'Our English visitors' : some British women in Malta during the nineteenth century

Abstract

Recent historiography has challenged an exclusively male reading of empire. In Malta, however, the presence of British women has been generally limited to the philanthropic activities of the wives or widows of visiting dignitaries. While acknowledging the presence of these woman, the present writing concentrates upon the 'others', whether these were the middle class women born of British parents who engaged in a variety of activities, or the anonymous ones for whom the islands were a land of opportunity, or of despair. The elaboration of the subject is carried out in the awareness of the then-current realities which juxtaposed English, colonial mentalities against local, Italianate ones.