- Source: Gabriela Cunninghame Graham
Gabriela Cunninghame Graham (also known as Gabriela Marie de la Balmondière, née Caroline Horsfall; 22 January 1858 – 8 September 1906) was an English writer, translator, lecturer, and socialist, who was known for most of her life as Chilean-born and of French-Spanish origin, which was later discovered to be a fabrication.
Life
Gabriela Cunninghame Graham was born Caroline (or Carrie) Horsfall in Masham, North Yorkshire in January 1858, the second of thirteen children born to Elizabeth Stanfield and Henry Horsfall, a surgeon. She was known as a dynamic and imaginative child, who delighted her siblings with stories. As a teenager, in 1875, she ran away to London to pursue a theatrical career.
Three years later, she met Scottish writer and politician R.B. Cunninghame Graham in Paris. They married on 24 October 1878 at a London register office, her name recorded as Gabrielle Marie de la Balmondière. Always known by Gabriela, she claimed to be the Chilean-born daughter of a French father and a Spanish mother, who had been sent to a convent by an aunt, and spoke with an assumed accent. Biographers of her husband described his meeting Gabriela while she was a schoolgirl in her late teens, although her real age at their marriage was 20.
A 2004 biography of R.B. Cunninghame Graham by a descendant, Jean Cunninghame Graham, described the couple meeting in a park in Paris, and Gabriela revealing her true name and origins within the course of their first conversation. Nonetheless, her identity as Gabriela Marie de la Balmondière was maintained throughout her life, and after her death.
Shortly after their marriage, the Cunningham Graham's travelled to America, where she began to write. Her first story was titled "The Wagon-Train", and told the tale of a journey on horseback from Texas to Mexico City. After America, the couple lived in Spain until the death of R.B. Cunninghame Graham's father in 1883. They then strove to pay off inherited debts, ultimately selling Gartmore House, the family seat, to ensure financial security. Gabriela maintained contact with her mother, but asked that her new identity be respected and not revealed.
Gabriela Cunninghame Graham wrote essays, poetic translations, and a substantial biography of Teresa of Avila, Santa Teresa: Her Life and Times, published in 1894. This was described by Herbert Faulkner West as "monumental and scholarly". In 1897, she contributed a story to The Yellow Book.
Like her husband, Gabriela was an active socialist, addressing meets in England and Europe on subjects including the need for an eight-hour working day, and the ideals of socialism. Fascinated by mysticism, she also wrote and lectured on this.
Death and burial
Gabriela Cunninghame Graham died from dysentery on 8 September 1906 in Hendaye, France. Her funeral took place on 19 September 1906 in the chancel of the ruined church of Inchmahome Priory, Scotland. After her death, Cunningham Graham collected his wife's poetry in a volume titled Rhymes from a World Unknown. Each year, on the anniversary of her death, he rowed to the island to smoke a cigarette over her grave. Gabriela having been a lifelong and heavy smoker, this had been a promise made to her. He was later buried beside her.
Gabriela's death certificate recorded her as Gabrielle Marie de la Balmondière, aged 44, born in Chile to Joseph de la Balmondière and Carmen Suarez de Arecco. It was not until decades after her death that biographers learned Gabriela Cunninghame Graham's real lineage.
External links
Rhymes from a World Unknown by Gabriela Cunninghame Graham at the Internet Archive
