Queer Places:
Hilton London Hyde Park, 129 Bayswater Rd, Bayswater, London W2 4RJ, UK
Augusta
Emily Prinsep Becher (October 1, 1830 - May 14, 1909), was the wife of the
General Septimus Harding Becher, an Indian Army officer, and daughter of
Augustus Prinsep (who died 10 days before her birth) and Elizabeth Acworth
Beachcroft Ommanney.
In Personal reminiscences in India and Europe, 1830-1888, written for her daughter, Elizabeth Charlotte Sophia Becher, in 1881, Augusta Becher recalled a deep childhood love for a cousin a few years older than she was: “From my earliest recollections I adored her, following her and content to sit at her feet like a dog.” In an 1881 memoir published in 1930, fifty-one-year-old Augusta Becher recalled a youthful meeting with a young woman who “proved just charming— took me captive quite at once” and went to dinner wearing “lilies of the valley I had gathered for her in her hair”.
Born at sea, aboard of "The Duke of Lancaster", off the Cape of Good Hope, Augusta Becher lived for some years in India and witnessed events in the Indian Rebellion in 1857, which she later wrote about in her posthumously published Personal Reminiscences in India and Europe, 1830–1888. She returned to England soon after these events and lived for a short time as housekeeper with the family of Charles Robert Prinsep. Her memoirs provide a rich portrait of family and social life in India and England.
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