The Indomitable Duberly
If anyone could be considered the mascot to the allied troops throughout the campaign, it would have to be 'Mrs Jubilee' as British soldiers affectionately called her. This graceful attractive paymaster's wife, in her mid twenties a robust and accomplished horsewoman, was a familiar and popular figure around the camps, and never far from the front when major action occurred. She also kept a detailed journal, which together with her many letters to her sister Selina, allows us access to a personality rich in perception, worldly wisdom and humour. This wealth of material complements our knowledge of the campaign with detail and colour - rather too rich for some of those involved, when her journal was published as a book in the autumn of 1855 and she and many of those featured were still in the Crimea.
Frances Isabella Locke was born in 1829, far enough the youngest of eight children to guarantee her the status of family pet. Her father headed up the most prestigious bank in Wiltshire and the family if not noble, enjoyed the life style and status of landed gentry. An idyllic start to life did not long outlast her infancy, as both parents died before she was ten, whereupon her eldest brother Wadham sold the family estate and took the unmarried girls to live with him and his wife. Fanny was sent to boarding school in High Wycombe, where it seems she was thoroughly unhappy, but nonetheless acquired a good education, including classics and modern languages.
By this time most of her sisters were finding husbands, and it was at the wedding of Katherine to Major George Duberly that Fanny now sixteen, met his half brother Henry who was much taken by her. Eight years her senior, Henry was also in the army, a Lieutenant in the 32nd Foot. The Regiment was under orders for India, but Henry, maybe fearing for his health, had declined to go with them. He was studying accountancy and the profession of paymaster beckoned. There was no Pay Corps at the period and the day to day accounting and handling of the regimental funds or 'chest' was carried out by ex-regimental officers who had committed themselves to specialise in the position. There were significant advantages for less privileged officers; military rank with promotion guaranteed over a set time without purchase, to the rank of Colonel; also there was the opportunity to serve in fashionable regiments otherwise denied to them through lack of influence and patronage.
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