Isabella Lucy Bird Bishop

Born 1831. Died 1904.
Reasearch by Tiana Sidey

Who is Isabella Bird?

Isabella Lucy Bird was born in 1831 in Cheshire. Her mother Dora educated her and her sister Henrietta to a high standard at home. She suffered general ill health, in particular a spinal complaint. Her father, the Reverend Edward Bird encouraged her independence. She accompanied him in his work and soon became a good horsewoman.

However his brand of Presbyterianism caused his parishioners to rebel and in 1848 he brought his family to Scotland where it was more acceptable. Isabella’s health problems continued and in 1850 she has an operation to remove a tumour from her spine but it was only partially successful.

The first of her journeys was in 1854 at her father’s instigation. It was to recover from an unrequited love affair. He gave her £100 and she was sent to America with some cousins. She soon left the cousins and learnt to travel light and to travel alone. She wrote two books on what she saw there.

In 1858 her father died and the family moved to Edinburgh. From here she made several excursions to the Outer Hebrides, where she wrote about what she saw, and indeed any subject that took her interest. She still suffered from back trouble, insomnia and depression until the age of forty when she set off for Australia, continuing to Hawaii when her health miraculously improved.

She had learned to ride astride which was far better for her back and rode so well that she impressed the locals who were then keen to take her to places far off the beaten track. The most terrifying (to modern minds) was her trip to the edge of the crater of an erupting volcano!

After Hawaii she sailed to America and travelled in the Rocky Mountains. She stayed there much of the winter making excursions though the snows. On her return to Scotland she wrote up her adventures into two books and became ill again. This pattern stayed with her - ill at home and well abroad for the rest of her life.

Frustrated by illness she decided to travel to Japan and Malaya. During her travels she wrote a detailed journal which she sent at intervals to her sister Henrietta. In 1881 she married Dr John Bishop who was younger than her, but he died in 1886. Three years later she set off on her travels again. She travelled in Tibet, Lakdah, Persia, Kurdistan and Korea and the remote interior of China. In 1901 she made her final journey - to Morocco. She died in 1904 in Edinburgh.

She always wanted to know more of the habits and customs of the peoples she visited. She insisted in writing her diary every day regardless of tiredness. When she returned home she would transform these into a text of a book. Because it was ‘in the field’ her writing had a zest and immediacy to it unusual for the time.

Her books were very popular and she was encouraged to lecture on her travels, soon becoming a familiar figure at the Royal Geographical Society and British Association. In 1891 her knowledge of Armenia caused her to be called to the House of Commons to answer questions, where she enthralled those present.

Wherever she went she sought out the British living there to gain a specialist knowledge of where she was travelling through. Her skills as a negotiator and her determination carried her through crises, but she did know that behind her was the power of the British Empire. People joined her caravan for the protection it afforded, but she was a good emissary for the British, being firm but not aggressive.

She was more of an anthropologist than a missionary as her sensitivity to the local people made her nervous of the intrusions of the Church, but as she got older she felt the legacy of family and husband.

 

Photo courtesy of Charles Sale @ gravestonephotos.com

Sources used:

Isabella Lucy Bird 1831-1904 A Biography of an intrepid traveller by Olive Checkland
Letters to Henrietta: Isabella Bird. ed. Kay Chubbuck