This is the story of a child from a coastal town in Norfolk, who would go on to influence life around the world and who is just as famous today. Not Horatio Nelson, but rather Anna Sewell, the author of Black Beauty. She managed to not only influence the lives of people but also horses (and possibly many other animals as well) with the story, published only a few months before her death.

The “autobiographical” horse tale, whose full title was “Black Beauty: His Grooms and Companions, the Autobiography of a Horse”, was published by Norfolk’s own Jarrold & Sons in November of 1877 and gave a first ‘person’ account of the life of a young foal, through pulling cabs in London through to retirement and the acts of both kindness and cruelty that the title character endured along the way. Not only a tale of animal welfare, the book also illuminates how to treat people with kindness and respect and became an instant best-seller.

Anna wrote the book while living in The White House in Old Catton, on the outskirts of Norwich, where the family lived from 1867 and, although she would not live to see how popular the book became (one of the most successful of all time), it had already sold 91,000 copies by the time she died. Surprisingly she didn’t attend school until age 12; her passion for writing had been developed from a young age, when she would help edit her mother’s books of religious stories for children.

She was born in 1820 in a house on Church Plain, Great Yarmouth to Isaac and Mary, but after only a few months the family had to move to London, as her father’s shop had failed and the family fell on hard times. They would move many more times throughout Anna’s life.

The property in Market Place was turned into a tea rooms in the late 1980s – a description can be heard in an interview with Bruno Peek in 1985 in AUD 3/1/189.

From her mid-twenties Anna’s health began to deteriorate and the family spent a lot of effort in trying to find remedies for her various ailments. In 1838 her Mother wrote to her father stating “I have walked till my feet are blistered and talked till my tongue is tired” in an effort to find treatment:

Ironically, of her own mother’s health, Anna would later write to her brother that “dear father though very kind has not perception enough to be a good care taker of others”

In 1841 her cousin Lucy wrote to Anna of finding spiritual happiness in illness, but that “I have no business to suppose thou art thus dishonouring God”

Anna’s frailty was such that she could not walk far and would get around by horse & cart or by cab; this is where her love of horses came from and where she also witnessed the cruelty they suffered. So it was that she would later write her story, which was not aimed at children, but rather at highlighting the plight of horses and encouraging their improved treatment. According to the Sewell family, the idea for both Black Beauty and the setting of the tale, Birtwick Park, are based on Dudwick Hall, Buxton, where Anna and her brother had spent some time when they were young, with her Uncle Wright.

It was a twist of fate for her brother, however, that brought the family back to Norfolk. Sarah, the wife of Philip Sewell (Anna’s brother) died suddenly in 1866 and Mary decided the family should come to live in Norwich to be near him, which they did in 1867, and help take care of his children. This latter was a role that was to fall to Anna, and one she seemed to enjoy. It didn’t last long, however, as Philip remarried in 1870, to Charlotte Jane Sole, so Anna’s role as companion to her brother and support to his children came to an end.

By this time many of the relatives from her youth had since passed away and Anna would take to her room when visitors would arrive to talk to her mother of those they had lost. She spent her final years in a lot of pain and it was during this time, while sitting in her room, she put pen to paper and Black Beauty was given to the world at the end of it.

The horse that Black Beauty was actually based on (a black mare named Bessie) belonged to her brother and was stabled in the barn at his house. That barn is now the Sewell Barn Theatre, in the grounds of Blyth Jex School.

The illness that finally took Anne, she died on 25^th April 1878, was not fully understood at the time. The pain she had been suffering, on and off, for over seven years was not properly diagnosed and it is supposed she died of either hepatitis or tuberculosis (neither of which are preceded by her earlier symptoms). She is buried at Quaker Burial Ground at Lamas, Norfolk along with both her parents.

Although Anna never married or had children of her own, her book continues to bring joy to children everywhere (despite being an ultimately sad tale), having been translated into 50 languages and the subject of several film and television adaptations. While Anna was not the first, nor the last, campaigner in the field, Black Beauty played a big part in bringing about improvements in equine welfare and has been of untold benefit to horses worldwide.

Researched and written by Tim Ward, NRO Research Blogger