Fanny Duberly

Frances Isabella Duberly (27 September 1829 – 19 November 1902) was an English diarist who wrote a journal of her experiences on campaign in the Crimean War and the Indian Rebellion of 1857.

[1] After her mother's death she moved to live with her eldest brother (also Wadham Locke) at Ashton Gifford House, Wiltshire.

Described as "a splendid rider, witty, ambitious, daring, lively, loquacious and gregarious", she seemed to possess the physical requirements and tough attitude required of her surroundings, writing shortly after her arrival at Varna, in Bulgaria, en route to the Crimea that she "was awoke by the reveillée at half-past two; rose, packed our bedding and tent, got a stale egg and a mouthful of brandy and was in my saddle by half-past five."

When her husband asked if she wanted to view the aftermath of the Battle of Inkerman, she told him she could not as "the thought of it made me shutter [sic] and turn sick."

Duberly again accompanied her husband when the 8th Hussars were sent to India in 1856, travelling on the SS Great Britain which departed from Cork 24 September 1857 and arrived in Mumbai 17 December.

She was adamant about accompanying the troops on campaign and told her sister that she would "stain my face and hands and adopt the Hindoo caftan and turban," refusing to stay behind.

At Gwalior in June 1858, while watching the start of a cavalry charge, her horse ran after the rest and, instead of holding back, she told her husband "I must go!"

She was a great friend and supporter of her husband, who never seemed to be jealous of his wife as the centre of attention in the all-male environment of the British Army in the field.

The story consists of the memoirs of Professor Franklin Huxtable whose invention of an ultimate weapon in the 1850s was supposed to make warfare impossible.