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Hannah, Princess Asfa Yilma (Mrs Algernon Holland)

(died 1945), Princess of Ethiopia, linguist and author

Sitter in 4 portraits
Daughter of a Swiss missionary in Ethiopia, Theophilus Waldmeir and Princess Yubdar. Hannah was one of eight children. The family moved to Lebanon where Hannah was raised, and where her father founded the Brumana High School. Hannah married Mr Newson, an Irish man, and moved to Cork. At her husband's death she moved to England where she met and married Algernon Holland, having at least one child named Honor. She supported Haile Selassie, a distant relative, when he was in exile in England during the Second World War. During this time Selassie bestowed her with the title of Princess Asfa Yilma. She wrote the biography Haile Selassie Emperor of Ethiopia (1936).

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