Alice Werner

Miss Alice Werner CBE
File:Werner, Alice.jpg
Born	1859
Died	1935
Residence	School of Oriental Studies, Finsbury Circus [and] 4 Guesens Court, Welwyn Garden City, Herts [1929] 74 Parkway, Welwyn Garden City, Herts [1931]
Occupation	academic
Society Membership membership ordinary fellow left 1935 deceased elected_AI 1924.06.24

Notes

House Notes

1924.05.20 proposed by J.L. Myres, seconded by M.E. Durham, E. Torday, E.N. Fallaize, R.R. Marett
1924.06.24 On the motion of the Chairman, seconded by the Secretary, it was resolved that Miss Werner be excused the payment of the annual subscription.

Professor of Swahili
death noted in Report of the Council 1934-1935

Notes From Elsewhere

Alice Werner (26 June 1859 - 9 June 1935) was one of seven children in the family of Reinhardt Joseph Werner of Mainz, teacher of languages, and his wife, Harriett. Werner was a writer, poet and teacher of the Bantu language.[1

Werner's father travelled extensively during the first fifteen years of her life, and she lived in New Zealand, Mexico, United States and throughout Europe, until the family settled in Tonbridge, England, in 1874.

After visiting Nyasaland in 1893 and Natal in 1894, her writings were focused on African themes.

In 1917 she joined the School of Oriental Studies, moving up from lecturer to reader to professor of Swahili and Bantu languages, and retiring in 1929-1930. She was awarded a D.Litt. in 1928 from London University as a result of her specialised teaching and research. Following her retirement, she received the title of Emeritus Professor from the same University. In 1931 she was awarded the Silver Medal of the African Society, of which she was Vice-President.[1]

Although not known as a major poet her poem "Bannerman of Dandenong" has appeared in a number of important Australian poetry anthologies.[1]

She lived for a time with Lillias Campbell Davidson, American founder of the British Lady Cyclists' Association, and Ménie Muriel Dowie, a British writer of the New Woman school. According to the New York Times:

The writer Ethel F. Heddle novelized their experience in her 1896 book, “Three Girls in a Flat,” in which she described the ambivalent experience when the freedom of living alone collides with “the sordid, matter-of-fact worries incident on having very little money.”[2

Publications

External Publications

A Time and Times (poems) (1886)
O'Driscoll's Weird (1892)
The Humour of Italy (1892)
The Humour of Holland (1893)
The Captain of the Locusts (1899)
Chapinga's While Man (1901)
Native Races of British Central Africa (1906)
"Introduction" to Jamaican Song and Story: Annancy Stories, Digging Sings, Ring Tunes, and Dancing Tunes, ed. Walter Jekyll (1906)
The Language Families of Africa (1915)
A Swahili History of Pate (1915)
Introductory Sketch of the Bantu Languages (1919)
The Swahili Saga of Liongo Fumo (1926)
A First Swahili Book (1927; written with M. H. Werner)
Swahili Tales (1929)
Structure and Relationship of African Languages (1930)
The Story of Miqdad and Mayasa (1932)
Myths and Legends of the Bantu (1933)

House Publications

The Bantu Coast Tribes of the East Africa Protectorate; JRAI Vol. 45 (Jul. - Dec., 1915), pp. 326-354

Related Material Details

RAI Material

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