Dame Eva Anstruther DBE (1869 – 1935) was an English writer and poet.

She was born as Hon. Eva Isabella Henrietta Hanbury-Tracy, the eldest child of the 4th Lord Sudeley. She grew up in Gloucestershire at Toddington Manor, near Tewkesbury. Her two immediate siblings were boys and she grew up a somewhat lonely child, resorting to creative writing from a young age. She cultivated a wide circle of similar-minded friends - mainly school peers - and began writing seriously at the age of fourteen.

In adult life, she had some success with poems, newspaper columns, short stories, certainly one play and a couple of novels but never obtained actual public major success. She had a special "den" in her home where she would sit and read or write. Sometimes in London she would go to Clifford's Inn, where she had a small personal office.

A play was written by Eva Anstruther (Bon Secours in 1903). It is thought that she wrote another play, Old Clothes, which is mentioned in a collectors' item manuscript - a letter written in March 1904 by Thomas Anstey Guthrie (1856-1934), who is also known as F. Anstey.

She married Henry Torrens Anstruther in 1889, however his political career did not go well and he never became a cabinet minister. They separated in 1912 and divorced in 1915. They had two children.

During the First World War she was appointed by Sir Edward Ward as Director of the Camps Library and was responsible for stocking the libraries for troops on active duty in France. Her title was Honorary Director of the Camps Library, for which service she was later made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire - on Ward's recommendation.

[edit] Clara Taylor

Clara Taylor was Dame Eva's maid between 1907 and 1914 but retained an association with the family long after that. In 1948, she was invited to write her reminiscences of those days in service. Clara Taylor writes candidly and clearly about the kind of life she led and about the relationships between Eva and her two children and between Dame Eva and her husband. She was part of the move to Pan's Garden which was a house built by Eva Anstruther in Hampshire from circa 1912 onwards. Taylor helped decorate the dining room walls. Taylor was later to work alongside Eva in London during the First World War.

[edit] Death

After Dame Eva's death in 1935 some 37 books on black magic and 66 books on cookery, although she was never known to cook, were found among her possessions. Also found was a photograph of a personal enemy - her son's mother-in-law by his first marriage - with pins stuck in it^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] External links

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