Elizabeth Anne Finn
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Elizabeth Finn (1825-1921) was a writer and "the strong-willed and intelligent" wife of James Finn, British Consul in Jerusalem, in Ottoman Palestine between 1846 and 1863.[1]
She was born on 14th March 1825 to missionary parents in the Palace Zamoisky, Warsaw, Poland and died at home in Brook Green, Hammersmith, London on 18th January 1921 at the age of 95. [2]
At the age of 72, Elizabeth Finn and her daughter Constance founded the Distressed Gentlefolk's Aid Association or D.G.A.A., the predecessor of Elizabeth Finn Care on May 5th 1897 ‘in the hope of alleviating some of the distress which has overtaken ladies and gentlemen who have seen better days.’
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[edit] Early Life
Her father, the Reverend Alexander McCaul was a prodigious and noted scholar of Hebrew whom Elizabeth Finn describes in her Reminiscences[3] as having 'devoted his life to what he considered to be the highest good for the Jewish people, and through them of the whole world.'
From an early age Elizabeth Finn combined a passion for knowledge with a love of housework and persuaded her mother to let her learn all the skills necessary for a housewife of the era. Being the eldest child and her own mother’s health being weak she was in her own words ‘a sort of little mother to her brothers and sisters’ whom she taught, learning in the evening what she was to teach the next day. All other intervals were taken up with the sewing and mending needful for the family, skills that would be fully called upon in many circumstances in her role as a Diplomat's wife.
Without the benefit of any formal education in the sense of having a governess at home or attending formal school, but encouraged by her own immediate environment and her family's dedication to study, Elizabeth gained command of many foreign languages, becoming polyglot from an early age.
She was tutored in Hebrew from an early age by a converted Jewish Rabbi Rav Avrohom. When deemed capable of reading for herself at the age of 4 she received her own Bible in English and received a German Bible for her next birthday, by which time she was equally fluent in Yiddish. She first read and discovered Shakespeare in a German translation soon afterwards.
At the age of twelve she would rise at 3.30 each morning to translate for publication Lavater's Maxims from the German original. She received 2 guineas for her labours, enough to purchase a dozen pairs of new stockings that spared her from ceaseless darning. Queen Adelaide purchased a larger number of copies of this book for a bazaar on the condition that Elizabeth Finn herself would benefit.
As a diplomat's wife Jerusalem she added fluent command of Arabic to her array of languages by asking her Dragoman for ten Arabic words each day, putting one on the fingers of each hand. Having thus acquired Arabic, she was in later life asked to translate the correspondence in Arabic dialect between the Mahdi Muhammed Ahmed and the late General Gordon ‘of Khartoum.’
Reverend McCaul's mission saw him return to England in 1831 where he continued to make the condition of the Jewish people known to the people in England. The family lived in Palestine Place on the Cambridge Road in Bethnal Green an area leased to London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews. Reverend McCaul was appointed Warburton Lecturer of Lincoln's Inn in 1837, having received a degree of DD from the University of Dublin on account of his Hebrew Learning and in 1843 the Bishop of London offered him the vicarage of St James, Dukes Place a parish with 800 Jewish inhabitants and only 100 Christain. Elizabeth herself was an eyewitness to the Houses of Parliament burning down in 1834 and the coronation procession of Queen Victoria in 1837.
During this time, Elizabeth continued in her self-appointed role as school mistress to her brothers and sisters and housekeeper to her mother, making all pastry, cakes, jams and pickles herself in addition to nearly all the family needlework.
[edit] Diplomatic Life
Before even reaching her twenty first birthday, on 2nd January 1846 Elizabeth married James Finn who had been gazetted as Consul for Jerusalem by Lord Aberdeen the previous November. The next month the newly married couple began the arduous journey to their posting.
James Finn had made the personal acquaintance of the Reverend Alexander McCaul in 1841 after publication of his work on the history of the Sephardi Jews and an account of the Jewish community in China. As such he was included amongst a select circle of influential people who included Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury and Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston with a keen interest in the region. The British Consuls were instructed to befriend in every possible way the Jews in Jerusalem and Palestine, who had no kind of European protection.
