Ethel Brilliana Tweedie FRGS (1862–1940) was a prolific English author, travel writer, biographer, historian, editor, journalist, photographer and illustrator.

In 1886 she visited Iceland on holiday with her brother Vaughan B. Harley, her future husband Alexander (Alec) Leslie Tweedie, a woman friend, and one other man.

In 1897, still upset and stunned by his death, she agreed to accompany her sister and a Finnish companion, Frau von Lilly, on a trip abroad to Finland.

During that time she gathered material that eventually made its way into a third book, Through Finland in Carts ,[7] published later in 1898 and beginning her career as a popular writer.

[1] She was a photographer, a prolific painter and a watercolorist; her published works included her own sketches and paintings, many made during challenging and dangerous travels.

She visited a number of countries, including France, Spain, Greece, Italy, Turkey, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, India, and Southern Sudan in central Africa.

"[3] Likely as a result of her own tragic situation, she felt strongly that families should provide early safeguards for both boy and girl children (an unusual sentiment for her times) for their education and upbringing.

Sadly, her husband died suddenly and unexpectedly at their home in Aldburgh, Suffolk nine years later, 25 May 1896, killed by the shock and responsibilities of financial disaster following the catastrophic failure of his marine insurance syndicate (caused by unforeseen British Admiralty court findings in the case of the ship the Benwell Tower [14] which ruined both Alexander and his brother George Straton Tweedie, and a third partner Frederick Stumore).

[15] Her eldest son Squadron Leader Harley Alexander Tweedie and Flight Lieutenant Stanley Harry Wallage were killed when their Airco DH.9A crashed at Amman, Transjordan.

When she was at home in her flat in Devonshire House, Mayfair, London, she hosted popular weekly receptions that brought together important people of her era and many international travelers.

She continued an earlier tradition begun when she married: when she and her husband hosted luncheons or dinner parties, she encouraged guests to append an autograph, a sketch or a comment onto what evolved into a series of signature table-cloths.

[18] In addition to sketching and painting, her wide range of interests included embroidery and textiles: she even bequeathed to the Victoria and Albert Museum in February 1927 some fine examples of English silks, laces and needlework acquired in her travels.