Page 52 - 2020 SoMJ Vol 73 No 2_Neat

Notes on the Death of Anna Marie Hlawaczek 43

Notes on the Death of Anna Marie Hlawaczek in Mulanje
District in 1893.

Mike Bamford

Anna Marie Hlawaczek, who was born in Vienna, died in Fort Anderson in
Mulanje District on 22nd September 1893 aged 44, while trying to walk from
Cape Town to Cairo. The registration of her death describes her rank or
profession as ‘Explorer’.

Introduction
Thomas Cullen Young (1880 – 1955), a Scottish Presbyterian anthropologist
and missionary, acquired two photos of Anna Marie walking in Mulanje which
were reproduced in the Nyasaland Society Journal. He wrote a letter from his
home in Scotland to the Journal Editor in March 1950, having read an article in
the Society of Nyasaland Journal about the country (then British Central Africa)
in the 1890s by the retired administrator Claude Ambrose Cardew:
“I see reference to Fort Anderson and the name immediately rang a bell in
memory. Where exactly was Fort Anderson? Is the site still known? Are
there any graves to be seen? Is there one in memory of a Czech lady Miss
Hlawacecq (sic)? For it was at Fort Anderson that there arrived one day in
1893 a European Lady trying to walk through Africa, and it was at Fort
Anderson that she died. There is more to the story than that: more too than
appeared in the Blantyre Mission Magazine after the burial service. But it
would be good to think that a brave lady’s grave is known and tended: one
who – as a photo snapshot in my possession shows – attempted penetration
of a continent with all her property in two open baskets. One too to whom
we owe what redress is open to us now for a wrong done to her – so long
ago”.
This ‘wrong’ was possibly that alluded to in the July 1953 Editorial of the
Nyasaland Journal which drew attention to the exploits of Anna Marie. This stated
that “the story is told that the Collector at Fort Anderson made ‘improper
suggestions’ to her”.
The following notes are aimed to try and answer some of Cullen Young’s
questions and add some context to the events surrounding Anna Marie’s death,
notably regarding:
a) Those who met her while she was in Mulanje District
b) Fort Anderson at that time
c) The circumstances of her death
d) Her place of burial