Laetitia Anna Layard Dowbiggin (7 February 1844 – 5 December 1930) was a British Christian missionary and teacher in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).

Early life

Laetitia Anna Layard was born in

Colombo, Ceylon Colombo ( ; si, කොළඹ, translit=Koḷam̆ba, ; ta, கொழும்பு, translit=Koḻumpu, ) is the executive and judicial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka by population. According to the Brookings Institution, Colombo m ...

, one of the nine children of Sir

Charles Peter Layard Sir Charles Peter Layard, KCMG (9 December 1806 – 17 July 1893), was the first Mayor of Colombo (1866–1877) and the Government Agent for the Western Provinces of Ceylon. Biography of Charles Peter Layard Charles Peter Layard was born ...

and Louisa Anne Layard. Her father was also born in Colombo, and was the city's first mayor. Her brother

Charles Layard Sir Charles Peter Layard (5 December 1849 – 8 June 1915) was the 18th chief justice of Ceylon from 1902 to 1906. Charles Peter Layard was born on 5 December 1849 in Colombo, the youngest of nine children, to Charles Peter Layard (1806– ...

was Attorney General of Ceylon. Other notable members of the extended Layard family of Ceylon included archaeologist

Austen Henry Layard Sir Austen Henry Layard (; 5 March 18175 July 1894) was an English Assyriologist, traveller, cuneiformist, art historian, draughtsman, collector, politician and diplomat. He was born to a mostly English family in Paris and largely raised in It ...

and his brother Edgar Leopold Layard.

Career

Dowbiggin and her husband were

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

missionaries with the

Church Mission Society The Church Mission Society (CMS), formerly known as the Church Missionary Society, is a British mission society working with the Christians around the world. Founded in 1799, CMS has attracted over nine thousand men and women to serve as mission ...

at Cotta ( Kotte) in Ceylon, her home country, from 1869 to 1901. They founded a church at Angampitiya, and boarding schools for boys and girls, during their work.Balding, J. W.
One Hundred Years in Ceylon
' (Diocesan Press Vepery, 1922): 57, 138-141. She served as the girls' school matron, overseeing between forty and eighty resident students, into her widowhood, retiring in 1906. She took a furlough in England in 1910 and 1911, then returned to Ceylon to live at Liyanwela as an independent missionary and community worker. "She had a remarkable way of keeping in touch with the old girls, and a wonderful power of winning and retaining the love of her pupils," according to a history published in 1922.

Personal life

Laetitia Anna Layard married Rev. Robert Thomas Dowbiggin in 1869. Their seven children included Herbert Layard Dowbiggin, who became a forensics expert and Inspector General of Police in

Ceylon Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

. The Dowbiggins took a furlough in 1891; Laetitia Dowbiggin spent time in England in 1896 at her daughter's deathbed. She was widowed when her husband died at sea in 1901, and she lived with her single sisters Mary, Matilda, and Henrietta in Surrey for a time after that, and again in 1911. She died in 1930, aged 86 years, at a nursing home in Colombo.''England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations)'', 1931; page 144.

References

{{morecat, date=November 2020 1844 births 1930 deaths British Christian missionaries British educators People from Colombo People from British Ceylon Sri Lankan people of British descent