Fanny Burney
by Edward Francisco Burney
oil on canvas, circa 1784-1785
NPG 2634
Thank you to Hannah Foulsham for her research.
By the time Frances (Fanny) Burney came to know Mickleham she was a recognised and celebrated novelist and part of the fashionable literary society of the time. She had originally published her debut novel Evelina anonymously in 1778, but following the critical success it received her identity was quickly revealed. Evelina’s popularity soon gained the attention of several notable literary critics including Hester Thrale and Dr Samuel Johnson to whom Burney was introduced, and visited often between 1779 and 1783.
In 1784 one of Burney’s younger sisters Susanna, moved with her new husband Captain Molesworth Phillips to Mickleham and Burney became a frequent visitor. She soon befriended those in local society such as the Locke family, headed by wealthy art collector William Locke, who lived close by at an estate at Norbury. During the French Revolution many wealthy French refugees escaped to Britain for safety, several settling in 1792 in the nearby Juniper Hall and becoming well acquainted with the Lockes. Through this friendship Burney was introduced to the emigres, for whom she had great sympathy, perhaps in part due to her maternal grandfather having been a French refugee.
Of these French men and women she became particularly close to General Alexandre D’Arblay, an artillery officer and amateur poet. From him she learnt to speak French, as well as being introduced to the writer and salon hostess Madame de Stael. However, Burney’s father took issue with the company she was holding, forbidding her to visit the emigres due to Madame de Stael’s reputation that had arose in local gossip following her relationship with Comte Louis de Narbonne, a former French minister for war. Additionally, her father disapproved of D’Arblay’s poverty, Catholicism and social status as a refuge.
Despite his opposition, Burney and D’Arblay married at St Michael and All Angels Church in Mickleham on 28th July 1793. Following their wedding, they rented the Hermitage at Bookham, where the General attempted gardening to feed the family. Later in the year she published a pamphlet Brief Reflections relative to the Emigrant French Clergy, clearly influenced through the time spent with the Juniper Hall emigres.
In late 1794 she gave birth to her first and only son, Alexander, but the small family soon faced money difficulties. Burney’s publication of her novel Camilla provided them with enough funds to build a house in one of Locke’s fields in Westhumble, which was completed in 1797 and named Camilla Cottage. However, in 1802 the D’Arblay family left Mickleham for the last time, Frances and her son leaving England to join the General in France, where they remained until 1812. By the time they had return to Britain Locke had died and the lease on the land was lost, and Burney spent the remainder of her life in Bath and London.
Despite spending only several years living in the area they held remarkable significance, as the place where she met and married her husband, which in turn led her to France where her diaries provide significant accounts of her life there.
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