On the very day that I received the letter in the mail from Victor Price, regarding the speech on Mabel Annesley which he hoped I would make, we had a visit from my husband's English cousin and his family. Of course, since I had never delivered a speech of any kind I was in a fair state of anxiety. Hoping to garner some sympathy from cousin John, I began to tell him about what I feared might be expected of me.

John kindly reassured me, saying: "Diane, recent research has shown that of all things that people fear the most, the fear of public speaking is the greatest. The fear of death runs a distant second." Cousin John aside, I must tell you that I am deeply honoured to have the opportunity today to speak a little about Mabel Annesley. Before I address my biographical subject, I thought I would give some explanation of how I, a middle-aged colonial, could resume to have e biography of your

From about 1977 to 1997 I worked as a freelance writer and editor of a Canadian journal of the printings arts and artists (a sample of which I have together with Mabel's autobiography and various samples of her work). That journal held, for me, a particular interest because of its articles on wood engraving and book illustration. My work had mostly concerned Canadian artists, so I felt myself taking a big step when I wrote an article on the Ulster sculptress and book illustrator, Sophie Rosamund Praeger. Since that venture into the Ulster field of art was well received I began to respond to internal promptings which urged me to learn more about Irish art and to write another article or indeed a book on an Irish subject.

In 1998, a year after the article on Praeger was published I found myself addressing Brian Walker of Queen's Institute of Irish Studies. I told him after perusing a variety of secondary sources, that it appeared that Mabel Annesley seemed a perfect subject for me because of my strong interest in book illustration and printmaking. Oddly enough, her dates, 1881-1959, almost exactly matched the dates of my own Fermanagh-born grandfather. My delight was great when I learned from Dr, Walker that they would be very interested in a book on Mabel Annesley. I also learned that the Annesley family archive was housed at McMaster University, in Hamilton, Canada (my husband's home town). I had a joyous sense that my research was meant to be: McMaster University is only about an hour's drive from my home in Stratford, Canada.

And so, upon returning home in the fall of 1998, I began consulting the Annesley archive, finding that an interesting and important adjunct to my biography was the fact that Mabel's sister, Constance Malleson, was and is still considered the great love of Bertrand Russell's life. Luckily for me, the Lady Constance was herself a writer and editor and she had edited an absorbing autobiography, As the Sight is Bent, by her sister, Mabel, which was published by the Museum Press in London a few years after Mabel's death. After many hours spent examining the Annesley archive at McMaster University, and of reading and re-reading Mabel's autobiography, As the Sight Is Bent, I was privileged to discover that Mabel's grand-daughter, Margaret Ogilvie, herself an art school graduate, was very enthusiastic about having a biography published about her grandmother. Both Margaret and I agreed that the fact that Mabel's sister, Constance, had been devoted to Bertrand Russell throughout much of her life , gave an extra interest to the story of the Annesley family. Both Mabel and Constance were friends of Margaret Pilkington, one time director of the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester. At the Whitworth, I discovered a new archival source, with letters and engravings which expanded upon the original source of material at McMaster University. From Manchester I was taken back to Belfast, to find that the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland had letters and photographs documenting Mabel, her father, Hugh, and her husband, Gerald Sowerby. From Belfast I was guided to the Suffolk town of Lavenham, where Phyllis Urch, a good friend of Mabel, and an intimate of Constance, filled in some of the missing pieces in the puzzle of Mabel Annesley's life. Near Lavenham, in the tiny town of Long Melford, I saw Mabel's final home - a cottage called End Cottage - very close to where Mabel is buried.

As a friend of William Conor, Mabel Annesley had had a studio in Belfast on University Road very close to Conor's studio, and the two of them collaborated in 1932 on the design of costumes for a pageant to commemorate the 1500th anniversary of St. Patrick's landing in Ireland. (As an aside for those of you interested in anniversaries, I must draw attention to the fact that next year will be the 50th anniversary of Mabel Annesley's death.) The biography that I have written on Mabel has been greatly enhanced by the illustrations gathered from various sources, including the collections of Patricia Saunders (sister of Margaret Ogilvie and granddaughter of Mabel) and the very generous Noel Annesley, former director of Christie's Fine Art, London and cousin to the Northern Irish Annesleys. Also of great value were the many museums housing Mabel's work, as far away as New Zealand and as close to home as the Ulster Museum in Belfast.

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