Lady Florence Dixie
Lady Florence Caroline Dixie was a Scottish writer, war correspondent, and feminist. Her account of travelling Across Patagonia, her children's books The Young Castaways and Aniwee; or, The Warrior Queen, and her feminist utopia Gloriana; or, The Revolution of 1900 all deal with feminist themes related to girls, women, and their positions in society.
Early life
Born in Cummertrees, Dumfries, Scotland on 24 May 1855, Lady Florence Douglas was the daughter of Caroline Margaret Clayton, daughter of General Sir William Clayton, 5th Baronet, Member of Parliament for Great Marlow, and Archibald Douglas, 8th Marquess of Queensberry.She had a twin brother, Lord James Edward Sholto Douglas, an older sister, Lady Gertrude Douglas, and three older brothers: John, Viscount Drumlanrig, later 9th Marquess of Queensberry, Lord Francis Douglas, and the Reverend Lord Archibald Edward Douglas.
Lady Florence has been described as a tomboy who tried to match her brothers in physical activities, whether swimming, riding, or hunting. She rode astride, wore her hair short in a boyish crop, and refused to conform to fashion when being presented to Queen Victoria. She and her twin brother James were particularly close during childhood, calling each other "Darling" and "Dearest". She was also close to her older brother John, whom she resembled in temperament, both being "fearless, dynamic and opinionated".
Her childhood was marked by a number of dramatic and even tragic events. On 6 August 1858, when she was three, Lady Florence's father died; he was widely believed to have killed himself. In 1862, his widow, Caroline, acted upon a long-formed conviction and converted to Roman Catholicism. She took her youngest children, Archibald, then twelve, and Florence and James, aged seven, to France, where she could educate them as she wished. This led the children's guardians to threaten Lady Queensberry with an action under English law to take her children away from her. The three were too young to choose a guardian under Scottish law. In the event, they remained in France for two years. Falconer Atlee, the British Consul at Nantes, offered them a place of safety when their first location was discovered, and the Emperor Napoleon III eventually extended Lady Queensberry his protection, ensuring that she could keep the custody of the three children. Archibald converted to Rome and took holy orders, becoming a priest. Caroline's older daughter, Gertrude, also became a Roman Catholic. When her Anglican fiancé would not agree to their children being brought up in that faith, Gertrude's engagement was broken off. She entered a convent in Hammersmith and completed her novitiate to become a Sister of the Black Veil in 1867, but later left the order.
Eventually, it was agreed that Caroline would retain custody of her younger children, and they returned to England. Lady Florence was first educated at home by a governess, but is described as "defiant, rebellious and restless". After returning from France at the age of nine, the twins were separated. James was sent to a Roman Catholic boarding school, and Florence to a convent school, which she hated. But she found some consolation in writing poetry: her childhood verses were published much later as The songs of a child, and other poems, under the pseudonym 'Darling'.
Another tragedy struck the family just days before Florence's eldest brother, John Douglas, was to reach his majority as 9th Marquess of Queensberry. As guests gathered for a lavish celebration, word came that on 14 July 1865, the 18-year-old Lord Francis Douglas had fallen to his death with three others, after achieving the first ascent of the Matterhorn. Lord Queensberry travelled post-haste to Zermatt, with the intention of bringing his brother's body home, but nothing had been found of Lord Francis but some tattered shreds of his clothing. Queensberry, alone, without a guide, and starting out by moonlight, attacked the Matterhorn himself and made it as far as "the Hut". It was largely a matter of chance that two guides found and rescued him before he died of cold. He wrote apologetically to Florence, "I thought and thought where he was, and called him, and wondered if I should ever see him again. I was half mad with misery, and I could not help it." "Exceedingly amiable and talented" Francis's death was deeply felt by his family. In 1876, Florence accompanied Queensberry on a return to Zermatt, and he showed her the slopes where Francis had died. Beyond the family, the tragedy was a long-running sensation, reported by newspapers all over the world, often in tones both sensational and denunciatory.
Marriage and children
On 3 April 1875, at the age of nineteen, Douglas married Sir Alexander Beaumont Churchill Dixie, 11th Baronet, known as "Sir A.B.C.D." or "Beau". Beau, who had succeeded his father as the 11th baronet on 8 January 1872, had an income of £10,000 per year,, a country house, Bosworth Hall, near Market Bosworth, and a London townhouse in the fashionable district of Mayfair. He served as High Sheriff of Leicestershire for 1876. Though Florence was only five feet tall, while Beau stood, Florence became the dominant partner in the marriage, reportedly ruling her husband "with a rod of iron".The young couple had two sons, George Douglas, who later became the 12th baronet, and Albert Edward Wolstan, whose godfather was the Prince of Wales.
