Mother Eleanor Van de Weyer | Name Sylvia Brett | |
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Born 25 February 1885No. 1, Tilney Street, Park Lane, Central London ( 1885-02-25 ) Died November 11, 1971, Sandy Lane, Saint James Parish, Barbados Parents Reginald Brett, 2nd Viscount Esher Children Leonora Margaret Brooke, Nancy Valerie Brooke Grandparents William Brett, 1st Viscount Esher Similar People Charles Vyner Brooke, Reginald Brett - 2nd Viscount, Charles Brooke - Rajah of, William Brett - 1st Viscount | ||
Sylvia Leonora, Lady Brooke, Ranee of Sarawak, born The Hon. Sylvia Leonora Brett, (25 February 1885 – 11 November 1971), was an English aristocrat who became the consort to Sir Charles Vyner de Windt Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak, the last of the White Rajahs.
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Early life
Sylvia was born at No. 1, Tilney Street, Park Lane, Central London, the second daughter of Reginald Baliol Brett, the 2nd Viscount Esher, KCB. Her mother Eleanor was the third daughter of the Belgian politician and revolutionary Sylvain Van de Weyer and his wife Elizabeth, who was the only child of the great financier Joshua Bates of Barings Bank. Sylvia grew up at the family home, Orchard Lea, at Cranbourne in Winkfield parish in Berkshire. Her paternal grandmother Eugenie Meyer was French, born in Lyons.
Sylvia's early life was somewhat troubled; by the age of 12 she had made two attempts at suicide, the first by eating rotten sardines, and the second by lying naked in the snow.
Ranee of Sarawak
She married His Highness Rajah Vyner of Sarawak at St Peter's Church, Cranbourne, Berkshire, just before her 26th birthday on 21 February 1911. They first met in 1909 when she joined an all-female choral orchestra, established by Vyner's mother. She first visited Sarawak in 1912, where her husband (from 1917) ruled a 40,000-square-mile (100,000 km2) jungle kingdom on the northern side of Borneo with a population of 500,000, an ethnic mix of Chinese, Malays, and the headhunting Dayak. Sylvia was invested with the titles of Ranee of Sarawak on 24 May 1917 and Grand Master of The Most Illustrious Order of the Star of Sarawak on 1 August 1941. Rajah Vyner died in 1963.
Sylvia was distraught that her daughter, Leonora, under Islamic law, could not take the throne; as a result she hatched various plots to blacken the name of the heir apparent, Anthony, the Rajah Muda.
Richard Halliburton, the celebrated adventurer, met her as he circumnavigated the globe in 1932 with his pilot, Moye Stephens. She became the first woman in Sarawak to fly when the pair gave her a flight in their biplane, the Flying Carpet. Halliburton narrates an account of the visit in his book of the same name.
She was described by her brother as "a female Iago", and by the Colonial Office as "a dangerous woman, full of Machiavellian schemes to alter the succession, and spectacularly vulgar in her behaviour". She died in Tuffett Cottage, Sandy Lane, St James, Barbados.
She was the author of eleven books, including "Sylvia of Sarawak" and "Queen of the Head-Hunters" (1970). Fort Sylvia in Kapit is named in her honour. She also contributed short stories to publications such as John O'London's Weekly, for example "The Debt Collector", in the Summer Reading Number June 29, 1929.
Children
She was survived by three daughters:
Sister
Sylvia's elder sister Dorothy Brett, known as Brett (1883–1977), went to the Slade School of Art in 1910 and became friends with painters Dora Carrington (1893-1932)) and Mark Gertler (1891–1939), and then with salon hostess Lady Ottoline Morrell (1873–1938) and the Bloomsbury group, living for a while at Garsington Manor. In 1924 she went to live on a mountain ranch near Taos, New Mexico, with D.H. Lawrence and his wife Frieda, partially fulfilling Lawrence's dream of establishing an artists' colony.