Amelia Elizabeth Guppy

Amelia Elizabeth Guppy was born at Bullingham Court in Hertfordshire on 21 November 1808, the eldest child of wealthy parents Richard Parkinson (abt 1782-1851) and Lucy (1788-1834), née Lechmere, daughter of Royal Navy officer William Lechmere, Vice-Admiral of the White[1][2] living at Kinnersley Castle.

They moved to Trinidad in 1837 and lived at La Falaise estate, Pointe-a-Pierre Road, Naparima Hill, San Fernando.

Her granddaughter, Yseult (Guppy) Bridges, in her memoir, "Child of the Tropics",[4] says, "She was a lady of wildly independent mould and adventurous spirit.

", and "She missed the intellectual and artistic stimulus of the circles in which she had moved in England, and found her society [in Trinidad] restricted to that of people whose interests and outlook were severely limited.

Her children included Robert John Lechmere Guppy who was brought up at Kinnersley Castle by Richard and Lucy Parkinson.

All the children were raised by their grandparents, Francis and Lucy being sent to Robert's parents, Samuel and Sarah Guppy, in Clifton, when the couple moved to Trinidad.

Even sixty years later her beauty, her distinction and her exploits were still legendary in Trinidad: the 'mad Mrs Guppy' who lived in the jungle in a tree house; while even outside the island there were those who remembered her.