The year was 1834. With a two-masted Pinnace (a light sailing ship) named Seagull, an Arabian horse and a battalion of 22 servants, Fanny Parkes was well-armed to travel the Indian subcontinent.
Born in Wales as Frances Susanna Archer, she married Charles Crawford Parkes, a Writer of the East India Company, at the age of 27, in 1822. Her first years in India were spent holed up in their house in Chowringhee, Calcutta, where she learned Hindi and Sanskrit. Every day, she rode her Arabian horse around the countryside while the sun set.
In 1835, she found herself childless and wanting for adventure. Her husband had been promoted to the position of Acting Collector of Customs. He was too busy to take her out. Fanny was not one to be chained by her circumstances. So, she decided to seize the days herself. It was unorthodox for a Welsh woman to travel by herself, as is evident by this comment on Fanny by Emily Eden:
We are rather oppressed just now by a lady, Mrs Parkes, who insists on belonging to our camp. She has a husband who always goes mad in the cold season, so she says it is her duty to herself to leave him and travel about. She has been a beauty and has remains of it, and is abundantly fat and lively. At Benares, where we fell in with her she informed us she was an Independent Woman.
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