Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 11 on 17/11/2003.

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Invalid at home, Samson abroad

Isabella Bird wasn't the typical swash-buckling Scottish type of hero. But she was a hero. Sara Wilson explains why

The early years of Isabella Bird’s life were inauspicious. She was a sickly child and as a young woman suffered from debilitating illnesses which left her barely able to raise her head without the aid of a neck brace.

She relied on a cocktail of laudanum, bromide and alcohol to get through the day. In desperation her doctors advised her to go abroad and a heroine of Victorian travel was created.

Isabella was born in October 1831, at Boroughbridge Hall, North Yorkshire. The Bird family was religious, almost to the point of zealotry. Indeed her father, a vicar, was forced to resign his living at one time because of the severity of his views.

Amongst her relatives Isabella counted William Wilberforce, the famous slave abolitionist, as well as the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Winchester. Her mother taught Sunday School and her Aunt Mary was a missionary in India.

The family moved several times during Isabella’s childhood. Then, after an operation to remove a tumour from her spine, they took a house in Edinburgh in the hope of improving her health.

Finally her bemused doctors suggested that she should have a complete change of scene and following their advice her father packed her off to North America.

Travelling to Halifax, Chicago, Toronto, Niagara, Quebec, New York and finally lingering in Boston for the season, Isabella’s illnesses mysteriously left her.

She stayed away until the money ran out forcing her to return home seven months later. This trip became.....

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By Sara Wilson

Section : Scottish Heroes

Page number : 42