Rachel Henning
Rachel Henning was a 19th-century Australian colonist known for her compelling letters written to her family in England between 1853 and 1882. Born in 1826 in Bristol, England, she emigrated to Australia in 1861, following her brother and sister, who had moved there for health reasons. Henning's correspondence, which first appeared in the Australian magazine *The Bulletin* in 1951-1952 and later published as a book, offers rich insights into the domestic life and cultural history of the Australian frontier from an educated, middle-class English perspective. Her letters are noted for their literary quality, reflecting her love of literature and her personal transformation through colonial experiences.
She married Deighton Taylor in 1866, and her letters often addressed personal themes such as her engagement, which faced familial opposition. Henning's writing captures her observations of daily life, travel, and fashion, while also providing a narrative that resonates with a class-conscious audience back in England. Following her husband's death, she moved to Sydney and continued her correspondence until her passing in 1914. Henning's letters remain significant both as historical documents and as examples of early Australian literary expression.
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Subject Terms
Rachel Henning
Writer
- Born: 1826
- Birthplace: Bristol, England
- Died: 1914
- Place of death: Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Biography
Nineteenth century Australian colonist Rachel Henning is remembered through a series of engaging letters she wrote to her family in England from the Australian bush between 1853 and 1882. The correspondence, first published serially in 1951-1952 in the Australian magazine The Bulletin, was collected into a book in 1952. The monograph became an Australian classic, a widely read and historically significant account of domesticity on the frontier from an educated, middle-class English perspective. Henning’s letters document natural and cultural history, reflecting her background and upbringing and revealing her personal transformation by her colonial experience. In addition, her letters are also remarkable as literary history: Henning described and discussed her own fiction and poetry reading, and her writing was quite literary in its own right.
The daughter of an Anglican minister, Henning was born in 1826 in Bristol, England, and emigrated to Australia permanently in 1861 after a brief visit in 1854-1855. Her brother and only sister had moved in 1853 after her brother suffered a hemorrhage of the lungs and was advised by his doctor to seek a warmer climate. In 1866, Rachel married Deighton Taylor, an Englishman—and also the child of a clergyman—who worked on her brother’s land as a sheep overseer.
Much of Henning’s distinctive voice likely comes from her awareness that her letters would be read aloud to various family members and perhaps passed on to friends. Although her letters are episodic, focusing on domestic tasks, travel, and fashion, she is consciously interpreting Australian life for a class-conscious audience far removed from her experience. Her letters demonstrate a strong literary sensibility, not only in her references to beloved literary works such as the writing of Charles Dickens, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, but most especially in her judicious and dramatic narrative choices. Her sense of drama is especially evident in the letters pertaining to her engagement and marriage, which her brother opposed—perhaps because he felt his overseer was not good enough for his sister.
Henning’s letters continue following her marriage, describing her life in various rural Queensland towns. After her husband’s death, she—along with her brother and youngest sister who also survived their spouses—moved to Sydney, continuing to correspond with the one sister who remained in England until Henning’s death in 1914.