Both husband and wife shared a love of adventure and the outdoor life, and are generally considered to have had a happy marriage, certainly the happiest of the Douglas siblings. Nonetheless, Beau's habits of drinking and of gambling for high stakes had catastrophic consequences for the family. The couple were reportedly referred to by contemporaries as "Sir Always and Lady Sometimes Tipsy". In 1885 Beau's ancestral home and estate at Bosworth were sold to pay his debts.
Following loss of the estate, the couple moved to Glen Stuart, Annan, Dumfriesshire, Scotland. One of the houses on Lord Queensberry's Scottish estate of Kinmount, it had previously been the home of Lady Florence's mother, the Dowager Marchioness.
Writing
In 1877, Lady Florence published her first novel, Abel Avenged: a Dramatic Tragedy. A number of Dixie's books, particularly her children's books The Young Castaways, or, The Child Hunters of Patagonia and Aniwee, or, The Warrior Queen, and her adult novels Gloriana, or the Revolution of 1900 and Isola, or the Disinherited: A Revolt for Woman and all the Disinherited develop feminist themes related to girls, women, and their positions in society. Her final novel, a semi-autobiographical work entitled The Story of Ijain, or the Evolution of a Mind appeared in 1903.Although she published fiction for both adults and children, Dixie is best remembered for her travel books, Across Patagonia and In the Land of Misfortune, both of which are still reprinted. In these books Dixie presents herself as the protagonist of the story. By doing so she defies the male tradition of quoting other travel writers who have visited and written on the area, and creates a unique feminine style of travel writing in the nineteenth century.
''Across Patagonia''
In December 1878, two months after the birth of their second son, Edward, Dixie and her husband left their aristocratic life and their children behind them in England and traveled to Patagonia. She was the only female in her traveling party. She set out accompanied by her brothers, Lord Queensberry and Lord James Douglas, her husband Sir Alexander Beaumont Churchill Dixie, and Julius Beerbohm. Beerbohm, a family friend, was hired as the group's guide because of his previous experience in Patagonia. Dixie debated going elsewhere, but chose Patagonia because few Europeans had ever set foot there.Once in Patagonia, Dixie paints a picture of the landscape using techniques reminiscent of the Romantic tradition of William Wordsworth and others, using emotion and physical sensation to connect to the natural world. While she describes the land as "uninviting and feared territory", Dixie's actions demonstrate that survival in a wild land requires both strength and agency.
During her travels in Patagonia, Dixie is "active, hardy, and resilient", rejecting Victorian gender constructs that depicted women as weak and in need of protection. Furthermore, in writing Across Patagonia, Dixie never mentions her husband by name or title, and presents herself as the expedition hero rather than the men being the heroes of the story. She recounts times where she outsmarts or outlasts the men or remains their equal.
While social issues such as European women's suffrage can be seen in her narrative, she says little about the natives of Patagonia. She has been criticized by Monica Szurmuk for not addressing the military campaigns of General Julio Argentino Roca against indigenous people of the time. However, Szurmuk also notes that Dixie's writing has a transgressive quality that acknowledges mutuality:
Lady Dixie shared her observations of Patagonia with Charles Darwin. She took issue with Darwin's description of the Tuco-tuco in his Journal of Researches. While Darwin had suggested that the Tuco-tuco were nocturnal creatures that lived almost entirely underground, Lady Dixie had seen the Tuco-tuco out during the daytime. She sent Darwin a copy of Across Patagonia; Darwin's copy of this book is part of the Library of Charles Darwin located in the Rare Books Room of Cambridge University Library.
When she returned from Patagonia, Dixie brought home with her a jaguar, which she called Affums and kept as a pet. Affums killed several deer in Windsor Great Park and had to be sent to a zoo.
A hotel at Puerto Natales in the Chilean part of Patagonia is named the Hotel Lady Florence Dixie in her honor.
Her experiences in Patagonia inspire much of her later work, both her writing for children, and her work with the women's suffrage movement. Her two children's books, The Young Castaways and its sequel Aniwee, are set in Patagonia and depict strong female characters.