Anne EVANS
Born 4 June 1820 at Sandhurst, Berkshire
First child, first daughter of Arthur Benoni EVANS and Anne DICKINSON
Died 19 February 1870 at 16 Kensington Square, London
"In Febuary 1870 she died as she had lived, quietly, slowly and gracefully."
(Time and Chance page 136)
Anne lived at Britwell Couirt, Burnham, Buckinghamshire until eight or nine, when the family moved to Market Bosworth in 1829. She stayed on at Market Bosworth until the death of her father in 1854 when she moved to 16 Kensington Square. She lived here with her mother Mrs Anne Evans (DICKINSON), sister Emma and youngest brother Sebastian.
Nicknamed 'Pussy'
1832 Aged twelve, Anne wrote her first (extant) poem - 'Flora's Lesson'
1836 Aged 16, Anne went to Madame le Faudeux's expensive
school at Brighton.
With Pussy at the piano, Mr Edwards fiddling and Dr Evans playing the 'cello,
they made much music that winter (1842.)
In 1843 Pussy persuades her father (Dr Evans) to go to the opera. "one of
Donizetti's Linda di Chamouni and a Pas de Quatre with Cerito, Fanny
Ellsler, and Guy Stephens, and a ballet called Giselle......We got home
at 3.30am quite satisfied, and I not caring if I never attended another exposée
of bad music, easy morals, and the most beautiful legs of the most pliant and
graceful dancers I ever beheld! This cannot be right.' (Dr Evans.)
Before long it seemed as if Pussy would retire from the trio. She was young and
gay, loved the rhythm of dancing and riding, and went to all the festivities
that Leicestershire afforded. A pleasant Dr. Arnold of Atherstone began to pay
her great attentions, and wrote to her father to declare his affection. In the
July of 1843 they seemed to be on the verge of an engagement. Then the father's
diary records catastrophe: "Aug. 25. A most painful letter from Dr. Arnold but
highly honourable to his head and heart. Aug.26. Dearest Anne sadly out of
spirits about Pussy and Dr. Arnold. Dear Pussy on the sofa with the blinds down
in the drawing room all day."
A few months later Dr. Arnold married someone else. Pussy never recovered her
spirits: she gave up dancing and riding, spent all the time she could away from
Bosworth, worried her father by her religious doubts, and only soothed him by
the charm of her melancholy lyrics and the tunes to which she set them.
(Time and Chance pages 48 - 49)
Poems and Music
published posthumously in 1880 with a Memorial Preface by
Anne Thackeray Ritchie
Click on to enlarge
My copy was in the possession of Anne's mother - it has her signature. It was then owned by my grandfather Arthur John HUBBARD who gave it to my aunt Frances Ann Roper (née HUBBARD) June 1934
Lady Ritchie described her as a ‘diffident woman, who … unconsciously touched and influenced us all by her intense sincerity of heart and purpose’
The Thackeray
family were friends and close neighbours in Kensington Square. it had been
thought at one time, Anne would be chaperon to the the Thackeray girls but that
plan of residence fell through, although she was a trusted friend for all sorts
of occasions.
Anne's health broke down in 1867, and she was an invalid until her death
Click to enlarge