Skip to main content

Lady Florence Caroline Dixie (1855 -1905)

Image from Vanity Fair Magazine

Lady Florence Caroline Dixie (1855 -1905), daughter of the 7th marquess of Queensberry. Authoress, war correspondent and traveller.

From an early age Florence showed a fondness for sport and travel together with a facility for writing. After marrying, she combined these talents in a journey to Patagonia and published Across Patagonia in 1880.

In 1879 she was the war correspondent for the Morning Post, covering the Anglo Zulu war in Southern Africa. Arriving too late, she justified her visit by interviewing the defeated King Cetshwayo. Impressed by his dignity she returned home to successfully campaign for his re-instatement. She had strong views on African politics, publishing In the Land of Misfortune in 1882.

Dixie played a key role is establishing the game of women's association football, organising exhibition matches for charity, and in 1895 she became President of the British Ladies' Football Club, stipulating that "the girls should enter into the spirit of the game with heart and soul." She arranged for a women's football team from London to tour Scotland.

With an Irish grandmother, Florrie embraced the cause of Irish Home Rule. Vociferously criticising the methods of the Irish Land League which inspired and assisted Scotland's crofters in their struggle to obtain security of tenure she was attacked by "Fenians" and stabbed. Queen Victoria, at nearby Windsor Castle, sent her gillie John Brown to investigate.

In the 1890s, in a distinct turn-around, she condemned as cruel the blood sports she had once so greatly enjoyed, publishing The Horrors of Sport (1891). 

Lady Florence Dixie died of diphtheria at the age of 50. The New York Times reported that the "Author, Champion of Woman's Rights, and War Correspondent" had died on 7 November at her home in Glen Stuart, Dumfriesshire.


Labels:
Location: Unnamed Road, South Africa

Comments

Post a Comment

Your feedback/debate/comments are most valued. Thank you for taking the time to read my posts and to comment.

Popular posts from this blog

The Victoria Cross - Its Origins

The Victoria Cross Medal made by Hancocks of London Queen Victoria, during her reign, had instructed the War Office to strike a new medal that would not recognise birth or class. The medal was meant to be a simple decoration that would be highly prized and eagerly sought after by those in the military services. The original warrant stated that the Victoria Cross would only be awarded to soldiers who have served in the presence of the enemy and had performed some single act of valour or devotion. It was originally intended that the VCs would be cast from the cascabels of two cannon that were captured from the Russians at the siege of Sevastopol . In 1990 Creagh and Ashton conducted a metallurgical examination of the VCs in the custody of the Australian War Memorial. Later, the historian John Glanfield, wrote that, through the use of x-ray studies of older Victoria Crosses, it was determined that the metal used for VCs is from antique Chinese guns and not of Russian origin.
Post a Comment
Read more

The Defence of Rorke's Drift - Corporal William Wilson Allen

Corporal William Wilson Allen 2nd Battalion 24th Regiment of Foot "It was chiefly due to the courageous conduct of these [Allen and Hitch] men that communication with the hospital was kept up at all. Holding together at all costs a most dangerous post, raked in reverse by the enemy's fire from the hill, they were both severely wounded, but their determined conduct enabled the patients to be withdrawn from the hospital, and when incapacitated by their wounds from fighting, they continued as soon as their wounds had been dressed, to serve out ammunition to their comrades during the night."
Post a Comment
Read more