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A Christmas Cake in Four Quarters

Biography of Lady Mary Anne Barker

Biography of Lady Mary Anne Barker

Lady Barker was born Mary Anne Stewart in Spanish Town, Jamaica, on May 29th 1831.1 Her mother was Susan Hewitt and her father was Walter George Stewart.2 Her family was English but lived in Jamaica because her father was Island Secretary for the British government.3 Mary Anne, however, was sent to Europe to live when she was very young (before the age of four) along with her younger sister Dora. 4 This was considered standard practice of the time, because life in Jamaica was not considered suitable for proper European children.5 She lived in Europe for the duration of her childhood, and received her education there.6 Her first residence after Jamaica was near Dublin, Ireland where she and Dora lived with their grandfather, who had been a general in the Indian Army.7 From a very young age Mary Anne lived a multicultural life on multiple continents. An intelligent child, by the age of sixteen Mary Anne had gone as far as she could in her education in Ireland and returned with her sister to Jamaica.8

It was after returning to Jamaica that she met the man who would become her first husband, Captain George Barker.9 Barker, at 35, was fourteen years older than Mary Anne when they met in 1851, and they married in 1852 in the Spanish Town cathedral.10 Not long after that they moved to London where Mary Anne had their first child. 11 Accounts suggest that Mary Anne found living in London while her soldier husband was off in various parts of the world intolerable. 12 In 1859 Barker was knighted for his successes as a soldier in India and Mary Anne became Lady Barker, shortly thereafter Barker was sent to Bengal. 13 There was clearly a spirit of travel and adventure in Lady Barker that did not allow her to sit at home the quiet housewife; and in 1859 she moved to Bengal to be with her husband, leaving her two children behind in England. 14 While leaving behind her young children might seem a harsh move to the modern reader, it is important to consider Lady Barker’s own upbringing and the fact that her parents sent her to another continent at a very young age. It seems likely based on her experiences that she would not have considered it unusual at all to be separated from her children. Likewise moving to a different country (or even continent) at this point in her life was not a new prospect. However, she did not leave her children for as long as she had thought. In 1861 George Barker died, and Lady Barker returned once more to England. 15

Her inter-continental life resumed four years later in 1865 when she met and married Frederick Napier Broome. 16 Broome was eleven years younger than Lady Barker, educated and with literary interests and passions, and no stranger to intercontinental travel himself – Broome was visiting England from New Zealand where he owned a sheep station.17 After marrying Broome, Lady Barker moved with him to New Zealand.18 New Zealand was at that time a relatively new colony, and Lady Barker once again made the decision to leave her two sons from her marriage to Captain Barker behind in England.19 Lady Barker and Frederick Broome’s sheep station Steventon was located on the South Island of New Zealand, just outside Christchurch and it was there that they settled after the long journey from England.20 The new home was not an instant success for Lady Barker however, and her first child with Broome died their not long after he was born.21

Not yet writing professionally during her life in New Zealand, Lady Barker kept up a steady correspondence of letters to her sister Louisa.22 And her and Frederick’s shared passion of literature was shown in the lending library that Lady Barker ran from their home.23 Lady Barker and Frederick did not find success in New Zealand however, and gave up the sheep station there in 1868 to return to England.24 The Broome’s shared love of the literary surfaced again there – Frederick published a book of poems, and Lady Barker began to write of their life on the station.25 Frederick continued to publish articles and poems, and in 1870 Lady Barker published her first book Station Life in New Zealand to huge success.26 Station Life in New Zealand was based on her and Frederick’s experience with the Steventon station and it is one of the best known of her twenty plus books.27 At the prompting of her son George who wanted her stories to be “true”, she began writing tales for children based on her own life experience in Jamaica and around the world.28 This in turn led her to write A Christmas Cake in Four Quarters, based on her real life global travels to Jamaica, England, India, and New Zealand but told through a fictional narrative.29 Lady Barker continued to write both articles and books and by 1874 had eleven books published.30

Her husband’s career continued her global travels and together the Broomes moved to Natal, South Africa and then Mauritius, Western Australia where Broome was made Governor and knighted in 1884 – at which point Mary Anne who had previously still been known officially as Lady Barker changed her name to Lady Broome.31 Despite being eleven years younger than his wife, Frederick Broome died first in 1896, and Mary Anne eventually returned from Australia to London where she died in 1911 having published over twenty books in her lifetime.32