`Sepia-Toned

Hello world. This is a blog about the past using the technology of today. Future blogs will be about  social history, the history of photography and of food. Sometimes these strands will weave together and at others they will unravel and lead off in different directions. I hope to share interesting facts, recipes, pictures and the odd opinion.

This week I have made the acquaintance of an extraordinary woman. Not in person because she died in 1842 aged just 44. She was a superwoman who packed a great deal into her short life. Her name was Eliza Maria Gordon Cummings. She had 13 children but found time to pursue wide artistic and scientific interests.

She was an early geologist whose collection of fish fossils helped get the science of geology underway. The collection has endured and is distributed among several museums. Eliza was also interested in plants. She designed the gardens at her home at Altyre House, experimented with cross breeding and built up a collection of botanical specimens.

Although Eliza lived at Altyre in Morayshire, Scotland after her marriage to Sir William Gordon Cummings she had an active social life both in Scotland and in London. The journey to London, either by sea or overland from Morayshire in the early 19th century was arduous particularly as Eliza would almost always have been pregnant when she made it.

In addition to all of this Eliza also found time to paint which she did with some skill. At least 2 of her daughters inherited her artistic talent. Her youngest daughter Constance Fredericka travelled extensively and recorded her travels in China, India, Fiji, New Zealand and California in water colours and in a series of books. Her son Roualeyn travelled extensively in Africa.

I was very please to make the acquaintance of this inpiring woman.