Jerusalem and Palestine were at that time a recently restored part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, the European powers having driven Mehmet Ali and his son Ibrahim Pasha out of Syria in 1840. As such the religious, diplomatic and economic pressures rendered Jerusalem a potential flashpoint between Turkish, Russian British and wider European power interests. The Turks had to pay for the help from the European powers with extended concessions, including giving each European consul the right to judge, and even imprison lawbreakers of his own nationality.[4]
Elizabeth took to her role as the outspoken and fearless diplomat’s wife, assuming responsibility for protecting the interests of all people generally, whether British subjects or not, for 17 years between 1846 and 1863.
In the midst of much diplomatic, political and social turmoil, between endless official duties and the care of single-handedly raising and supporting her own family of three children, Elizabeth took actions to alleviate the sufferings and serve the needs of Christians, Jews and Muslims alike.
Three surviving children were born during the Finns' diplomatic mission. Their eldest child Alexander 'Guy Fawkes' Finn, who, like his father would pursue a diplomatic career, retiring as Consul General for Chile, was born on November 5 1847. In October 1851 Elizabeth's daughter Constance was born inside a tent pitched on a field north west of Jerusalem. Elizabeth Finn gave birth to Constance having spent the entirety of the previous day personally entertaining the wife of the Turkish Pasha and her numerous escort of friends, servants and slaves. A second son, Alfred, was born in 1854.
Elizabeth Finn also helped establish in November 1849 the Jerusalem Literary Society to explore the natural and ancient history of the region objectively and free from religious controversy. The Finns who had formed a library of a thousand volumes and a small museum, would take advantage of the Saturday, on which no Jewish business could be carried out, to ride out into the countryside in search of antiquities and there make valuable discoveries.
Many eminent travellers attended meetings of the Jerusalem Literary Society, news of which began attracting the favourable notice of amongst others Albert, Prince Consort, George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Ultimately these efforts would later evolve and flourish in the eventual formation and subsequent history of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
During these years Elizabeth Finn became one of the first modern Europeans to be given permission to visit the Temple Mount and Dome of the Rock.
Elizabeth Finn contributed as a pioneer of photography helping bring the newly invented art to the region and, also supporting indigenous photographers such as Mendel John Diness. The landscape of Palestine and Jerusalem was of keen interest to Elizabeth Finn as is evinced by the meticulous depictions made in word-paintings and pen and pencil sketches of various Biblical and historical landscapes and her way painstaking attention to how the effects of light.
William Holman Hunt who visited the region in 1854 halfway through the Finns' time in Jerusalem to research and sketch for The Scapegoat (painting) provided an introductory letter to Mrs Finn's eventual published collection of sketches [5] validating her work as "very excellent topographical studies of the localities and in colour by no means overcharged for the original effects which the mountains, sky and plains of Syria glory in."
She was also able to entertain, despite scant resources both Prince Alfred (second son of Queen Victoria) and latterly his elder brother the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) in charming royal style, so forming the connections with Royal patronage that would later provide crucial early support for the Distressed Gentlefolk's Aid Association.
Examples of actions practical relief undertaken by Elizabeth Finn during this time in Jerusalem include: -
- giving local men and women instruction and employment in various capacities, including carpentry, as farm labourers and needlework as a way to earn money to feed their families;
- raising money from abroad to battle malnutrition, providing bread and meat to the poorest.
- raising funds to purchase Abraham's Vineyard or Kerem Avraham for use as an industrial farm one mile's distance from Jerusalem;
- overseeing excavation of extensive cisterns at Abraham's Vineyard to alleviate Jerusalem's inadequate water supply and combat severe thirst amongst poorest inhabitants;
- founding in January 1854 a ‘Sarah Society’ which made home visits to women suffering from dire want, made needs’ assessments and gave relief in the form of rice, sugar and coffee;
[edit] Later Life and foundation of Distressed Gentlefolk’s Aid Association (later to become Elizabeth Finn Care)
James Finn had suffered considerable physical distress caused by the many strains and exertions he had subjected his mind and body to in working for the protection of all people in the region generally, whether British subjects or not. This involved at times hectic travel on missions of life or death for particular individuals and managing the machinations of successive Turkish Pashas determined to undermine the position of the British Consul.
The Finns made plans to return to England in 1863, eventually leaving on 14 July with Jewish bodies sending several petitions to the Queen not to remove their benefactor (James Finn) but the Queen being in seclusion, mourning the death of her late husband, the petitions had no effect.
