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{{short description|English social activist}}
{{Distinguish|text = the photographer [[Anne Geddes]] or the Second Lady of the United States [[Anna Morton]]}}
{{Infobox person
{{Infobox person
| name = Anna Geddes
| name = Anna Geddes
| birth_name = Anna Morton
| birth_name = Anna Morton
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1867|11|19}}
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1857|11|19|df=yes}}
| birth_place = [[Liverpool]]
| birth_place = [[Liverpool]], UK
| death_date = {{Death date|1917|06|09}}
| death_date = {{Death date|1917|06|09|df=yes}}
| death_place = [[Lucknow]]
| death_place = [[Lucknow]]
| death_cause = [[Typhoid fever]]
| resting_place = [[India]]
| resting_place = [[India]]
| nationality = English
| spouse = Sir [[Patrick Geddes]] (m. 1886)
| spouse = [[Patrick Geddes]], married 1886
| children = 3
| children = 3
| parents = Frazer Morton
| parents = Frazer Morton
}}
}}
'''Anna Geddes''' ([[née]] Morton; 19th November 1857 – 9th June 1917) was a music teacher and partner in the work of Scottish [[polymath]] [[Patrick Geddes]]. Anna Geddes was an English social environmental activist, and the wife of the Patrick Geddes. She was born in Liverpool, the daughter of Frazer Morton, an [[Ulster Scots people|Ulster-Scot]] who had been successful in the linen business <ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Profile for Anna Morton Geddes from Patrick Geddes: Social Evolutionist and City Planner (page 1) |url=https://www.goodreads.com/characters/1030339-anna-morton-geddes?msclkid=13fcfab2c7c311ecb4c6343e5af964de |access-date=2022-05-07 |website=www.goodreads.com}}</ref>. Whilst married to Patrick Geddes, she played an instrumental role in implementing his social projects, from both an organisational and an intellectual standpoint <ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Ewan |first=Elizabeth |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/9781474436298/type/BOOK |title=The new biographical dictionary of Scottish women |date=2018 |isbn=978-1-4744-3629-8 |language=English |oclc=1057237368}}</ref>. Anna Geddes had personal connections with both [[Octavia Hill]], the housing reformer, and [[Josephine Butler]], who campaigned for women’s suffrage and education <ref name=":0" />.


'''Anna, Lady Geddes''' ({{nee}} Morton; 19 November 1857 – 9 June 1917) was an English social environmental activist, musician and partner in the work of Sir [[Patrick Geddes]]. During the marriage, she provided organizational and intellectual support to many of his projects, and they traveled extensively during their work together.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Ewan |first=Elizabeth |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/9781474436298/type/BOOK |title=The New Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women |date=2018 |isbn=978-1-4744-3629-8 |oclc=1057237368}}</ref>


⚫
== Early life and education==
⚫
Anna Geddes was born Anna Morton to an Ulster Scot merchant Frazer Morton and his wife in Liverpool on 19 November 1857,<ref name="Lyons 2013"/> and was the fourth of six children.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |date=2016-03-04 |title=Anna Morton Geddes 1857–1917 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304061046/http://www.latebloomers.co.uk/wforum/weacalendar/november.html |archive-date=2016-03-04 |url=http://www.latebloomers.co.uk/wforum/weacalendar/november.html |url-status=dead |publisher=[[Workers' Educational Association]] }}</ref> She was born into a strict Presbyterian household,<ref name="Kitchen 1975" />{{rp|108}} but was encouraged to pursue music and after finishing boarding school she was sent to Dresden to study singing and piano, later becoming a music teacher.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Stephen |first=Walter |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YIrYBAAAQBAJ&dq=%22anna+Geddes%22+1857&pg=PT61 |title=Learning from the Lasses: Women of the Patrick Geddes Circle |date=2014-03-08 |publisher=Luath Press Ltd |isbn=978-1-909912-92-2 }}</ref><ref name="Lyons 2013"/>


