FANNY DUBERLY
THE DIARIST WHO RECORDED A UNIQUE FEMALE PERSPECTIVE OF LIFE ON THE FRONT LINE 1829-1902 GREAT BRITAIN
Born in Wiltshire, England, Duberly (née Locke) married Lieutenant Henry Duberly in 1850 and accompanied him to the Crimea on the outbreak of war. Her husband was promoted to captain and acted as the paymaster for the 8th Royal Irish Hussars. Duberly ignored orders for wives to be excluded from the war zone and witnessed many battles, including the Charge of the
Light Brigade and the Battle of Malakoff. She shared her husband’s hut in the brigade lines, experienced winter privations and rode into Sevastopol soon after it fell.
Duberly recorded all of these events in a daily diary that was notable for its detail and selfconfidence, with an often blunt and sobering tone. Large extracts were sold in a bestselling book called Journal Kept During The Russian War.
Its wilfulness and lack of heroic romanticism offended some readers, including Queen Victoria who refused to write a dedication. Duberly went on to accompany her husband to India where she wrote another book before they retired to Cheltenham in the 1880s.