Anna Leonowens

Anna Leonowens (November, 1831 - 1915) is chiefly famous for being the British governess portrayed in the musical The King and I. The play, based on adaptations of her factually slipshod memoirs, provides a fictionalised look at her life in the royal court of Siam (present-day Thailand).

Early Life

Although she claimed to have been born Anna Harriette Crawford in Caernarfon, Wales on November 5, 1834, recent investigations have discovered no record of her birth there. It is now thought that her Welsh blood was limited to one grandparent. Her own version of her story states that at the age of fifteen, she travelled to India to live with her mother, who had remarried after the death of Anna's father, Thomas Crawford, an army captain, in action. She reportedly spent the intervening years at boarding school and staying with relatives.

Related Topics:
Caernarfon - Wales - November 5 - 1834 - India

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It is now believed that she was born in India in November 1831, of an English father, Thomas Edwards, a cabinetmaker who died soon after her birth, and a partly East Indian mother, Mary Anne Glasscott, and that her maiden name was Ann Harriet Edwards.

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An observer who knew her described Leonowens as "a dumpty, middle-aged, half-caste schoolteacher." Her elder sister, Eliza, was the maternal grandmother of the film star Boris Karloff.

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Her mother became the wife of Patrick Donohoe (an Irish corporal awarded the Victoria Cross circa 1857 for bravery) in Bombay, India.

Related Topics:
Patrick Donohoe - Bombay, India

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