I first met Lady Anne Barnard (1750- 1825) when she was in her mid forties. It was a brief encounter, in fact only a passage in the text of “The Table Mountain Book” by Jose Burman, that master storyteller of early South African travel. Lady Anne was reported to be the first European woman to climb to the top of Table Mountain (in July 1797) and I was resolved to find out more about her life and why a high born lady was living in Cape Town (Kaapsche Stad) at the end of the eighteenth century, during what became the first British Occupation (1795-1802).
Miniature portrait of Lady Anne Barnard nee Lindsay circa 1780 (Defiance - The Life and Choices of Lady Anne Barnard)
Lady Anne, at the age of 46, would accompany her husband Andrew Barnard (twelve years her junior) on a three month sea voyage to the Cape of Good Hope where he was sent as the Colonial Secretary, serving the first British Governor, Lord Macartney, arriving there in May 1797. Britain had deposed the “Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie”...
