Maria Graham - Widow in Chile

Widow in Chile

As all other naval officers' wives, Maria spent several years ashore, seldom seeing her husband. Most of these years she lived in London. But while other officers’ wives spent their time with domestic chores, she worked as a translator and book editor. In 1819 she lived in Italy for a time, which resulted in the book Three Months Passed in the Mountains East of Rome, during the Year 1819. Being very interested in the arts, she also wrote a book about the French baroque painter Nicolas Poussin, Memoirs of the Life of Nicholas Poussin (French first names were usually Anglicised in those days), in 1820.

In 1821 Maria was invited to accompany her husband aboard HMS Doris, a 36 gun frigate under his command. The destination was Chile, and the purpose was to protect British mercantile interests in the area. In April 1822, shortly after the ship had rounded Cape Horn, her husband died of a fever, so HMS Doris arrived in Valparaiso without a captain, but with a distraught captain’s widow. All the naval officers stationed in Valparaiso – British, Chilean and American – tried to help Maria (one American captain even offered to sail her back to Britain), but she was determined to manage on her own. She rented a small cottage, turned her back on the English colony ("I say nothing of the English here, because I do not know them except as very civil vulgar people, with one or two exceptions", she later wrote), and lived among the Chileans for a whole year. Later in 1822, she experienced one of Chile’s worst earthquakes in history, and recorded its effects in detail – something nobody had done before.