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).

Marriage and widowhood

It was in India that she met and married in 1849, Thomas Leon Owens, a clerk. After the death of their first child they reportedly set out for England, eventually settling in London where they brought up two healthy children, Avis and Louis. The latter was, of course, to become famous as a character in the story of Anna's stay at the Siamese court. The story of the London sojourn seems spurious, given the evidence; it is more likely that the young Owenses, as they were, moved frequently throughout Asia.

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Avis would go on to marry Thomas Fish, an American banker. Louis T. Leonowens became an officer in the Siamese royal cavalry. He married Caroline Knox, a daughter of Sir Thomas George Knox, the British consul-general in Bangkok (1824-1887) and his Siamese wife, Prang Somkok, who died in 1888. Louis went on to found the trading company which bears his name to this day.

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When her husband found work in Malaysia, Anna once again travelled to the colonies, this time with her children in tow. Their fortunes rapidly changed for the worse. Her husband, who had become an hotel keeper, died of apoplexy in Penang in 1859, at age 33, and she was left an impoverished widow. She had never before needed, or planned, to work outside the home. The only way she now had of supporting herself, however, was to become a teacher; and so she opened a school for the children of officers in Singapore. She also changed her surname to Leonowens, which was how her husband's surname was written on his death certificate.

Related Topics:
Apoplexy - Penang - Singapore

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