Constance Gordon-Cumming

Constance Frederica "Eka" Gordon-Cumming (26 May 1837 – 4 September 1924) was a Scottish travel writer and painter. Born into a wealthy family, she traveled around the world. She painted and described scenes and life as she saw them. She was a friend and influence of the travel writers and artists Marianne North and Isabella Bird.

Family background Constance came from a wealthy and socially well-connected family. Her grandfather, Sir Alexander Cumming, inherited the wealth of his wife.

In 1798 he was confirmed heir of his kinsman, Sir William Gordon and inherited the name and arms of Gordon of Gordonstoun.He also adopted the hyphenated double surname, though this was not consistently used by family members.

Her parents were Sir William Gordon Gordon-Cumming, 2nd Baronet, and Eliza Maria Gordon-Cumming, granddaughter of the Duke of Argyll. Eka was the aunt of Sir William Gordon-Cumming, 4th Baronet.

Her mother was interested in geology and was familiar with the works of Robert Murchison. Many of her family members were travelers, an uncle Charles Cumming-Bruce married the grand-daughter of the Nile explorer James Bruce of Kinnaird. Her brother Alexander had been Canada while another, Roualeyn had been Africa where he had been famous as a big-game hunter. Another brother John was a planter in Ceylon while William was a soldier in India. William wrote about his hunting in "Wild Men and Wild Beasts" (1871) dedicated to Col. Walter Campbell ("The Old Forest Ranger").

Early life and education Constance Frederica Gordon-Cumming was born 26 May 1837 at Altyre, the family estate near Forres, Scotland as the 12th of 15 children. Shortly after her birth, she was sent to family in Moy to avoid a scarlet fever outbreak at Altyre. The outbreak had recently killed two of her siblings: Walter Frederick and Constance. Her name was derived from the names of these siblings.

Constance remarked her sisters and herself and inherited their mother's artistic abilities and their spent time painting in watercolour and oil paints. Frequent visitors to the house provided additional artistic mentorship, including Sir Edwin Landseer and William Charles Ross.

A Swiss maid, Cherie, taught the children French.

Her mother died in 1842, a month after giving birth to her brother. After this, she went to live with her eldest sister in Northumberland. Her father remarried in 1846. In 1848, she began schooling at Hermitage Lodge near Fulham. She attended the school until 1853. A year after her graduation, her social and travel life began in earnest. This was followed by, twelve years of enchanting travel which followed would never have been dreamt of, for link by link that pleasant chain wove itself, as she described it.

Gordon-Cumming was a prolific travel writer and landscape painter who traveled the world, mostly in Asia and the Pacific. She painted over a thousand watercolors and worked with a motto to ‘never a day without at least one careful-colored sketch’ starting her day at 5am while in India. Places she visited include Australia, New Zealand, America, China, and Japan. While in New Zealand in 1877, she visited several North Island locations including Kawau Island, the Coromandel Peninsula, Rotorua, Wairoa, and Auckland. Her Hawaii travelogue, Fire Fountains: The Kingdom of Hawaii, was published in Edinburgh in 1883.

Selected works

Publications

From the Hebrides to the Himalayas; a Sketch of Eighteen Months' Wanderings in Western Isles and Eastern Highlands. (1876) "The Last King of Tahiti," Contemporary Review, v.41 (1881) At Home in Fiji (1881) A Lady's Cruise in a French Man-of-War (1882) "Gordon Ningpo and the Buddhist Temples," The Century Magazine (Sept.) (1882) (online at Making of America) Fire Fountains: The Kingdom of Hawaii (1883) In the Hebrides (Edinburgh). Cruising the Scottish Islands. (1883) "Fijian Pottery," The Art Journal (1884) Granite Crags (1884). (Reprinted in 1886 and 1888 as Granite Crags of California, minus 2 illustrations) In the Himalayas and on the Indian Plains (1884) "New Zealand in Blooming December," The Century Magazine (Dec.) (1884) (online at Making of America) "The Offerings of the Dead," British Quarterly Review (1885) Via Cornwell to Egypt (1885) Granite crags of California (1886) Wanderings in China 2 v. (1886) Work for the Blind in China: Showing How Blind Beggars may be transformed into useful Scripture Readers Part I (1887), Part II (Helensburgh, 1892) Notes on Ceylon (1889) Notes on China and its Missions (1889) "Across the Yellow Sea," Blackwood's Magazine (1890) Two Happy Years in Ceylon, 4d ed., 2 v. (1892) Two Happy Years in Ceylon, (1893) The Blind in China (1895) The Inventor of the Numeral-type for China, by the use of which Illiterate Chinese both Blind and Sighted can very Quickly be Taught to Read and Write Fluently (1899) Wanderings in China (1900) Memories. Autobiography (1904)

Footnotes