to W.H. Smith’s,
where they sold prodigiously. She continued to paint portraits and during WWII drew women
performing war work in factories. By 1945 the A–Z was being printed in the Netherlands and
flying home from there she was seriously injured in a plane crash which scarred her for life.
In the 1960s she moved the company to Kent, where it expanded, eventually producing plans
of 159 British cities. She turned it into a charitable trust to ensure that it was never bought
out, passed her shares into a trust for her employees, and continued as chairman and joint
managing director for the rest of her life. She retired to Shoreham and wrote Fleet Street,
Tite Street, Queer Street (1983), Only the Unexpected Happens (seven short stories, 1985),
Women at War (1990) and her autobiography, A–Z Maps: The Personal Story, From
Bedsitter to Household Name (1990). Brighton bus 883 is named for her.
Further reading: Hartley, S. (2002) Mrs P’s Journey: The Remarkable Story of the Woman
who Created the A–Z Map.
Phyllis Pearsall MBE, FRGS née Gross (1906–1996)
Creator of the A–Z
The daughter of a mapmaker and an artist, she was born in London (the house now boasts a
blue plaque). She boarded at Roedean until her father’s cartographic company went
bankrupt, then lived in France. At twenty she married an artist and lived in Europe before
leaving him and returning to London.
Working as a portrait painter in the 1920s she was weary of getting lost while trying to find
her way to her clients’ homes using the only map available, the 1919 Ordnance Survey. She
decided to create a proper street plan. For six years she worked for up to eighteen hours a
day and walked 3,000 miles to catalogue the capital’s 23,000 streets. When the plan was
complete, no one would publish it. Using money earned from painting, and hiring only a
draughtsman, she designed the pioneering, book-format layout herself, performed the
proofreading and indexing, and had 10,000 copies printed under the imprint ‘the
Geographers’ A–Z Map Company’. She took 250 copies in a wheelbarrow to W.H. Smith’s,
where they sold prodigiously. She continued to paint portraits and during WWII drew women
performing war work in factories. By 1945 the A–Z was being printed in the Netherlands and
flying home from there she was seriously injured in a plane crash which scarred her for life.
In the 1960s she moved the company to Kent, where it expanded, eventually producing plans
of 159 British cities. She turned it into a charitable trust to ensure that it was never bought
out, passed her shares into a trust for her employees, and continued as chairman and joint
managing director for the rest of her life. She retired to Shoreham and wrote Fleet Street,
Tite Street, Queer Street (1983), Only the Unexpected Happens (seven short stories, 1985),
Women at War (1990) and her autobiography, A–Z Maps: The Personal Story, From
Bedsitter to Household Name (1990). Brighton bus 883 is named for her.
Further reading: Hartley, S. (2002) Mrs P’s Journey: The Remarkable Story of the Woman
who Created the A–Z Map.
Excerpted from the book Notable Sussex Women (c) Helena Wojtczak 2008 |
| Some of the 207 West Sussex women featured in the book Notable Sussex Women |
| All pages (c) Helena Wojtczak 2009 |
Images on this page are not included in the book Notable Sussex Women
ANGMERING
Juliet Pannett MBE, FRSA née Somers (c1911–2005) artist.
A niece of artist Kathleen Watson, she was born in Hove and as a child drew shepherds, cab
drivers, rabbit-catchers and a Pyecombe crookmaker. She attended Wiston’s School,
Brighton, won a four-year scholarship to Brighton College of Art then taught physical training
at Buckwood Grange School, Uckfield. In her spare time she sketched local characters for
Sussex newspapers and magazines, including sportsmen from Sussex County Cricket Club
and Brighton and Hove Albion.
She married Captain Maurice Pannett in 1938 and had two children (both were to become
artists). In the late 1940s she sketched for the Illustrated London News (which gave her a
reserved seat in the press gallery of the House of Commons) and many other publications,
and received commissions to create portraits of musicians, artists, statesmen, lawmen,
soldiers, intellectuals and royalty (including the Queen and Princes Edward and Andrew).
Altogether, over 1,000 people sat for her. She was the artist on inaugural flights for several
airlines, including Qantas, Trans Canada and El Al, and taught on P&O cruises. After living in
Gloucestershire and Surrey she returned to Sussex in 1964, buying Pound House,
Roundstone Lane, Angmering, where she created a studio and taught art classes.
