Jessie Couvreur 'Tasma'

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Jessie Couvreau 'Tasma' (1848-1897)
Trailblazer

Novelist, lecturer and journalist

Refusal to Conform
A 'New Woman' who refused to conform, Jessie Couvreau was a novelist, lecturer and Times correspondent.  Writing under the pseudonym 'Tasma', a name she used to honour Tasmania where she spent her childhood, Jessie Couvreau wrote on issues such as politics, economics and social movements, as well as controversial issues such as divorce law reform, women's suffrage and the abuse of women.

An unusual education in Hobart
Born in London, England, in 1848, Jessie Couvreau (nee Huybers) grew up in Hobart.  She was educated by her Anglo-French mother in such subjects as European art and literature.  Her intellectually stimulating education left her with a liberalism about new philosophies and ideas emerging in European academic circles.

Divorce and financial independence in the 1880s!
At the age of 18 she married Charles Forbes Fraser, whom she then divorced in 1883, an almost unheard of move in those days.  By the time of her divorce she had been writing and lecturing in Europe for a number of years, and had been financially independent of her husband during this period.

Becomes Times Correspondent in Brussels
In 1885, she married August Couvreur, a journalist, who was the London Times correspondent in Brussels for two years until his death in 1894.  After his death Tasma believed she could take over his role as correspondent, an unprecedented role for a woman in that era.  She had written many articles for Australia's Australasian in Melbourne over a period of almost 20 years.  She had written on topics of cultural, social and economic importance.  Tasma did eventually get the position as Brussels correspondent, after much hard work.

The photo of Tasma, in loose Turkish dress without the restriction of stays, was taken in Constantinople (now Istanbul) and she loved it.  'It would be hard to have a more satisfactory portrait taken', she said.

A rare (for women) French academic award
She continued her work throughout the 1890s, receiving a constant stream of advice and comment, some of it quite disdainful towards women, from Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace, the Foreign Manager of the Times.  In 1895, Holland was added to Tasma's territory.  Tasma was also an esteemed lecturer on Australia, so much so that she was awarded l'Ordre des Palmes Academiques by the President of France, an award 'rarely given to foreigners and even more rarely to women'.  Uncle Piper of Piper's Hall, her first novel, was published in 1889, and received great acclaim.  Other novels and short stories followed this.

Tasma became ill at the end of 1896, and died on23 October 1897, in Brussels, aged not quite 47.  

Tasma, the Life of Jessie Couvreur, by Patricia Clarke, Allen and Unwin 1994
Colonial Connections with the London Times, Patricia Clark
Extract from Canberra Historical Journal, No 54, September 2004

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Image courtesy National Library of Australia

Themes: Gallery WHM 2005 - Racy Women

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