In London, Geddes began to focus on social work, during an era that included a movement for [[women's suffrage in the United Kingdom]], as well as the work of [[Octavia Hill]] and [[Josephine Butler]].<ref name="Lyons 2013">{{cite book |editor1-last=Lyons |editor1-first=Paddy |editor2-last=Maley |editor2-first=Willy |editor3-last=Miller |editor3-first=John |title=Romantic Ireland: From Tone to Gonne; Fresh Perspectives on Nineteenth-Century Ireland |date=2013 |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |isbn=9781443853583 |page=173 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=91wxBwAAQBAJ |access-date=15 August 2022}}</ref> She formed a social enterprise for girls in Liverpool, and in 1884 she helped to found the Environmental Society (which later evolved into the better known Social Union) along with her sister Edith and her husband James Oliphant (headmaster of a private school for young ladies in Charlotte Square), which is where she met Patrick Geddes.<ref name=":3" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=Geddes' Life and Work |publisher=Sir Patrick Geddes Memorial Trust |url=https://patrickgeddestrust.co.uk/biography/ |access-date=2022-05-07 }}</ref>
⚫
== Early life ==
⚫
Anna Geddes was born Anna Morton to an Ulster Scot merchant Frazer Morton and his wife in Liverpool on 19th November 1857, and was the fourth of six children <ref name=":2">{{Cite web |date=2016-03-04 |title=November |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304061046/http://www.latebloomers.co.uk/wforum/weacalendar/november.html |access-date=2022-05-07 |website=web.archive.org}}</ref>. She was born into a strict Presbyterian household, but was encouraged to pursue music and after finishing boarding school she was sent to Dresden to study singing and piano, later becoming a music teacher <ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Stephen |first=Walter |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YIrYBAAAQBAJ&newbks=0&printsec=frontcover&pg=PT61&dq=%22anna+Geddes%22+1857&hl=en |title=Learning from the Lasses: Women of the Patrick Geddes Circle |date=2014-03-08 |publisher=Luath Press Ltd |isbn=978-1-909912-92-2 |language=en}}</ref>.


== Career ==
She formed a social enterprise for girls in Liverpool, and in 1884 she helped to found the Environmental Society (which later evolved into the better known Social Union) along with her sister Edith and her husband James Oliphant (headmaster of a private school for young ladies in Charlotte Square), which is where she met Patrick Geddes <ref name=":0" /><ref name=":3" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=Biography – SIR PATRICK GEDDES MEMORIAL TRUST |url=https://patrickgeddestrust.co.uk/biography/?msclkid=13fd5994c7c311ec88c551793a1494e2 |access-date=2022-05-07 |website=patrickgeddestrust.co.uk}}</ref>.
Whilst visiting her younger sister Edith and her husband James Oliphant in 1883, she met Oliphant's colleague Patrick Geddes.<ref name="Kitchen 1975"/>{{rp|82–83}} They married in April 1886; after which she was very involved in the work of her husband<ref name="Lyons 2013" /><ref name="Meller 2005"/>{{rp|5–6}} "as an independent-minded, 'heroic', selfless and 'cheerful' partner" (J. Arthur Thomson, quoted Mairet 1957, p.&nbsp;80). She often oversaw finance and administration aspects of Patrick's work and often traveled with him, including to Cyprus, the United States, Paris, and India.<ref name="Lyons 2013" /> Her background as an Englishwoman and daughter of a Liverpool merchant was considered by Helen Meller, writing in ''Patrick Geddes: Social Evolutionist and City Planner'', to have "lent credibility and authority to her husband's social crusade of culture".<ref name="Meller 2005">{{cite book |last1=Meller |first1=Helen |title=Patrick Geddes: Social Evolutionist and City Planner |date=2005 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781134849284 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eLeIAgAAQBAJ |access-date=15 August 2022}}</ref>{{rp|5}}


