9 OF 30 
Ann Eliza Plowden (née Bryan)
9 of 30 portraits by Mayer & Pierson
© National Portrait Gallery, London
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Ann Eliza Plowden (née Bryan)
by Mayer & Pierson
albumen carte-de-visite, 1860s
3 1/2 in. x 2 1/4 in. (88 mm x 56 mm) image size
Purchased, 1976
Photographs Collection
NPG Ax46371
Sitterback to top
- Ann Eliza Plowden (née Bryan) (circa 1812-1897), Wife of Charles Plowden. Sitter in 1 portrait.
Artistback to top
- Mayer & Pierson (active 1850s-1860s), Photographers. Artist or producer associated with 30 portraits.
Placesback to top
- Place made: France (photographers' studio, 3 Boulevard des Capucines, Paris, France)
Events of 1860back to top
Current affairs
An early feminist movement, The Society for Promoting the Employment of Women is founded by Adelaide Anne Proctor, Emily Faithfull, Helen Blackburn, Bessie Parks, Emily Davies, Barbara Bodichon, and Jessie Boucherett.The Florence Nightingale Training School for Nurses opens at St Thomas's Hospital, in London, funded from the testimonial fund collected for Nightingale following her war services, and helping to establish nursing as a profession.
Art and science
William Morris and new wife Jane Burden move into the Red House, near Bexleyheath, Kent. The house, designed by Philip Webb, represents Morris's principle in interior design, that no object should be in a house that is not beautiful.Ford Madox Brown paints The Last of England, showing a boat of emigrants leaving England under desperate circumstances, inspired by the emigration of the Pre-Raphaelite Thomas Woolner to Australia in 1852.
International
Italian unification continues as the Treaty of Turin brings much of Northern Italy under nationalist leader Cavour's control, who cedes Savoy and Nice to France. Garibaldi siezes the opportunity to invade Marsala in Sicily with his army of 1,000 redshirts, proclaiming himself dictator in the name of Victor Emmanuel II.Republican Abraham Lincoln becomes President of the US, with only 39% of the popular vote.
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Claire Céclair
23 June 2020, 23:54
There is a mention of Ann Eliza Bryan's wedding with Charles Plowden Esq. in "The Patrician", Volume IV, p 188
Lavinia Edwards, a.k.a "Miss Walstein", the transgender prostitute, was about 24 years old when she died of tuberculosis in 1833. It was during the inquiry that a witness said that she went by the name "Miss Walstein" and there's been confusion ever since !
Eliza Walstein, the actress mostly known as "Miss Walstein", begun her carrier around 1800 and was active up to 1820, when she seems to have vanished out of thin air. At that time she would have been about 35 years old and she would have been about 45 years in 1833.
Surely the medical doctor who examined Lavinia Edwards in 1833 would have noticed a difference between a 24 yo and 44 year old male !
I'd love to know where I could get infos on Eliza's affair with Bryan and how it ended up and on which year Bryan recognized his daughter. My educated guess would be around 1820, the year Eliza Walstein ended her career...
BRIAN BOUCHARD
18 September 2017, 22:00
There is a flaw in the preceding hypothesis. Whilst Bryan and 'Miss Walstein' are alleged to have been in a relationship, the 'actress' was in fact male. Report of inquest on Eliza Edwards, 1833, Annual Register, Volume 75
edited by Edmund Burke
Francis Plowden
16 August 2016, 16:49
This is Ann Eliza Plowden nee Bryan ( b. Ireland c1812, d. London 1897). She was the illegitimate daughter of Captain George Bryan MP( 1770 - 1843) and, probably, Miss Eliza Walstein, an actress who had a successful career on the Irish stage from about 1800 to the 1820's. Miss Walstein was well known to have been Bryan's mistress and was set up by him in a house in Dublin with her own carriage and servants.
Eliza Bryan met Charles Plowden in Florence in 1846 and married him in London in 1847 . She lived with him there and in Rome until after his death, when she came to live in London.
Claire Céclair
27 June 2020, 09:38
It's seems my educated guess was wrong. Anne Eliza Plowden was allowed to bear the "Bryan" on june 18 1844. there's a mention of this decision in the London Gazette N°20355, published on Friday, June 21 1944, P 2132, accessible in Google books :
"Whitehall, June 18, 1844.
The Queen has been pleased to grant unto Anne-Eliza Bryan, formerly Anne-Eliza George, of Gloucester-place, New-road, in the county of Middlesex, spinster, the reputed daughter of George Bryan, late of Jenkinstown, in the county of Kilkenny, Esq. Captain, on half-pay, in the 1st or Grenadier Regiment of Foot Guards, deceased, Her royal licence and authority, that she may henceforth continue to use the surname of Bryan only :
And also to command, that the said royal concession and declaration be registered in Her Majesty's College of Arms, otherwise to be void and of none effect."