Appointed MBE in 1993, she was elected to the Society of Graphic Artists and the Pastel
Society, was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and an Honorary Freeman of the
Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers, whose Gold Medal she won in 1995. She died in
Rustington. Twenty-two of her portraits are at the NPG and a Juliet Pannett Trophy is
awarded each year in Sussex.
Further reading: Pannett, J. and Vreeland, V. (2006) My Colourful Life.
ANGMERING
Elsie Randolph (1904–1982) musical-comedy actress, singer and dancer.
Her career began in the provinces when she was twelve and spanned stage, screen, radio
and television over an extraordinary eight decades, a quarter of which was spent in a stage
partnership with Jack Buchanan. She rose to fame in the 1920s, playing leads in West End
shows in her native London and was never out of the limelight until she gave up acting in
1946 after marrying Vernon Page. She returned to the stage in 1953 and worked for another
twenty-eight years. Cast by Hitchcock in two films forty years apart, in her seventies she
played Lady Colefax in the 1980 TV series Edward and Mrs Simpson. Her final appearance
was in a television drama in 1981. She lived in later life in Angmering, but died in London.
BIGNOR PARK
Charlotte Smith née Turner (1749–1806) poet and novelist.
The sister of Catherine Dorset [below], she was born in London into a wealthy family. Her
mother died when she was three and she grew up at Stoke Manor, Surrey, moving at age ten
to Bignor Park. Here she developed a love of Sussex that inspired her later poems about the
South Downs and Beachy Head. She was well-educated at schools in Chichester and
Kensington, and from twelve was taught by residential governesses.
At fifteen she was forced to move to London, for she was married off to Benjamin Smith (she
later described the event as ‘being sold like a legal prostitute’) and by sixteen had borne the
first of her twelve children. The marriage was unhappy. She was anti-slavery but her husband’
s income derived from inherited slave labour in Barbados and to survive she had to help him
with the business. Moreover, her husband was addicted to gambling and was unfaithful and
violent towards her.
Her father-in-law, who died when she was twenty-seven, left his enormous fortune in trust for
her children, but the will was contested and the money not released for thirty-seven years, by
which time she and many of her children were dead (Dickens is thought to have used her
story as the model for the excessively protracted Jarndyce legal case in Bleak House).
Her husband was imprisoned for debt in 1783 and while (voluntarily) serving part of the
seven months’ sentence with him she wrote and self-published Elegiac Sonnets and other
Essays, having it printed at Chichester. She negotiated his release and spent her earnings
on his legal expenses. To evade his creditors they absconded to Dieppe, where she earned
money by translating French literature into English. They returned to Sussex in 1784, living
at Woolbeding House, north-west of Midhurst.
Elegiac Sonnets saw good sales (by 1800 it was in its ninth edition and filled two volumes),
which prompted her to publish in her own name. Her next works were accepted by a
publisher, from whom she extracted advances, and were commercially successful. Making
claim to her childhood gentility she styled herself ‘gentlewoman-poet Charlotte Smith of
Bignor Park’.
In 1787 she left her husband and supported her numerous children by producing a novel a
year for five years. Her first, Emmeline, the Orphan of the Castle (1788), quickly sold 1,500
copies and was into a third edition before the year was out. One of her recurring themes was
women’s poor status in the English legal system and, indeed, she was extremely lucky that
her ne’er-do-well husband did not claim her earnings, which he was entitled to do under
English law (he was later to die in a debtors’ prison). To avoid his creditors she moved to
Chichester, then in 1791 to Brighton, in 1793 to Storrington, then to Bath, Exmouth,
Weymouth, Oxford, London, Frant and Elstead, before settling at Tilford, Surrey.
In all she produced eleven novels, three volumes of poetry, four educational books, a natural
history of birds and a history of England. Her Conversations Introducing Poetry, a compilation
for children, included works by her sister Catherine. One of the most popular writers of her
day, she was admired and satirised by Jane Austen, praised by William Wordsworth,
applauded by Thomas Paine and was the toast of supporters of the French Revolution.
