Eva Anstruther

Dame Eva Anstruther DBE (25 January 1869 – 19 June 1935) was an English writer and poet.

She was born as Eva Isabella Henrietta Hanbury-Tracy, the eldest child of the 4th Lord Sudeley. She grew up in Gloucestershire at Toddington Manor, near Tewkesbury. Her two immediate siblings were boys and she grew up a somewhat lonely child, resorting to creative writing from a young age. She cultivated a wide circle of similar-minded friends and began writing seriously at age 14.

As an adult, she had some success with poems, newspaper columns, short stories, one play and several novels. She had a special "den" in her home where she would sit and read or write. Sometimes in London she would go to Clifford's Inn, where she had a small personal office. She wrote a play, Bon Secours, in 1903. She may have written another play, Old Clothes, mentioned in a collectors' item manuscript - a letter written in March 1904 by Thomas Anstey Guthrie (1856–1934), who is also known as F. Anstey.

Personal life

She married Henry Torrens Anstruther in 1889. However, his political career did not go well and he never became a cabinet minister. They separated in 1912 and divorced in 1915. They had two children, Douglas and Joyce.

During the First World War, she was appointed by Sir Edward Ward as Director of the Camps Library, started on 1 October 1914, and was responsible for stocking the libraries for troops on active duty in France. Her title was Honorary Director of the Camps Library, for which service she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1918 – on Ward's recommendation.

Death

She died at her home in Chelsea from bronchial pneumonia on 19 June 1935, aged 66.