An early woman explorer and botanist from Hastings. By Gillian Metcalfe

“Scorching sun, drenching rain, fearful road conditions, travel sickness, leeches and giant spiders” were some of the conditions met in Marianne’s search for rare and exotic plants to paint and record; but nothing discouraged “this very wild bird” from spreading her wings in the mid-19th century as she travelled every continent and tropical island.

Brazilian wild flowers

Born in Hastings, Marianne had a younger brother, Charles, and sister, Catherine. Her father, an MP, doted on her and they always remained close. Despite her wealthy Victorian upbringing, she had no formal education – quite unnecessary for well-to-do young ladies. However, her father introduced her to many well-known artists, botanists and musicians, including Darwin and Sir Joseph Hooker of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. Marianne loved singing and took lessons in both singing and piano playing. It was later that she concentrated on painting and drawing, finding botanical subjects particularly appealing. Her childhood journeys throughout Europe with her family gave her a permanent thirst for travel.

She avoids a terrible experiment and discovers a vice
Marianne’s sister Catherine married in 1864, but Marianne had no interest in marriage, describing it as “…a terrible experiment.” Instead she became mistress of the house, her companionship with her father, the wealthy Frederick North, growing ever stronger. Around this time, Frederick lost his seat as an MP and from then on they were free to travel extensively together. Marianne and her younger sister, also a botanist and artist, had kept copious diaries and sketch-books, many of which later became records of rare species. Marianne also began using oil-paints for the first time: “I have never done anything else since, oil-painting being a vice, like dram-drinking, almost impossible to leave off once it gets possession of one.”

When Frederick died in 1865, Marianne was devastated: “He was, from first to last, the one idol and friend of my life, and apart from him I had little pleasure…” He left a substantial fortune and Marianne was able to afford art training. Two years later, by then aged 41, she decided to sell the Hastings home. She then embarked on a number of trips in search of botanical specimens: “I had long had the dream of going to some tropical country to paint its peculiar vegetation on the spot in natural abundant luxuriance.” During 1871 and 1872 she visited Canada, the United States, Jamaica, and finally Brazil, where she stayed for eight months. There she produced over 100 paintings, working from a hut in the jungle. In 1875 she visited Japan, where she contracted rheumatic fever; but in spite of this, she continued to travel. In California she met lumberjacks felling giant redwood trees: “It broke one’s heart to think of man, the civiliser, wasting treasures in a few years to which savages and animals had done no harm for centuries.”

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Savages, bullocks and the giant pitcher plant
She returned to England via Java, Sri-Lanka and the island of Sarawak (Borneo), where she discovered the giant pitcher plant, the largest known of the carnivorous pitcher plants. This became the first of five plants named after her, Nepenthes Northiana. She then went on to India where she produced a further 200 paintings.

Marianne preferred to travel alone; she might start off with a friend, later abandoning her in favour of “…less civilised and more interesting people.” It is not clear who these more interesting people were, certainly not natives as she hardly mentions them in letters and diaries; but although indigenous people are absent from her paintings, snails, butterflies, bees and beetles are often included.

Conditions for women travelling alone in the 19th century must have been appalling; how many of us could not only face extreme heat, the dangers posed by wild-life and encounters with unpredictable natives (or ‘savages’ as they were often referred to), but also a total lack of washing and toilet facilities? Added to this was her rheumatic condition and absence of medical support – as well as her long days of tramping: “We left the boat and crossed the boundary in a bullock cart. We went on another canoe, hollowed out of a long tree, for twelve hours or more…” How then did she find the energy to get out her paints to record, in minute detail, some exotic plant?

Marianne North

Building her gallery at Kew
Back in England, Marianne had become a well-respected botanist with many influential friends amongst leading scientists. She persuaded Sir Joseph Hooker to let her build a permanent gallery in Kew Gardens for hundreds of her paintings. She personally designed, commissioned and paid for this extraordinary place (still open to the public) overseeing much of the work between further trips abroad.

In 1880 at Darwin’s suggestion, Marianne next visited Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii, returning home the following year to oversee the arrangement of over 800 paintings in the gallery. Although by this time she was feeling more frail, she followed her previous journey with a trip to Africa. 1883 found her in the Seychelles, and then finally, in 1884, she revisited South America, this time painting in Chile.

Would she ever stop? Seeing the gallery as the completion of her life’s work, she at last sought tranquillity in Gloucestershire. Here, in spite of failing health, she transformed the garden into a showcase of rare botanical specimens. Marianne North, artist, botanist and musician, died on August 30th 1890, aged 59, worn out by her own enthusiasm, worn out by her determination to draw our attention to so many rare and wonderful plants.

Her blue plaque was originally displayed at Hastings Lodge, Old London Road, her home for 41 years. The house later became Sacred Heart Convent School, and for some reason the plaque was never reinstated. Fortunately, her gallery of paintings can still be seen at Kew Gardens.

• Find out more at www.kew.org/kew-gardens/attractions/marianne-north-gallery

• Anthony Huxley (2000) A Vision of Eden: the Life and Work of Marianne North

• Marianne North (1892) Recollections of a Happy Life: Being the Autobiography of Marianne North (Ed Catherine Symonds)

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https://www.hastingsindependentpress.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/FEAT-MarianneNorthPainting.jpghttps://www.hastingsindependentpress.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/FEAT-MarianneNorthPainting-150x150.jpgHIPFeaturesMarianne NorthAn early woman explorer and botanist from Hastings. By Gillian Metcalfe “Scorching sun, drenching rain, fearful road conditions, travel sickness, leeches and giant spiders” were some of the conditions met in Marianne’s search for rare and exotic plants to paint and record; but nothing discouraged “this very wild bird”...The Hastings & St Leonards non-profit community newspaper