A Real-Life Love Story: William Thackeray’s Mother Anne Becher, and Lieutenant Henry Carmichael-Smyth

Inspired by discussions of A.R. Gurney's Love Letters, my Ph.D. supervisor reminded me about this real-life love story, complete with its own significant literary connection!

With all that is going on in the world this week, I hesitate to write at all. Not only is Israel grappling with a terrorist organization, but the war in Ukraine continues, and Afghanistan was hit by three earthquakes this week. I have students directly affected by many of these events, and it can definitely seem odd to have a sort of business-as-usual approach.

My Ph.D. supervisor is also dealing with some issues at the moment, hence my reaching out to her this weekend. Without missing a beat, though, she reminded me about the story of William Makepeace Thackeray’s mother, which A.R. Gurney’s Love Letters inspired her to consider.

The story goes something like this:

On October 13th, 1792, Anne Becher was born at Kilshenaghur, India, to John Harman Becher of the East India Company and his wife Harriet Cowper. Since we just passed the anniversary of her birthday, I guess that makes this vaguely topical.

Becher was sent to England shortly after her birth and raised there by her grandmother, also an Ann Beecher.

According to Anne Thackeray Ritchie, the writer my supervisor happens to work on, the Becher house, where Anne was raised, “stood in Fareham, High Street, with pretty old-fashioned airs and graces, and a high sloping roof and narrow porch. The low front windows looked across a flower garden into the village roadway, the back windows opened into a pleasant fruit garden sloping to the river....the little old house was as pleasant within as without: big blue China pots stood in the corners of the sitting rooms and of the carved staircase with its low steps. In the low-pitched front parlour hung the pictures (a Sir Joshua Reynolds among them) of earlier generations."

In 1808, when Anne was only 15 years old, she met Lieutenant Henry Carmichael-Smyth, who was twenty-eight. They met at the Assembly Ball in Bath, and they fell deeply in love.

When Anne’s grandmother found out about the relationship, she immediately sought to put a stop to it. For a while, the couple met in secret at the river terrance the bottom of the Becher garden. Henry arrived by boat.

After they were discovered, they resorted to letter writing, with the help of one of the household servants, only for Anne’s grandmother to inform her granddaughter that Henry died after a sudden fever.

Henry, for his part, was convinced that Anne had lost interest in him, and so he went back to his post.

Anne was eventually set back to India to join her mother. On her eighteenth birthday, she was married off to Richmond Thackeray, with whom she had only one child, the author William Makepeace Thackeray, born July 18th, 1811.

The romance between Anne and Henry would seem to be a lost cause - she thought he was dead and had married someone else. He was convinced that she had lost interest in him, and he had gone back to serving in the military.

However, in 1812, Richmond Thackeray recorded in his journal that he had just met a charming young officer and invited him for dinner. The officer was, of course, Henry Carmichael-Smyth.

Because they were apparently so surprised to see each other, it seems that they had to explain the situation. Anne allegedly explained the situation to her husband, and perhaps they also had to recount the story of their romance to the other dinner guests.

Divorce was virtually impossible in the early 19th century (and even later, actually), and it isn’t as though Anne could just turn around to her husband and say, sorry, I married you thinking he was dead, I want to start over. Nevertheless, Richard contracted a fever and died on October 13th, 1815 (also Anne’s birthday!).

Eighteen months later, Anne and Henry got married, on March 13th, 1817, in Cawnpore. They returned to England in 1820, and they were married for over 44 years.