Anna’s family pressed older wealthy suitors upon her, but she had made up her own mind. She eloped with Algernon Kingsford, a theology student, in late 1867. Algernon acquiesced to her condition of marriage that she be free to pursue her own career. Algernon was born in the Millbank Penitentiary in 1845 where Godfrey his father was assistant chaplain. Godfrey became chaplain at Gibralter where Algernon’s mother died in 1846. Godfrey remarried and had a daughter called Catherine. Tragically, ‘in a fit of delirium from a fever [Godfrey] cut his throat ’ in 1850. Anna was distantly related to Algernon by marriage. Her brother Henry married Emily Kingsford, a cousin of Algernon’s father.
Anna and Algernon married on the last day of 1867 in the St Mary Magdalen Church, St Leonards. By coincidence, Annie Besant, later a leader of Theosophy, married a clergyman in the same church ten days previously. Anna and Algernon honeymooned at Brighton. Algernon studied for the church at Lichfield, and in September 1868 Eadith, Anna’s only child, was born at St Leonard’s. Anna kept herself busy with writing short stories mainly on religious themes, six chapters of a novel, and a significant long pamphlet on women’s suffrage. Algernon became a curate in Shropshire, first at Atcham, then at Pontesbury. Later he was vicar at Atcham.
In 1873 Anna became friends with Florence Fenwick Miller, a midwife and later a journalist. In her unpublished autobiography, Florence reveals fascinating new information about Anna. Anna told her friend that she joined the Catholic Church in 1870 to avoid the duties of a clergyman’s wife. But at the same time, Anna was writing sermons for her husband! She was a woman who followed her own course, no matter what others said.
Algernon Kingsford, aged about 55