Anne Lee

Born Anne Gravely at Ashington in Sussex in or about 1811, in 1846 she married John Edward Lee of Caerleon in South Wales. By profession her husband was a ‘Patent nail manufacturer’ (1851 census) but by inclination he was a keen amateur antiquarian and archaeologist who was instrumental in founding the Caerleon Antiquarian Association in 1847 and establishing a local museum to preserve the many Roman antiquities unearthed around Caerleon.

The 1851 census records one daughter, Frances Anna, born in 1850, and a household of four servants, including a footman. By 1861 the couple had three children and six servants.

In 1868 the family moved to Torquay in Devon for the sake of Anne’s health. They lived there in the Villa Syracusa; originally built by the Russian Romanov family as a holiday home, today it is the Headland Hotel. Anne died there in 1885.

Photographed by Camille Silvy of London.