Haggard, Sir Henry Rider (1856-1925), popular writer

1 letter, signed, from Haggard, at Ditchingham House, to Sir Peter Eade, 5th December 1901. Haggard thanks Eade for the latter's paper on tortoises and reports on the health and habits of his own tortoise Capermann, who is prone to straying: Haggard reports that he has had to tie the tortoise to a stake as "his longings for his native land are so strong" and "already he has been found trekking along the road en route for the coast."

1901

1 file (1 item)

Purchased from Hodgson's, London, June 1931 (acc.80890).

Henry Rider Haggard (or Rider Haggard, as he is generally known) was born in Norfolk in 1856 and educated privately and at Ipswich Grammar School. At the age of 17 he took a government position in Natal, as a result of the patronage of a family friend, and impressed with his efficiency. Three years later he resigned his post after a romantic disappoinment and after some personally unstable years in 1880 he married (Mariana) Louisa Margitson (b. 1859/60), a orphan schoolfriend of his sister and the heir to Ditchingham House, and attempted to set up in Transvaal as an ostrich farmer; however, the couple were forced by war to return to England the following year.

Haggard began studying for the Bar in an attempt to earn a living, but found it dull after life in Africa. He stumbled into writing, beginning with non-fiction - his first book, Cetywayo and his White Neighbours (1882) was a denunciation of Britain's policies in South Africa - but then publishing his first novel, Dawn, in 1884. Shortly after this a friend showed him the newly-published Treasure Island and Haggard boasted that he could do better: challenged to do so, he wrote King Solomon's Mines in six weeks, publishing this in 1885. The royalties from this made him well off, and the massive popular success of She in 1887 (another novel written in six weeks) enabled him to leave the Bar and set up at Ditchingham as a gentleman farmer.

Haggard now lived in the country farming and writing "romances". He and his wife had three daughters during this period, joining the son who had been born in Transvaal; in 1891, however, their son died whilst they were away travelling in Mexico. Haggard retreated into depression for some years. He emerged in the later 1890s, writing on farming issues as well as continuing to produce romances. In the early years of the twentieth century he was also active in public life, serving on various Royal Commissions. After the First World War he served on an empire settlement committee which aimed to relocate war veterans in the colonies, a mission in keeping with his lifelong strong belief in empire. He was knighted in 1912 and became a KBE in 1919. His last years were disillusioned ones, and his late diaries are full of invective against communists, Jews, native agitators in the colonies and the modern world in general. He died in a nursing home in London in 1925 and his ashes were buried at Ditchingham church.

Sir Peter Eade MD FRCP (1825-1915) was born in Acle, Norfolk, the son of the village surgeon. He trained with his father and at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, entering King's College Hospital in 1844. He had a distinguished career, passing MB in 1847 and MD in 1850. He returned to Norfolk to practice, initially helping his father then setting up in Norwich in 1856; in 1858 he was appointed to the staff of the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, becoming a consultant in 1888 and remaining so until his death. He was active in local charities and in the temperance movement. His most important writings were on diptheria, on which he was a specialist, and on the history of the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. He remained active and in practice for his entire life, dying in his 91st year. An obituary can be found in the British Medical Journal 1915 August 21; 2(2851): 313-314.

At Wellcome Collection:

A report by the botanist Edward Morrell Holmes on the South American hallucinogen Yagé, which records a conversation on the subject with Rider Haggard, is held as WMS/Amer.148.

Letters by other individuals to Sir Peter Eade are held as MS.7433/9-10 and MS.8007/23.