Frances Isabella Duberly

27 September 1829 - 01 January 1903

Standard Name: Duberly, Frances Isabella

Birth Name: Frances Isabella Locke

Nickname: Fanny

Pseudonym: One who has shared the fortunes of War

FID was a letter-writer and diarist of considerable talent, who reached print in both these forms when she was the only officer's wife to remain with the British army throughout the Crimean war. Her letters in their full form vividly narrate her personal experiences and frustrations; those which were carried anonymously by newspapers blew the whistle on incompetence and criminal negligence in military high places. Her published journal from the Crimea and to a lesser extent her later journal from India (which rank both as travel writing and as military history) combine these themes with those of the horrors of war and the persistence through it all of the human spirit: sometimes comic, occasionally proto-feminist, often satirical.

Full profile

Connections

Connections Sort descending	Author name	Excerpt
Family and Intimate relationships	Mary Anne Barker	George Barker served in the army with dash and distinction. He was twice promoted during periods of military action: he became a colonel during the Crimean War, and a brigadier-general as well as a Knight...
Family and Intimate relationships	Margaret Bingham, Countess Lucan	MBCL 's later descendants in the male line did not do her much credit. Her grandson the third Earl was a particularly harsh and cruel landlord during the Great Famine in Ireland. He commanded the...
Literary responses	Julia Kavanagh	But Frances Isabella Duberly , spending a hot and disease-ridden summer with the British army in the Crimea and desperate for something clever Duberly, Frances Isabella. Mrs Duberly’s War. Journals and Letters from the Crimea, 1854-6. Editor Kelly, Christine, Oxford University Press. 208 to read, found that this novel was as good as a...
Literary responses	Charlotte Yonge	It was praised in the Athenæum, and was the last book read by Lord Raglan before his death in the Crimea the year after its publication. Hayter, Alethea. Charlotte Yonge. Northcote House. 1 Frances Isabella Duberly , who read it...
Textual Features	Ménie Muriel Dowie	The book opens with a lighthearted account of gardens in Ermyngard's neighbourhood, introducing the characters of the Admiral and his wife, the Countess, for whom Ermyngard works. If you heard us gathered round the tea-table...

Timeline

September 1854

The British landed in Crimea, unopposed by the Russians they had come to make war with. They went on to lay siege to Sebastopol that October and to win important victories at Balaklava (25...

17 October 1854

This was the day, according to Frances Isabella Duberly , that after weeks of preparation culminating in continuous firing, the siege of Sebastopol (in the Crimean war) began in earnest.

30 March 1856

The Treaty of Paris was signed by Austria, Britain, Prussia, Russia, Sardinia, and Turkey, bringing an end to the Crimean War.

Texts

Duberly, Frances Isabella. Campaigning Experiences in Rajpootana and Central India, during the Suppression of the Mutiny, 1857-1858. Smith, Elder, 1859.

Duberly, Frances Isabella. Campaigning Experiences in Rajpootana and Central India, during the Suppression of the Mutiny, 1857-1858. Adamant Media Corporation, 2002.

Duberly, Frances Isabella. “Editor’s Introduction”. Mrs Duberly’s War. Journals and Letters from the Crimea, 1854-6, edited by Christine Kelly, Oxford University Press, 2007, p. xi - xlviii.

Duberly, Frances Isabella. Journal Kept during the Russian War: from the departure of the army from England in April 1854 to the fall of Sebastopol. Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1855.

Duberly, Frances Isabella. Mrs Duberly’s War. Journals and Letters from the Crimea, 1854-6. Editor Kelly, Christine, Oxford University Press, 2007.