A Victorian's Letters from INDIA and PRUSSIAN & GREEK Royalty 1883

Last updated: 11 April 2006

Letters of a Victorian lady, Ada E Leslie, 1883 to 1894

Prussian (German), British and Greek Royal Palaces and travel in Royal Yachts occupy this Victorian lady's life after an eventful visit to India from England as a children's governess with a final move to Burma as the wife of a District Police Commander.

Described as an epic traveller for those days she goes to India to work for an English Army Colonel - and almost immediately travels back to England via a small war in Egypt. Subsequently she goes to Potsdam, Marmor, Windsor, Osbourne, Homberg and Berlin working for the future Kaiser Wilhelm II ("Kaiser Bill" to the British soldier in World War I). Then she becomes a Lady-in-Waiting to Wilhelm's sister, Sophie (also a grandchild of Queen Victoria and the future Queen of Greece) travels to Greece then Berlin and back, Copenhagen, Russia, Weisbaden and back before resigning to marry and go to Prome in Burma.

Ada describes all these events in 52 letters written to her cousin, some 34 000 words over 11 years. There are insights into the royal families and their way of life as well as the lives of others around them and descriptions of towns and places.

I do not have her exact date of birth but it appears that she was born in 1860 as the 1881 census indicates that she is 21 and working in a large household as a 'domestic' nurse - probably for the young child of the family. (Thank you Judith!)

For convenience I have divided the letters into five sections and heavily edited them to remove most of the domestic matters, replacing such sections with >>>>. I have included links to pictures which, except where indicated, are original photographs that were kept with the documents and usually referred to in the text.

Where clarification may be useful I have added it in this manner:
{clarification in Italics and curly brackets}.
I have deliberately kept this minimal to avoid disrupting the flow.

For those who are interested there is a fifth compilation that has not been edited at the link below, which includes the domestic matters referred to above.

1884	The trip to India
1886-1889	To Prussia and visits to England
1889-1892	Greece and life there - Part 1
1892-1893	Greece and life there - Part 2
1894	The final letter from Burma
1883-1894	The majority of the letters without editing
In September I started visiting the addresses that Ada has written from or about and so I have added a new link to: "Ada's Travels, re-visited"
Original first page of: Original second page of:	Picture of the Prussian Princesses April 12th 1884. 30 Vernon Terrace, Brighton April 12th 1884. 30 Vernon Terrace, Brighton Britannica Internet Guide Award

These letters were all written to (and loosely bound into a book by) my great grandmother "Polly" who was Ada Leslie's cousin. Her actual name was Mary Ann Galsworthy (née Gwynn) 1853-1925

Unfortunately I cannot yet find what happened to Ada herself after her marriage to "Mr Castle". Reading between the lines and knowing her state of health and problems with hot climates I suspect that she died quite soon and this is why the letters stopped. I would dearly like to know further though - possibly she had children even...

Just recently my 'Chief Researcher', Debbie Chambers, has identified the first names of Ada's husband - Reginald Alfred Edgar Castle - having discovered a reference to their marriage in Burma located through a Family History Centre. This is leading to more breakthroughs from the 1881 census.

Thank you very much Debbie!

Reginald Castle appears to have been a senior policeman - the District Superintendent for his area. He joined the Indian Police Service in June 1884 at Moorshedabad at the age of about 20 or 21 and had rapid promotion. He retired in October 1914. (I am indebted to Donald Jaques for looking this up in the India List.)

Even more recently Charlotte Zeepvat - author of a number of books relating to European (and Russian) Royalty of the period - has written two excellent articles based on these letters. She has used her great knowledge of the period to draw out many interesting inferences from the letters and fitting them very effectively into their historical context. In particular she has shown that Ada having started as a governess progressed to become a Lady-in-Waiting for Princess Sophie in Greece.

Those interested in reading the articles will find them in the April 2001 and May 2001 editions of ROYALTY DIGEST, available from Church Street, Ticehurst, East Sussex, TN5 7AA, United Kingdom.

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The Publisher

The originals of these letters - and of those referenced but not yet available on these pages - are owned by Francis Barnard, a great grandson of Pollie Galsworthy (the Pollie to whom all these letters are addressed). The letters were transcribed by his sister, Jane Curtis.