They spent the next three years visiting friends and relations, finally settling in an old fashioned, delightful house at Hammersmith in what was then little more than a rural and sequestered spot. Here they enjoyed a quiet, restful life, filled up by parochial and literary work. But Mr Finn's health, broken by his strenuous and anxious Consular life was much impaired and in 1872 aged 66 he died and was buried at Wimbledon.
In 1875 Elizabeth Finn was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury to support and act as translator for the Patriarch of the Ancient Syrian Church whilst he pursued a mission to England to support the claims of his parishioners on the coast of Malabar. A two week visit extended to an embassy lasting seven months that indulged the appetites of senior churchmen, politicians including William Gladstone, Lord Salisbury and Queen Victoria for religious enquiry and disputation. Elizabeth Finn would repeat this task in 1908 and 1909 for the Bishop of Syria who had succeeded as Patriarch having himself accompanied the mission in 1875.
Elizabeth Finn continued to lecture on Biblical subjects in the Assyrian Room of the British Museum and retold her experiences in Jerusalem in support of the Survey for Exploration of Palestine at fundraising meetings to build on the legacy of the Jerusalem Literary Society she herself had established.
In 1882 Elizabeth Finn, then 57, launched the Society for Relief of Distressed Jews’ to provide support for Russian Jews facing severe persecution during violent pogroms. Sir John Simon, a leading member of England's Jewish community was moved to testify to 'Mrs Finn's extraordinary knowledge of his people and astonishment that a Christian should take such an interest in his afflicted people'.
At the age of 72 Elizabeth Ann Finn founded the Distressed Gentlefolk's Aid Association based in her home in Brook Green, Hammersmith, to alleviate the suffering of those she saw in her own immediate environment.
Late Victorian England was a time of great economic uncertainty and vulnerable members of society lacking the protection of state provision in pensions, healthcare and benefits had recourse only to the provisions of the Poor Law Board and feared the workhouse.
The Finns deliberately restricted the focus of the D.G.A.A. to assisting those drawn from their immediate environment, persons from hitherto comfortable backgrounds, whom on account of illness or want were at severe risk of neglect.
D.G.A.A. either bestowed grants for the immediate relief of the elderly and infirm or empowered individuals capable of working to get back onto their feet and find employment through targeted support and micro-loans.
Although ending her ‘formal’ participation with D.G.A.A. in 1901, Elizabeth Finn continued to closely monitor and assist the society for the rest of her life – attending her final committee meeting on 5 November 1920 two months before her death on 18 January 1921. She is buried next to her husband James in Wimbledon.
This legacy endures within Elizabeth Finn Care to this day and continues in the lives of the thousands of people whose quality of daily life is supported and improved by the UK’s largest independent grant giving charity dedicated to alleviating poverty.
[edit] Books (Partial List)
- Elizabeth Anne McCaul Finn: A Home in the Holy Land. A tale illustrating customs and incidents in modern Jerusalem. Adamant Media, Boston, 2002 reprint of the London 1866 original. ISBN 9781402117688
- Elizabeth Anne McCaul Finn: A Third Year in Jerusalem. A tale illustrating customs and incidents of modern Jerusalem; or, a sequel to "Home in the Holy Land". Adamant Media, Boston, 2002 reprint of the London 1869 original. ISBN 9781402110535
- Reminiscences of Mrs Finn; Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1929, London
- Finn, Elizabeth Anne: Palestine Peasantry. Note on their clans, warfare, religion and laws Marshall Bros. 1923 95 pp. London, & Edinburgh
- Original Maxims for the Young Translated by the Daughter of a Clergyman [i.e. Elizabeth Anne McCaul, afterwards Finn] 1838, London
- Elizabeth Anne Finn: Sunrise over Jerusalem, with other pen and pencil sketches. John B Day, 1873, London
- Elizabeth Anne Finn: Emmaus Identified – Printed for the Author – 75 Brook Green, London, W (first published in the Quarterly Journal January 1883 of the Palestine Exploration Fund)
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- Arnold Blumberg (1980): A View from Jerusalem, 1849-1858. The Consular Diary of James and Elisabeth Anne Finn, Associated University Presses, ISBN 0 8386 2271 2
- Elizabeth Finn: Reminiscinces of Mrs Finn M.R.A.S., Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1929
