Lady Strangford

Emily Anne Beaufort was born in St Marylebone and baptised in April 1826. Her parents were Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort and his wife Alice. Her father gave his name to the Beaufort Scale.{{cite web |title=Beaufort - National Meteorological Library and Archive Fact sheet 6 — The Beaufort Scale |url=http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/4/4/Fact_Sheet_No._6_-_Beaufort_Scale.pdf |publisher=Met Office |access-date=9 April 2021 |date=2 October 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121002134429/http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/4/4/Fact_Sheet_No._6_-_Beaufort_Scale.pdf |archive-date=2 October 2012 }}

In 1858 she set out on a journey with her elder sister to Egypt.Elizabeth Baigent, 'Strangford , Emily Anne, Viscountess Strangford (bap. 1826, d. 1887)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/25963, accessed 2 May 2015] The book that she wrote, Egyptian Sepulchres and Syrian Shrines was dedicated to her sister, and describes the places she visited in Syria, Lebanon, Asia Minor and Egypt with illustrations based on her sketches from her journey. The volume was so popular that it was re-issued several times.[http://www.uwtsd.ac.uk/rbla/online-exhibitions/women-travellers/viscountess-strangford/ Viscountess Strangford] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170224212247/http://www.uwtsd.ac.uk/rbla/online-exhibitions/women-travellers/viscountess-strangford/ |date=24 February 2017 }}, University of Wales, retrieved 3 May 2015

Of the ancient oasis city, Palmyra she writes:

"I was once asked whether Palmyra was "not a broken-down old thing in a style of slovenly decadence?" It is true its style is neither pure nor severe: nothing over which the lavish hand of hasty and Imperial Rome has passed is ever so: but, Tadmor [Palmyra] is free from all the vulgarity of real decadence; it is so entirely irregular as to be sometimes fantastic; the designs are overflowing with richness and fancy, but it is never heavy: it is free, independent, bizarre, but never ungraceful; grand indeed, though hardly sublime, it is almost always bewitchingly beautiful." (pp. 239–40){{cite web|last1=Frances Terpak and Peter Louis Bonfitto|title=19th-Century Travel|url=http://www.getty.edu/research/exhibitions_events/exhibitions/palmyra/rediscovery.html|website=The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra|publisher=The Getty Research Institute|access-date=10 February 2017}}File:Panorama of Palmyra, Nicholas Hanhart after Emily Anne Beaufort Smythe, Viscountess Strangford. Color lithograph. 4.3 x 20.4 in. (11 x 52 cm).jpg

File:Egyptian Sepulchres and Syrian Shrines by Beaufort.jpg

Strangford received a critical review of her 1861 book Egyptian Sepulchres and Syrian Shrines by Percy Smythe, later Viscount Strangford.{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Strangford, Viscount|display=Strangford, Viscount s.v. Percy Ellen Frederick William Sydney Smythe|volume=25|page=983}} Unusually, this led to them meeting and their marriage.

In 1859 and 1860 she was travelling in Smyrna, Rhodes, Mersin, Tripoli, Beirut, Baalbek, Athens, Attica, the Pentelicus mountains, Constantinople and Belgrade. During the whole journey she kept a journal recording all that she experienced.[http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/womenstraveldiaries_wtddy06001/ Viscountess Emily Anne Beaufort Smyth Strangford Journal, 1859-1860], Duke University, retrieved 2 May 2015

When Strangford published her second book Eastern Shores of the Adriatic in 1864{{Cite book |last=Viscountess Strangford |year= 1864 |title= Eastern Shores of the Adriatic |edition= 1|publisher= Robert Bentley |publication-date= 1864 |location=London |url=https://archive.org/details/easternshoresad00stragoog |access-date=2 May 2015 |via=Internet Archive}} it had a final anonymous chapter title "Chaos," which is attributed to her husband, Percy Smythe, 8th Viscount Strangford. This work is considered important in his writing career. Her husband was twice president of the Royal Asiatic Society in the 1860s. He died in 1869 and as they had no children his titles became extinct.

Following her husband's death Strangford volunteered to serve as a nurse in (probably) University College Hospital in London. In 1874 her studies led her to advocate a change in the way that nurses were trained. She published Hospital Training for Ladies: an Appeal to the Hospital Boards in England. She advocated that nurses should be allowed to train and work part-time. She believed that the training to be a nurse would benefit many women in their role within a family. This idea did not gain official backing as the major objective at the time was to establish nursing as a profession and not as a part-time activity for amateurs.

File:Bulgaria-the-eastern-question-lady-Strangfords-hospital-at Batak-print-1877.jpg had taken place in May 1876]]

