I came across an interesting article written by Anne de Courcy in the Daily Mail of Dec. 18, 1999. In it she recounts her research of the Bowring archives, which is contrary to Anna's own account which has been accepted for years. In the Bowring diaries she is described as a "dumpy, middle-aged half-caste school teacher, who had a British soldier for a father and an Indian mother. She was the widow of an officer in the Public Works Department"

Army lists and birth, marriage and burial records confirm

A .. she was born in India, not Wales, on November 6 1831, not 1834

B .. Her mother, half-indian or Indian, married a poor army sergeant named Edwards.

C .. Her father died before her birth. Her mother sent her and her elder sister Eliza to England, and subsequently married a British army corporal.

D .. Anna had some schooling in England and returned to India in 1845 at the age of 14. She met a Reverend. Percy Badger, unmarried, who took her under his wing and traveled together in India, unchaperoned.

E .. At 18 she married Captain Thomas Leon Owens, who died in Malaya in 1859, aged 32. On the burial certificate the name was written as Leonowens. This is the name Anna adopted, so she became Anna Leonowens.

F .. She concealed her mixed heritage, why shouldn't she in an age of White supremacy, and began an extraordinary adventure in Siam, now known as

Thailand.

G .. In Siam, her achievement is extremely remarkable as she moved freely between the secluded Nang Harem of King Mongkut and the outside world, to do what she could for her Siamese sisters and influence Siam's future king, Chulalongkorn.

H .. After five years in Siam, she returned to England along with her son Louis (he had been with her in Siam). She left Louis at an English school, and collected her daughter Avis from school and moved to Canada. She died in Montreal in 1915.

I .. Here was a remarkable Anglo-Indian woman, who carved her name in history and film.

J .. I wonder what became of the children of her mother's second marriage?

K .. Oh! Her niece married a man with Indian blood (an A.I.) and one of their children, Anna's great nephew, became the actor Boris Karloff.

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