Ethel Brilliana Tweedie

Ethel Brilliana Tweedie FRGS (1862–1940) was a prolific English author, travel writer, biographer, historian, editor, journalist, photographer and illustrator. She wrote as Mrs Alec Tweedie, Mrs. Alec-Tweedie and as Ethel B. Harley. and Emma Jessie (Muspratt) Harley, into an early life of wealth and privilege. Her siblings included a sister (Olga) and three brothers (Edward Vaughan Berkeley Harley, Vernon De V. and Harold S.), She was named by her father for a famous relative, Lady Brilliana Harley (wife of Sir Robert Harley of Brampton Bryan). She was educated at Queen's College, London, and abroad in Germany.

In 1886 she visited Iceland on holiday with her brother Vaughan B. Harley, her future husband Alexander (Alec) Leslie Tweedie, a woman friend, and one other man. At the suggestion of her father, she kept a journal of her travels and published it afterwards as her first book, A Girl's Ride in Iceland in 1895 (even including an appendix on Icelandic geysers by her father). She married Alexander Tweedie two years later on 1 January 1887.

In 1893, following a telegram warning of the sudden serious illness of her brother Vaughan in Christiania, Norway she and her sister travelled to see him. She returned to Norway again within two years, then later published her second book A Winter Jaunt to Norway: with Accounts of Nansen, Ibsen, Bjornson, Brandes, and Many Others outlining her travel experiences and meetings with a number of famous people while abroad. Then, tragically, her whole life changed in the early summer of 1896 with the sudden death of her husband. She never remarried.

In 1897, still upset and stunned by his death, she agreed to accompany her sister and a Finnish companion, Frau von Lilly, on a trip abroad to Finland. During that time she gathered material that eventually made its way into a third book, Through Finland in Carts , published later in 1898 and beginning her career as a popular writer.

Author, photographer, painter, philanthropist

Tweedie's extensive bibliography spans the years from 1889 to 1936. Though she may be best known as a travel writer today, her works also include a biography of her father (George Harley, F.R.S. The Life of a London Physician ), some works that are essentially a layperson's studies in early 20th century ethnography :Cremation the World Around and America As I Saw It; or, America Revisited. A great number of her short works were written and published in the London popular press. After 1912 her works became more autobiographical. )

During her life she served on many charitable committees of the International Council of Women (1899). She was a life governor of University College Hospital and St Mary's Hospital, London. They lived happily and well, in modest luxury, and had two sons, Harley Alexander Tweedie (6 May 1888 – 1926) and Leslie Kinloch Tweedie (11 January 1890 – 17 January 1916). Her husband died suddenly and unexpectedly at their home in Aldburgh, Suffolk nine years later, 25 May 1896, killed by the shock and responsibilities of financial disaster following the catastrophic failure of his marine insurance syndicate (caused by unforeseen British Admiralty court findings in the case of the ship the Benwell Tower which ruined both Alexander and his brother George Straton Tweedie, and a third partner Frederick Stumore). Her husband left her with no settlement. A few weeks later her father also died suddenly, leaving her nothing of his estate. She was left essentially destitute, with two young boys to raise. With no capital to draw on and no other means of income she turned to travel writing, relying on her writing skills and publishing contacts made during earlier, happier times.

She wrote for the popular press in London when possible. She wrote books based on her journeys, including detailed and fascinating portraits of celebrities she met abroad. She travelled widely and wrote of peoples in lands that were not usual British or European holiday destinations. She continued to write and publish even after her boys reached their majority and moved away. Her youngest son Second Lieutenant Leslie Kinloch Tweedie, Royal Field Artillery was later killed in the First World War.

She settled into a life of international travel and reflection, and eventually became a very successful travel writer. When she was at home in her flat in Devonshire House, Mayfair, London, she hosted popular weekly receptions that brought together important people of her era and many international travellers. She continued an earlier tradition begun when she married: when she and her husband hosted luncheons or dinner parties, she encouraged guests to append an autograph, a sketch or a comment onto what evolved into a series of signature table-cloths. "Ethel ‘conceived the idea of coaxing the many delightful men and women of note who dined with us to pencil their signatures upon the table slips.’ She then embroidered over the signatures, doodles and sketches, with brilliant red thread.". She eventually published a journal describing many of those receptions, including a compendium of photographs of the signature table-cloths, as My Table Cloths; A Few Reminiscences.

In addition to sketching and painting, her wide range of interests included embroidery and textiles: she even bequeathed to the Victoria and Albert Museum in February 1927 some fine examples of English silks, laces and needlework acquired in her travels.

She resided in her flat in Devonshire House, London, and continued to write and publish until only a few years before her death in London, 15 April 1940, aged 78.