In the late 1880s, after the formation of the Edinburgh Social Union in 1885, which brought artists and musicians together for public performances, Geddes became close friends with [[Marjory Kennedy-Fraser|Marjory Kennedy Fraser]], and they performed piano together and shared child care responsibilities.<ref name="Lyons 2013" /> Geddes and Fraser led the entertainment committee of Edinburgh Social Union, which organized events focused on music and poetry.<ref name="Lyons 2013" /> According to Meller, "her one outlet, in an often busy and harassed life, was her music."<ref name="Meller 2005"/>{{rp|5}} Geddes oversaw many practical details during the Summer Meetings organised by her husband in the 1890s, especially the music - calling upon performers such as Marjory Kennedy Fraser.<ref name=":1" /> Her travels with her husband included journeying to Cyprus and organizing care for Armenian refugees (1896–7),<ref name="Kitchen 1975">{{cite book |last1=Kitchen |first1=Paddy |title=A most unsettling person : an introduction to the ideas and life of Patrick Geddes |date=1975 |publisher=Gollancz |location=London |isbn=0575019573 |url=https://archive.org/details/mostunsettlingpe0000kitc/mode/2up |access-date=15 August 2022}}</ref>{{rp|17}} visiting the United States in late 1899 through early 1900,<ref name="Kitchen 1975" />{{rp|185–187}} and spending most of 1900 in Paris, where Patrick ran a summer school during the World's Fair.<ref name=":1" /><ref name="Kitchen 1975" />{{rp|187, 189–190}}
== Life and work with Patrick Geddes ==
Whilst visiting her younger sister Edith and her husband James Oliphant in 1883, she met Oliphant's colleague Patrick Geddes, and discovered that they shared an interest in social reform. Over the following three years, they developed a close friendship and married in April 1886; after which she was very involved in all of Patrick's projects "as an independent-minded, ‘heroic’, selfless and ‘cheerful’ partner" (J. Arthur Thomson, quoted Mairet 1957, p. 80). She often oversaw finance and administration aspects of Patrick's work. She gave birth to their first child, [[Norah Geddes|Norah]], followed by Alasdair and Arthur, in a rundown tenement, James Court, in the Lawnmarket; where the couple moved to during Patrick's work on the Edinburgh Old Town rehabilitation schemes. They moved into another building project, [[Ramsay Garden]], after Anna received her inheritance in 1891 <ref name=":1" />. All three of their children were educated at home <ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |last=Reid |first=Deborah Anne |date=2015-11-25 |title=Unsung heroines of horticulture : Scottish gardening women, 1800 to 1930 |url=https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/21040 |language=en}}</ref>.


Her correspondence with the Scottish artist [[Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh]] is discussed in an article describing the development of the city of [[Lucknow]], India.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Welter |first=Volker M. |date=1999 |title=Arcades for Lucknow: Patrick Geddes, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Reconstruction of the City |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1568717 |journal=Architectural History |volume=42 |pages=316–332 |doi=10.2307/1568717 |jstor=1568717 |s2cid=192322553 |issn=0066-622X}}</ref> Her correspondence with French geographer [[Élisée Reclus]] is discussed in an article describing collaboration of Patrick Geddes within a network of contemporaneous anarchist geographers.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Feretti |first1=Federico |title=Situated Knowledge and Visual Education: Patrick Geddes and Reclus's Geography (1886–1932) |journal=[[Journal of Geography]] |date=2016 |volume=116 |pages=3–19 |doi=10.1080/00221341.2016.1204347 |s2cid=53335393 |url=https://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/files/downloads/0/0/0/8/6/9/3/4/unige_86934_attachment01.pdf |access-date=15 August 2022}}</ref>
Anna Geddes oversaw many practical details during the Summer Meetings organised by Patrick Geddes in the 1890s, especially the music - calling upon performers such as [[Marjory Kennedy-Fraser|Marjory Kennedy Fraser]] <ref name=":1" />. She travelled often with Patrick, including journeying to Cyprus to care for Armenian refugees (1896–7), visiting settlements in the USA, and spending most of 1900 in Paris, where Patrick ran a summer school during the World’s Fair <ref name=":1" />.