The war crimes that were taking place in Bulgaria in 1876 gained her attention. Christians had suffered massacres by the Ottomans and Strangford initially joined one committee and then she set up her own.{{cite book|last=Gladstone|first= William Ewart|author-link= William Ewart Gladstone|title= Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East |publisher= John Murray |location= London |year= 1876|url= https://archive.org/stream/bulgarianhorrors00gladiala#page/32/mode/2up |pages= 32 |access-date= 31 March 2016}} via Internet Archive Thousands of pounds were raised by the Bulgarian Peasants Relief Fund and she went to Bulgaria in 1876 with Robert Jasper More, eight doctors and eight nurses. Both she and More wrote letters to The Times to report and gather more funds.{{cite news|last1=Strangford|first1=Emily|title=Lady Strangford's Relief Fund|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/33107450/?terms=strangford+batak|work=The Times|date= 25 September 1876}} Strangford believed that the Bulgarians and not the Serbs would be important as the Ottoman Empire shrank. These were views that she had shared with her husband. Strangford found the Bulgarians to just need the tools for their own self-improvement and she was impressed that their first priority was a school.{{cite book|last1=Todorova|first1=Maria|title=Imagining the Balkans|date=2009|publisher= Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|isbn=978-0199728381|page=99|edition=Updated}} She built a hospital at Batak and eventually other hospitals were built at Radilovo, Panagiurishte, Perushtitsa, Petrich and at Karlovo.{{cite book|last1=Shurbanov|first1=Alexander|title=Victorian England ~ Literary Perspective in Bulgaria|date=1996|location=Sofia|url= https://archive.org/stream/VictorianEnglandLiteraryPerspectiveInBulgaria/bulgaria_victorian-literature_djvu.txt}}In September 1876 the Bulgarian poet Ivan Vazov was moved by her humanitarian work and dedicated to her a poem. See {{cite book |last=Вазов |first=Иван |year=1942 |contribution=На леди Странгфорд |title=Събрани съчинения, пълно издание под редакцията на проф. Михаил Арнаудов |volume= I лирика |publisher= Хемус |location=София |pages= 145–147 }} She also provided subsidies to a flour mill and a number of saw mills.

In 1883 Queen Victoria awarded her the Royal Red Cross for creating, with Dr Herbert Sieveking the Victoria Hospital, Cairo. The hospital continued in operation thanks to a grant of £2,000 per year from the Egyptian government taking in local students for training and offering first class accommodation on a private basis.{{cite journal|last1=Sieveking|first1= Herbert|title= The Victoria Hospital, Cairo | journal = British Medical Journal|volume= 1|issue= 1172|pages= 1170–1171|date=18 June 1883|doi=10.1136/bmj.1.1172.1170|url= |pmc=2372560}}

Strangford edited A Selection from the Writings of Viscount Strangford on Political, Geographical and Social Subjects which she published in 1869{{Cite book | year= 1869 |editor-last= Viscountess Strangford |title= A Selection from the Writings of Viscount Strangford on Political, Geographical and Social Subjects |edition= 1 |volume= I |publisher= Richard Bentley |publication-date= 1869 |location=London | url= https://archive.org/details/aselectionfromw00smytgoog |access-date=3 May 2015|via=Internet Archive}} and Original Letters and Papers upon Philology and Kindred Subjects in 1878.{{Cite book | year= 1878 | editor-last= Viscountess Strangford | title= Original Letters and Papers of the late Viscount Strangford upon Philology and Kindred Subjects |edition= 1|publisher= Trübner |publication-date= 1878 |location=London | url = https://archive.org/details/originallettersp00strarich |access-date=3 May 2015|via=Internet Archive}} She also published her brother-in-law's novel Angela Pisani after his death and she helped found the Women's Emigration Society with Caroline Blanchard which arranged for British women to find jobs abroad.

In her later years, Lady Strangford had a London home at 3 Upper Brook Street, Mayfair.{{cite web |title=Upper Brook Street: North Side Pages 200-210 Survey of London: Volume 40, the Grosvenor Estate in Mayfair, Part 2 (The Buildings). Originally published by London County Council, London, 1980. |url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol40/pt2/pp200-210 |website=British History Online |access-date=12 July 2020}} She died on board SS Lusitania of a stroke in 1887. She was travelling through the Mediterranean en route for Port Said where she was to create a hospital for seamen. Her body was returned to London and buried in Kensal Green Cemetery.

File:Radilovo-museum-Lady-Strangford-exposition-2.jpg

Strangford is best remembered in Bulgaria where a number of memorials and streets are named in her honour. Plovdiv Regional Historical Museum has a permanent display about Lady Strangford.[http://www.visitbulgaria.travel/guide/museum_of_bulgarian_revival_plovdiv.html Museum of Bulgarian Revival] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201125080005/http://www.visitbulgaria.travel/guide/museum_of_bulgarian_revival_plovdiv.html |date=25 November 2020 }}, retrieved 4 May 2015

In Sofia's Museum of Natural history, there is a herbarium created by Strangford.{{cite book|title=Historia naturalis bulgarica, Volume 4|date=1993|publisher=National Museum of Natural History, Sofia|url=http://www.nmnhs.com/4-hnb_en.html|access-date=4 May 2015|archive-date=27 August 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170827214548/http://www.nmnhs.com/4-hnb_en.html|url-status=dead}}

{{reflist|30em}}

• {{cite book |author=Gerald le Grys Norgate |editor= Lee, Sidney |editor-link= Sidney Lee|title=Dictionary of National Biography |chapter= Emile Anne, Viscountess Strangford |page=198 |chapter-url= https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofnati019312mbp/page/n205|volume=LIII (Smith-Stanger) |year= 1898 |place=London |publisher= Smith, Elder & Co. |access-date= 11 February 2019 |via= Internet Archive}}
• {{Find a Grave |id= 202964471}}

{{commons category|Emily Anne Smythe}}

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Category:1826 births

Category:1887 deaths

Category:Irish viscountesses

Category:British travel writers

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Category:19th-century English women writers

Category:19th-century British writers

Category:Members of the Royal Red Cross

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Category:People who died at sea