At the seaside
Drawing room at Enriqueta Rylands' house in Torquay (JRL - Uncatalogued)
The French Riviera grew in popularity when Queen Victoria became a frequent visitor. In 1872 Enriqueta Tennant went to Cannes with John and his second wife, who was ill. The town, on the south coast of France, was a popular health resort. After John’s death, Enriqueta returned to Cannes many times. She enjoyed the weather, the scenery and the social life.
Although Enriqueta travelled often, as an adult she never left Europe. She did not return to Cuba, where she was born. A friend she met in Cannes told her he wanted to visit South America, she replied “I felt sure the climate and heat of Buenos Aires would undo all the good he had received elsewhere”.
In 1904 Enriqueta was diagnosed with cancer. The following year she bought a house in Torquay, on the English Riviera. This was probably so she could be near her doctor Alfred Midgley Cash, a well known homeopathic physician. She stayed in Torquay when she was ill, and died there on 4 February 1908.
"I was in an earthly paradise"
Letter from J.W. Kiddle to Henry Guppy, 24 August 1904, JRL/4/1/1904/393.
Contemporary photograph of the drawing room in Fairholme, the Torquay house Enriqueta purchased in 1905.
Most of the books sent to Torquay in 1906 were novels or light reading, suitable for a convalescent. The topmost list shows novels by Arthur Conan Doyle and Jane Austen.
This advertisement was found between the pages of Enriqueta’s private account book. Finding this object led us to the discovery that her doctor in Torquay was a homeopathist.
Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland