Ellen Alpsten Popular Books

Ellen Alpsten Biography & Facts

Sir Samuel White Baker (8 June 1821 – 30 December 1893) was an English explorer, officer, naturalist, big game hunter, engineer, writer and abolitionist. He also held the titles of Pasha and Major-General in the Ottoman Empire and Egypt. He served as the Governor-General of the Equatorial Nile Basin (today's South Sudan and Northern Uganda) between April 1869 and August 1873, which he established as the Province of Equatoria. He is mostly remembered as the first European to visit Lake Albert, as an explorer of the Nile and interior of central Africa, and for his exploits as a big game hunter in Asia, Africa, Europe and North America. Baker wrote a considerable number of books and published articles. He was a friend of King Edward VII, who as Prince of Wales, visited Baker with Queen Alexandra in Egypt. Other friendships were with explorers Henry Morton Stanley, Roderick Murchison, John H. Speke and James A. Grant, with the ruler of Egypt Pasha Ismail The Magnificent, Major-General Charles George Gordon and Maharaja Duleep Singh. Family and early biography Samuel White Baker was born on 8 June 1821 in London, as the offspring of a wealthy commercial family. His father, Samuel Baker Sr., was a sugar merchant, banker and ship owner from Thorngrove, Worcestershire with mercantile ties in the West Indies. His younger brother, Col. Valentine Baker, known as "Baker Pasha", was initially a British hero of the African Cape Colony, the Crimean War, Ceylon and the Balkans, later dishonoured by a civilian scandal. Valentine had successfully sought fame in the Ottoman Empire, notably the Russian-Turkish War in the Caucasus and the War of Sudan from Egypt. Samuel's other siblings were: James, John, Mary "Min" (later Cawston), Ellen (later Hopkinson) and Anna Eliza Baker (later Bourne). Baker was educated at a private school at Rottingdean in Sussex, next at the King's School, Gloucester (1833–1835), then privately at Tottenham (1838–1840), before completing his studies in Frankfurt, Germany in 1841. He studied and graduated MA as Civil Engineer. While commissioned, at Constanța, Romania, where, as Royal Superintendent, he designed and planned railways, bridges and other structures across the Dobruja region, from the Danube to the Black Sea. On 3 August 1843 he married his first wife, Henrietta Ann Bidgood Martin, daughter of the rector of Maisemore, Gloucestershire. Together, they had seven children: Agnes, Charles Martin, Constance, Edith, Ethel, Jane & John Lindsay Sloan. His brother John Garland Baker married Henrietta's sister Eliza Heberden Martin and after a double wedding, the four moved to Mauritius, overseeing the family's plantation. After spending two years there the desire for travel took them in 1846 to Ceylon, where in the following year he founded an agricultural settlement at Nuwara Eliya, a mountain health-resort. Aided by his family, he brought emigrants from England, together with choice breeds of cattle, and before long the new settlement was a success. During his residence in Ceylon he wrote and published The Rifle and the Hound in Ceylon (1853) and two years later Eight Years' Wanderings in Ceylon (1855). These books showcase his hunting of wildlife in Ceylon(Sri Lanka). After twelve years of marriage, his wife, Henrietta, died of typhoid fever in 1855, leaving Samuel a widower at the age of thirty-four. His two sons and one daughter (Jane) also died young. Baker left his four surviving daughters in the care of his unmarried sister Mary "Min". After a journey to Constantinople and the Crimea in 1856, he went to Constanța, Romania and acted as Royal Superintendent for the construction of a railway and bridges across the Dobruja, connecting the Danube with the Black Sea. After that project was completed he spent some months on a tour of south-eastern Europe and Asia Minor. Florence Baker and Travels in Eastern Europe While Baker was visiting the Duke of Atholl on his shooting estate in Scotland, he befriended Maharaja Duleep Singh and in 1858–1859 the two partnered an extensive hunting trip in central Europe and the Balkans, via Frankfurt, Berlin, Vienna and Budapest. On the last part of the voyage, Baker and the Maharajah hired a wooden boat in Budapest, which was eventually abandoned on the frozen Danube. The two continued into Vidin where, to amuse the Maharajah, Baker went to the Vidin slave market. There, Baker fell in love with a white slave girl destined for the Ottoman Pasha of Vidin. He was outbid by the Pasha but bribed the girl's attendants and they ran away in a carriage together and eventually she became his lover and wife and accompanied him everywhere he journeyed. They are reported to have married, most probably in Bucharest, before going to Dubrushka, but Sir Samuel certainly promised that they would go through another ceremony on their return to England – where they had a family wedding in 1865. She was officially born 6 August 1841 (but more probably 1845) in Nagyenyed, Austria-Hungary (today Aiud, Romania) and was named Florenz Barbara Maria. She said that her nurse helped her to a refugee camp in Vidin, Bulgaria. Possibly it was there that she was adopted by an Armenian family with name Finnian (or Finnin). Her nurse married and left her, probably during the first Amnesty of 1857. Later she was abducted and sold to an Armenian slave merchant, who groomed her for the Harem. Baker and the girl fled to Bucharest and remained in Romania, Baker applying for the position of British Consul there but being refused. In Constanța, he acted as the Royal Superintendent for the construction of a railway and bridges across the Dobruja, connecting the Danube with the Black Sea. After its completion he spent some months on a tour in south-eastern Europe and Asia Minor. The new consul issued Baker's companion with a British passport under the name Florence Barbara Maria Finnian, although she was British neither by birth nor yet by marriage. She was affectionately called "Flooey" by Baker and later nicknamed Anyadwe or Daughter of the Moon in what is now northern Uganda by the Luo-speaking Acholi natives, who prized her long blonde hair. Florence refused to stay home, instead following her husband in his travels. She spoke English, Turkish, and Arabic, rode camels, mules and horses and carried pistols when in the wilds. Although Sir Samuel and Lady Baker were personally charming enough to conquer most of Victorian society, Queen Victoria refused to receive Florence at court since she believed Baker had been "intimate with his wife before marriage", as indeed he had. Confusingly, Lady Baker is in Hungarian sources known as Sass (or Szász) Flóra, and Florica Maria Sas in the Romanian sources. She died in 1916 at the estate she had shared with her husband in Sandford Orleigh, Devon. She was 74 years old and was buried with her husband, who had died 23 years earlier, in the Baker family vault at Grimley, near Worcester, although her name was nev.... Discover the Ellen Alpsten popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Ellen Alpsten books.