Jane Freshfield (née Jane Quentin Crawford, publishing as "A Lady" and as Mrs Henry Freshfield; 5 July 1814 – 16 March 1901) was an English climber and travel writer. She was among the first British women to explore the Swiss Alps and encouraged others to do so.

Life

Jane Quentin Crawford was born 5 July 1814. She was the daughter of

William Crawford William Crawford may refer to: Entertainment * William Broderick Crawford (1911–1986), American film actor * Bill Crawford (cartoonist) (1913–1982), American editorial cartoonist * William L. Crawford (1911–1984), U.S. publisher and editor ...

, MP for the City of London (1822-1841), who had made a fortune in the

British East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...

. Her brother was

Robert Wigram Crawford Robert Wigram Crawford (18 April 1813 – 30 July 1889) was a British East India Company, East India merchant, Governor of the Bank of England, and a Liberal Party (UK), Liberal Party politician who sat in the House of Commons of the United Kingd ...

, also an MP. In 1840, she married

Henry Ray Freshfield Henry Ray Freshfield (2 February 1814 – 8 February 1895) was an English lawyer and conservationist. Freshfield was the fourth and youngest son of James William Freshfield and his wife Mary Blacket and was born at Lothbury. His father was a lawy ...

(1814-1895). Their son

Douglas Freshfield Douglas William Freshfield (27 April 1845 – 9 February 1934) was a British lawyer, mountaineer and author, who edited the ''Alpine Journal ''from 1872 to 1880. He was an active member of the Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club (UK), ...

(1845-1934) was the editor of ''

Alpine Journal The ''Alpine Journal'' (''AJ'') is an annual publication by the Alpine Club of London. It is the oldest mountaineering journal in the world. History The magazine was first published on 2 March 1863 by the publishing house of Longman in London, ...

'' and president of the

Alpine Club The first alpine club, the Alpine Club, based in the United Kingdom, was founded in London in 1857 as a gentlemen's club. It was once described as: :"a club of English gentlemen devoted to mountaineering, first of all in the Alps, members of which ...

. The couple brought up their son with an appreciation of nature and the arts. From an early age they took him on journeys which included the

English Lake District The Lake District, also known as the Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous for its lakes, forests, and mountains (or ''fells''), and its associations with William Wordswor ...

and Scotland. From the mid-1850s the family took yearly summer holidays in

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

, particularly the

Alps The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, Sw ...

. In old age, her son described the holidays they had taken together: Valeria Azzolini wrote about her in ''I resoconti di viaggio di Freshfield'' ("Freshfield's Travel Journals"):

Lover of the mountain in the youngest and truest sense, hurry was unknown to her because it wasn't really reaching the top which insterested her, but the captivation of the landscapes she encountered on the path, and thus the hours she spent in that enjoyment.
Apart from the members of the family, there was another protagonist in Mrs Freshfield's narrations: the
guide A guide is a person who leads travelers, sportspeople, or tourists through unknown or unfamiliar locations. The term can also be applied to a person who leads others to more abstract goals such as knowledge or wisdom. Travel and recreation Expl ...
, Michel Alphonse Couttet. And it was surely in those years that the young Freshfield understood the importance, in every mountain action, of the presence of a good guide.

Publications

*''Alpine byways, or, Light leaves gathered in 1859 and 1860 / by a Lady'' (1861 London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts) :*Italian translation published 2010 as ''Itinerari alpini meno conosciuti, ovvero, Foglie delicate raccolte nel 1859 e nel 1860 da una signora'' (Aosta : Art Point (libr. antiquaria)) *''A summer tour in the Grisons and Italian valleys of the Bernina / by Mrs. Henry Freshfield, author of 'Alpine byways'' (1862, London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts) :The Grisons are the Swiss Alps now known as Graubünden.

References

External links

Blog post about ''Alpine Byways''
including images of front page and dedication
A summer tour...
in

University of Leeds , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

library catalogue
Alpine byways...
in

COPAC Copac (originally an acronym of Consortium of Online Public Access Catalogues) was a union catalogue which provided free access to the merged online catalogues of many major research libraries and specialist libraries in the United Kingdom and Ire ...

Itinerari alpini...
in

WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the OCL ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Freshfield, Jane 1814 births 1901 deaths British women travel writers English travel writers Female climbers 19th-century English women writers

Life

Publications

References

Further reading

External links