Louisa Anne Meredith
Louisa Anne Meredith was a notable 19th-century writer and conservationist originally from England. Raised in an environment that valued independent thought and expression, she developed a passion for nature, botany, and the arts from a young age. Meredith began her writing career early, publishing her first poetry collection, "Poems," at just twenty years old, which she also illustrated. In 1839, she married Charles Meredith and moved to Australia, where she became deeply engaged with the landscape and wildlife of New South Wales and Tasmania. Throughout her life, she published several influential works, including "Notes and Sketches of New South Wales" and "My Home in Tasmania," which provided keen observations of the natural world. Meredith was a skilled artist as well, receiving recognition for her wildflower illustrations. Her contributions to literature and art earned her honors from the Tasmanian government, and she became one of the few women of her time to achieve significant commercial success in her fields. Her legacy reflects a deep commitment to nature and a pioneering spirit in both writing and conservation efforts.
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Subject Terms
Louisa Anne Meredith
Fiction, Nonfiction and Children's Literature Writer and Poet
- Born: July 20, 1812
- Died: October 21, 1895
Biography
Nineteenth century writer and conservationist Louisa Ann Meredith grew up in England and received most of her education at home with her mother, who was forty-three when Louisa was born. Louisa’s father was fifty-five years old at her birth. She was taught the value of independent thinking and open expression regarding social and religious matters. She began keeping a diary as a child, and by the time Meredith was a teenager, she had become a talented writer and artist and had developed a keen interest in and knowledge of botany and nature. She showed her first painting when she was seventeen. Her diary entries influenced her later writings, which included early books of poems. Her first collection of poetry appeared when she was only twenty years old and which included her own illustrations. Her Poems was published in 1835. She also published books of illustrated writings, such as The Romance of Nature: Or, The Flower-Seasons Illustrated in 1836.
In April, 1839, Louisa and her cousin Charles Meredith wed in Birmingham. Charles Meredith kept sheep in New South Wales, and following the marriage, the couple sailed to Sydney so that Charles could look in on the sheep stations in Murrumbidgee, during which time Louisa Meredith stayed in Bathurst. After living at Homebush in Sydney, the Merediths then left for Tasmania in 1840, where Charles’s father owned property in Oyster Bay. They built a home near Charles’s father, and it was there that Meredith gave birth to their second son, Charles Henry, who died just four months after his November, 1841, birth. The Merediths’ first son, George Campbell, was born around 1839. Son Charles Twamley was born in 1844, and Owen in 1847.
Meredith continued writing and painting in Tasmania, and she published the honestly observant Notes and Sketches of New South Wales, During a Residence in That Colony from 1839 to 1844 to angry Sydney reviews. She continued in this vein of writing with My Home in Tasmania, During a Residence of Nine Years in 1852. She also wrote—and illustrated—vivid descriptions of wildlife, plants, and flowers. She won medals for her wildflower drawings in Australia and elsewhere. The Tasmanian government honored her “distinguished literary and artistic services” in 1884, and she was granted honorary membership in the Tasmanian Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Meredith was one of the few women of her time to achieve commercial success for her work, which included twenty books and numerous pamphlets and articles.