== Personal life ==
⚫
Their daughter, [[Norah Geddes]] m. Mears (1897–1967), became a garden designer or ‘landscape architect’. She planned and created gardens and playgrounds in slum areas of Dublin (1911–13) and in Edinburgh’s [[Old Town, Edinburgh|Old Town]], as a member of Geddes’s Open Spaces committee. She also worked with her father and her future husband, [[Frank Mears]], on designing [[Edinburgh Zoo]] (1913) <ref name=":1" /><ref name=":4" />.
Geddes gave birth to their first child, [[Norah Geddes|Norah]] in 1887, followed by Alasdair and Arthur, in a rundown tenement, James Court, in the Lawnmarket, where the couple had moved to work on the Edinburgh Old Town rehabilitation schemes.<ref name="Kitchen 1975" />{{rp|112–114}} While Geddes was pregnant with Norah, Patrick decided to create a student hostel by renting several flats near their home, and it became the responsibility of Geddes to attend to the practical chores of cleaning and furnishing the residences.<ref name="Kitchen 1975" />{{rp|114}}

They moved into [[Ramsay Garden]] after Geddes received her inheritance from her father in 1891, which was used to substantially finance the building development.<ref name="Kitchen 1975" />{{rp|125, 153}}<ref name=":1" /> All three of their children were educated at home.<ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |last=Reid |first=Deborah Anne |date=2015-11-25 |title=Unsung heroines of horticulture : Scottish gardening women, 1800 to 1930 |url=https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/21040 |language=en}}</ref> They spent summers in the Dundee countryside.<ref name="Kitchen 1975" />{{rp|155}}

⚫
The Geddes' daughter, [[Norah Geddes]] (1897–1967), became a garden designer or ‘landscape architect’. She planned and created gardens and playgrounds in slum areas of Dublin (1911–13) and in Edinburgh's [[Old Town, Edinburgh|Old Town]], as a member of Geddes's Open Spaces committee. She also worked with her father and his assistant, her future husband, [[Frank Mears]], on designing [[Edinburgh Zoo]] in 1913.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":4" /> They married in July 1915.<ref>{{cite web |title=DSA Architect Biography Report: (Sir) Frank Charles Mears |url=http://www.scottisharchitects.org.uk/architect_full.php?id=202402 |website=Dictionary of Scottish Architects |access-date=9 May 2022}}</ref>


== Death ==
== Death ==
Over the years Anna Geddes travelled with her husband extensively on his various projects and it was during a second visit to India in 1917 where her husband was advising and lecturing that Anna fell ill with typhoid fever and died in [[Lucknow]]. She was cremated in India <ref name=":1" />.
In 1917, during a second visit to India, while she was the primary organizer of a version of the Edinburgh Summer meetings that was planned to feature [[Rabindranath Tagore]], Geddes died from [[typhoid fever]] in [[Lucknow]].<ref name="Kitchen 1975" />{{rp|270}}<ref name="Lyons 2013" /> She was cremated in India.<ref name=":1" />


== External links ==
== References ==
{{Reflist}}


== Further reading ==
*{{Cite journal |last=Ferretti |first=Federico |date=2015 |title=Globes, savoir situé et éducation à la beauté : Patrick Geddes géographe et sa relation avec les Reclus / Globes, situating of knowledge and education to beauty: Patrick Geddes geographer and his relation with Reclus Family |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24569835 |journal={{lang|fr|Annales de Géographie}} |volume=124 |issue=706 |pages=681–715 |doi=10.3917/ag.706.0681 |jstor=24569835 |issn=0003-4010}}