Some of her books were funded by public subscription and the list of sponsors reveals that
many eminent persons — such as the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Duchess of
Cumberland — held her work in high esteem. Samuel Coleridge credited her with reviving the
English sonnet.
In August 1786 The Times incorrectly announced her death. She actually died twenty years
later and was buried outside St John’s Church, near her family’s seat of Stoke, Surrey. Her
son Lionel was knighted and became Governor of Barbados and then of Jamaica. Her most
famous novel, The Old Manor House, was most recently reprinted in 1987.
Catherine Ann Dorset née Turner (c1753–c1816) children’s writer.
The sister of Charlotte Smith [above], she grew up at Stoke Manor, Surrey, then at Bignor
Park from age seven. In 1779 she married army captain Michael Dorset, had a son and
daughter and was widowed in 1805. The following year she sold her interest in Bignor Park
and nothing is known of her residency after this date.
In 1804 at least eleven of her poems appeared anonymously in her sister’s book
Conversations Introducing Poetry. Her poem The Peacock ‘at Home’ (a sequel to William
Roscoe’s The Butterfly’s Ball and the Grasshopper’s Feast) was published anonymously in
1807 (the 1809 edition revealed her identity), sold 40,000 copies in its first year, and was
into its twenty-eighth edition by 1819. It was reprinted posthumously in 1849 and a facsimile
of the original edition was issued in 1883. She also wrote The Lion’s Masquerade
(anonymous, 1807), The Lioness’s Rout (1808) and Think before you Speak (1809). Her
memoir of her sister appeared in Walter Scott’s Miscellaneous Prose Works (1827).
Juliet Pannett MBE, FRSA née Somers (c1911–2005) artist.
A niece of artist Kathleen Watson, she was born in Hove and as a child drew shepherds, cab
drivers, rabbit-catchers and a Pyecombe crookmaker. She attended Wiston’s School,
Brighton, won a four-year scholarship to Brighton College of Art then taught physical training
at Buckwood Grange School, Uckfield. In her spare time she sketched local characters for
Sussex newspapers and magazines, including sportsmen from Sussex County Cricket Club
and Brighton and Hove Albion.
She married Captain Maurice Pannett in 1938 and had two children (both were to become
artists). In the late 1940s she sketched for the Illustrated London News (which gave her a
reserved seat in the press gallery of the House of Commons) and many other publications,
and received commissions to create portraits of musicians, artists, statesmen, lawmen,
soldiers, intellectuals and royalty (including the Queen and Princes Edward and Andrew).
Altogether, over 1,000 people sat for her. She was the artist on inaugural flights for several
airlines, including Qantas, Trans Canada and El Al, and taught on P&O cruises. After living in
Gloucestershire and Surrey she returned to Sussex in 1964, buying Pound House,
Roundstone Lane, Angmering, where she created a studio and taught art classes.
Appointed MBE in 1993, she was elected to the Society of Graphic Artists and the Pastel
Society, was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and an Honorary Freeman of the
Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers, whose Gold Medal she won in 1995. She died in
Rustington. Twenty-two of her portraits are at the NPG and a Juliet Pannett Trophy is
awarded each year in Sussex.
Further reading: Pannett, J. and Vreeland, V. (2006) My Colourful Life.
ANGMERING
Elsie Randolph (1904–1982) musical-comedy actress, singer and dancer.
Her career began in the provinces when she was twelve and spanned stage, screen, radio
and television over an extraordinary eight decades, a quarter of which was spent in a stage
partnership with Jack Buchanan. She rose to fame in the 1920s, playing leads in West End
shows in her native London and was never out of the limelight until she gave up acting in
1946 after marrying Vernon Page. She returned to the stage in 1953 and worked for another
twenty-eight years. Cast by Hitchcock in two films forty years apart, in her seventies she
played Lady Colefax in the 1980 TV series Edward and Mrs Simpson. Her final appearance
was in a television drama in 1981. She lived in later life in Angmering, but died in London.
BIGNOR PARK
Charlotte Smith née Turner (1749–1806) poet and novelist.
The sister of Catherine Dorset [below], she was born in London into a wealthy family. Her
mother died when she was three and she grew up at Stoke Manor, Surrey, moving at age ten
to Bignor Park. Here she developed a love of Sussex that inspired her later poems about the
South Downs and Beachy Head. She was well-educated at schools in Chichester and
Kensington, and from twelve was taught by residential governesses.
