Jemima Morrell

Jemima Anne Morrell (7 March 1832 – 13 October 1909) was an English traveller and illustrator. Morrell was born into a middle-class family in Selby, Yorkshire and was a member of the Junior United Alpine Club, a club with majority women members that organised annual holiday trips. Morrell was one of the tourists who in 1863 partook in the first ever guided tour of Switzerland, led and conducted by Thomas Cook, making her one of the first modern international tourists. Her account of the journey was published in 1963 under the title Miss Jemima's Swiss Journal: The First Conducted Tour of Switzerland.

Biography

Early life Jemima Anne Morrell was born on 7 March 1832 in Selby, Yorkshire. Her parents were Robert Morrell, a bank manager in Selby, and Anna Morrell. Jemima was second-eldest of four children and had the elder brother Robert and younger siblings Anna and William. The Morrell family were part of a new middle class formed in the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution. The family had enough wealth to finance all of the children attending private schools and employed a housemaid and a cook. and was an aspiring artist. Morrell was a member of the Junior United Alpine Club, a social club that organised annual holiday trips. By 1863, members of the club had already gone on trips to Scotland, Land's End and London (having attended the 1862 International Exhibition). Morrell went on the tour together with her brother William and cousin Sarah Ayres, The trip took three weeks and Morrell kept a journal of her experiences during the journey.

The United Alpine Club began their journey to Switzerland on the morning of 26 June 1863. They awoke at four in the morning every day and were determined to get as much out of the trip as possible; some days the party walked for more than . In her journal she recorded how they at times walked along slippery ledges, safeguarded only by ropes fastened to rocks. According to Morrell, the toughest portion of the journey was walking up the Gemmi Pass but the party still had enough energy by the time they reached the top to engage in a snowball fight. Morrell noted that the women used their umbrellas to fend off snowballs thrown at them.

The journey ended at Pontarlier on 15 July. Her journal gives a light-hearted account of the journey and also reveals her and her companions as part of an at the time new form of traveller. In contrast to earlier tourists, Morrell's party went for the fun of exploring a new part of the world and made no pretensions that it had anything to do with education or culture or that the antiquities and scenery they encountered were the main purpose of the journey rather than being incidental. or compared them with her own.

In 1867, Morrell married the wealthy landowner John Broadley Greenwood, The journal was published in 1963 under the title Miss Jemima's Swiss Journal: The First Conducted Tour of Switzerland. served as Lord Mayor of York and was involved in the creation of the York Castle Museum. John's son William and grandson Nicholas participated in a trip to Switzerland in 1963 to mark the 100th anniversary of Morrell's journey. In 2013, the travelling company Inntravel, based in North Yorkshire, launched a series of tours based on Morrell's writings to mark the 150th anniversary of her journey. Among the people who embarked on the first such trip were John Morrell, son of William and brother of Nicholas. For the 150th anniversary, Inntravel and Switzerland Tourism also held a competition to find a "modern-day Jemima" to follow in her footsteps on a commemorative journey and record their experience in "21st-century style through blogs and tweets". Mort had earlier in 2012 in homage to Morrell hiked in Switzerland in a replica crinoline dress.

Literature German translation. A travel journalist recreates Morrell's travel, and revisits the beginnings of tourism in Switzerland.