== External links ==
* [https://atom.lib.strath.ac.uk/patrick-geddes-papers Patrick Geddes papers - University of Strathclyde Archives and Special Collections]
* [https://atom.lib.strath.ac.uk/patrick-geddes-papers Patrick Geddes papers - University of Strathclyde Archives and Special Collections]
* [https://www.worldcat.org/title/learning-from-the-lasses-women-of-the-patrick-geddes-circle/oclc/1066696092 Learning from the Lasses: Women of the Patrick Geddes Circle]
* [https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/935544489 Pioneer of sociology: the life and letters of Patrick Geddes]
* [https://www.worldcat.org/title/pioneer-of-sociology-the-life-and-letters-of-patrick-geddes/oclc/935544489 Pioneer of sociology: the life and letters of Patrick Geddes]


{{Authority control}}
== References ==


{{DEFAULTSORT:Geddes, Anna}}
⚫
[[Category:British social commentators]]
[[Category:Scottish women activists]]
[[Category:British women activists]]
[[Category:1857 births]]
[[Category:1917 deaths]]
⚫
[[Category:British women pianists]]
[[Category:Wives of knights]]

Latest revision as of 21:07, 9 March 2024

Not to be confused with the photographer Anne Geddes or the Second Lady of the United States Anna Morton.
Anna Geddes
Born
Anna Morton

(1857-11-19)19 November 1857
Liverpool, UK
Died(1917-06-09)9 June 1917
Lucknow
Resting placeIndia
SpouseSir Patrick Geddes (m. 1886)
Children3
ParentFrazer Morton

Anna, Lady Geddes (née Morton; 19 November 1857 – 9 June 1917) was an English social environmental activist, musician and partner in the work of Sir Patrick Geddes. During the marriage, she provided organizational and intellectual support to many of his projects, and they traveled extensively during their work together.[1]

Early life and education

[edit]

Anna Geddes was born Anna Morton to an Ulster Scot merchant Frazer Morton and his wife in Liverpool on 19 November 1857,[2] and was the fourth of six children.[3] She was born into a strict Presbyterian household,[4]: 108  but was encouraged to pursue music and after finishing boarding school she was sent to Dresden to study singing and piano, later becoming a music teacher.[3][5][2]

In London, Geddes began to focus on social work, during an era that included a movement for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, as well as the work of Octavia Hill and Josephine Butler.[2] She formed a social enterprise for girls in Liverpool, and in 1884 she helped to found the Environmental Society (which later evolved into the better known Social Union) along with her sister Edith and her husband James Oliphant (headmaster of a private school for young ladies in Charlotte Square), which is where she met Patrick Geddes.[5][6]

Career

[edit]

Whilst visiting her younger sister Edith and her husband James Oliphant in 1883, she met Oliphant's colleague Patrick Geddes.[4]: 82–83  They married in April 1886; after which she was very involved in the work of her husband[2][7]: 5–6  "as an independent-minded, 'heroic', selfless and 'cheerful' partner" (J. Arthur Thomson, quoted Mairet 1957, p. 80). She often oversaw finance and administration aspects of Patrick's work and often traveled with him, including to Cyprus, the United States, Paris, and India.[2] Her background as an Englishwoman and daughter of a Liverpool merchant was considered by Helen Meller, writing in Patrick Geddes: Social Evolutionist and City Planner, to have "lent credibility and authority to her husband's social crusade of culture".[7]: 5 

In the late 1880s, after the formation of the Edinburgh Social Union in 1885, which brought artists and musicians together for public performances, Geddes became close friends with Marjory Kennedy Fraser, and they performed piano together and shared child care responsibilities.[2] Geddes and Fraser led the entertainment committee of Edinburgh Social Union, which organized events focused on music and poetry.[2] According to Meller, "her one outlet, in an often busy and harassed life, was her music."[7]: 5  Geddes oversaw many practical details during the Summer Meetings organised by her husband in the 1890s, especially the music - calling upon performers such as Marjory Kennedy Fraser.[1] Her travels with her husband included journeying to Cyprus and organizing care for Armenian refugees (1896–7),[4]: 17  visiting the United States in late 1899 through early 1900,[4]: 185–187  and spending most of 1900 in Paris, where Patrick ran a summer school during the World's Fair.[1][4]: 187, 189–190 