At fifteen she was forced to move to London, for she was married off to Benjamin Smith (she
later described the event as ‘being sold like a legal prostitute’) and by sixteen had borne the
first of her twelve children. The marriage was unhappy. She was anti-slavery but her husband’
s income derived from inherited slave labour in Barbados and to survive she had to help him
with the business. Moreover, her husband was addicted to gambling and was unfaithful and
violent towards her.
Her father-in-law, who died when she was twenty-seven, left his enormous fortune in trust for
her children, but the will was contested and the money not released for thirty-seven years, by
which time she and many of her children were dead (Dickens is thought to have used her
story as the model for the excessively protracted Jarndyce legal case in Bleak House).
Her husband was imprisoned for debt in 1783 and while (voluntarily) serving part of the
seven months’ sentence with him she wrote and self-published Elegiac Sonnets and other
Essays, having it printed at Chichester. She negotiated his release and spent her earnings
on his legal expenses. To evade his creditors they absconded to Dieppe, where she earned
money by translating French literature into English. They returned to Sussex in 1784, living
at Woolbeding House, north-west of Midhurst.
Elegiac Sonnets saw good sales (by 1800 it was in its ninth edition and filled two volumes),
which prompted her to publish in her own name. Her next works were accepted by a
publisher, from whom she extracted advances, and were commercially successful. Making
claim to her childhood gentility she styled herself ‘gentlewoman-poet Charlotte Smith of
Bignor Park’.
In 1787 she left her husband and supported her numerous children by producing a novel a
year for five years. Her first, Emmeline, the Orphan of the Castle (1788), quickly sold 1,500
copies and was into a third edition before the year was out. One of her recurring themes was
women’s poor status in the English legal system and, indeed, she was extremely lucky that
her ne’er-do-well husband did not claim her earnings, which he was entitled to do under
English law (he was later to die in a debtors’ prison). To avoid his creditors she moved to
Chichester, then in 1791 to Brighton, in 1793 to Storrington, then to Bath, Exmouth,
Weymouth, Oxford, London, Frant and Elstead, before settling at Tilford, Surrey.
In all she produced eleven novels, three volumes of poetry, four educational books, a natural
history of birds and a history of England. Her Conversations Introducing Poetry, a compilation
for children, included works by her sister Catherine. One of the most popular writers of her
day, she was admired and satirised by Jane Austen, praised by William Wordsworth,
applauded by Thomas Paine and was the toast of supporters of the French Revolution.
Some of her books were funded by public subscription and the list of sponsors reveals that
many eminent persons — such as the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Duchess of
Cumberland — held her work in high esteem. Samuel Coleridge credited her with reviving the
English sonnet.
In August 1786 The Times incorrectly announced her death. She actually died twenty years
later and was buried outside St John’s Church, near her family’s seat of Stoke, Surrey. Her
son Lionel was knighted and became Governor of Barbados and then of Jamaica. Her most
famous novel, The Old Manor House, was most recently reprinted in 1987.
Catherine Ann Dorset née Turner (c1753–c1816) children’s writer.
The sister of Charlotte Smith [above], she grew up at Stoke Manor, Surrey, then at Bignor
Park from age seven. In 1779 she married army captain Michael Dorset, had a son and
daughter and was widowed in 1805. The following year she sold her interest in Bignor Park
and nothing is known of her residency after this date.
In 1804 at least eleven of her poems appeared anonymously in her sister’s book
Conversations Introducing Poetry. Her poem The Peacock ‘at Home’ (a sequel to William
Roscoe’s The Butterfly’s Ball and the Grasshopper’s Feast) was published anonymously in
1807 (the 1809 edition revealed her identity), sold 40,000 copies in its first year, and was
into its twenty-eighth edition by 1819. It was reprinted posthumously in 1849 and a facsimile
of the original edition was issued in 1883. She also wrote The Lion’s Masquerade
(anonymous, 1807), The Lioness’s Rout (1808) and Think before you Speak (1809). Her
memoir of her sister appeared in Walter Scott’s Miscellaneous Prose Works (1827).
| Adverts from the 1790s, and Bignor Park, West Sussex |