Her correspondence with the Scottish artist Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh is discussed in an article describing the development of the city of Lucknow, India.[8] Her correspondence with French geographer Élisée Reclus is discussed in an article describing collaboration of Patrick Geddes within a network of contemporaneous anarchist geographers.[9]

Personal life

[edit]

Geddes gave birth to their first child, Norah in 1887, followed by Alasdair and Arthur, in a rundown tenement, James Court, in the Lawnmarket, where the couple had moved to work on the Edinburgh Old Town rehabilitation schemes.[4]: 112–114  While Geddes was pregnant with Norah, Patrick decided to create a student hostel by renting several flats near their home, and it became the responsibility of Geddes to attend to the practical chores of cleaning and furnishing the residences.[4]: 114 

They moved into Ramsay Garden after Geddes received her inheritance from her father in 1891, which was used to substantially finance the building development.[4]: 125, 153 [1] All three of their children were educated at home.[10] They spent summers in the Dundee countryside.[4]: 155 

The Geddes' daughter, Norah Geddes (1897–1967), became a garden designer or ‘landscape architect’. She planned and created gardens and playgrounds in slum areas of Dublin (1911–13) and in Edinburgh's Old Town, as a member of Geddes's Open Spaces committee. She also worked with her father and his assistant, her future husband, Frank Mears, on designing Edinburgh Zoo in 1913.[1][10] They married in July 1915.[11]

Death

[edit]

In 1917, during a second visit to India, while she was the primary organizer of a version of the Edinburgh Summer meetings that was planned to feature Rabindranath Tagore, Geddes died from typhoid fever in Lucknow.[4]: 270 [2] She was cremated in India.[1]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c d e f Ewan, Elizabeth (2018). The New Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women. ISBN 978-1-4744-3629-8. OCLC 1057237368.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Lyons, Paddy; Maley, Willy; Miller, John, eds. (2013). Romantic Ireland: From Tone to Gonne; Fresh Perspectives on Nineteenth-Century Ireland. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 173. ISBN 9781443853583. Retrieved 15 August 2022.
  3. ^ a b "Anna Morton Geddes 1857–1917". Workers' Educational Association. 2016-03-04. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Kitchen, Paddy (1975). A most unsettling person : an introduction to the ideas and life of Patrick Geddes. London: Gollancz. ISBN 0575019573. Retrieved 15 August 2022.
  5. ^ a b Stephen, Walter (2014-03-08). Learning from the Lasses: Women of the Patrick Geddes Circle. Luath Press Ltd. ISBN 978-1-909912-92-2.
  6. ^ "Geddes' Life and Work". Sir Patrick Geddes Memorial Trust. Retrieved 2022-05-07.
  7. ^ a b c Meller, Helen (2005). Patrick Geddes: Social Evolutionist and City Planner. Routledge. ISBN 9781134849284. Retrieved 15 August 2022.
  8. ^ Welter, Volker M. (1999). "Arcades for Lucknow: Patrick Geddes, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Reconstruction of the City". Architectural History. 42: 316–332. doi:10.2307/1568717. ISSN 0066-622X. JSTOR 1568717. S2CID 192322553.
  9. ^ Feretti, Federico (2016). "Situated Knowledge and Visual Education: Patrick Geddes and Reclus's Geography (1886–1932)" (PDF). Journal of Geography. 116: 3–19. doi:10.1080/00221341.2016.1204347. S2CID 53335393. Retrieved 15 August 2022.
  10. ^ a b Reid, Deborah Anne (2015-11-25). "Unsung heroines of horticulture : Scottish gardening women, 1800 to 1930". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  11. ^ "DSA Architect Biography Report: (Sir) Frank Charles Mears". Dictionary of Scottish Architects. Retrieved 9 May 2022.

Further reading

[edit]
[edit]
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