ABSTRACT
Louisa Twining was a philanthropist, specialising in workhouse visiting and reform. She was the youngest of nine children of tea merchant Richard Twining and his wife Elizabeth Mary, and grew up in London in the Strand area. Her enjoyment of life in London is celebrated in these recollections, which frequently stress the unexpectedly healthy living conditions in which she and her siblings were brought up. This perhaps accentuated her sensitivity to workhouse life when in 1853 she visited a former nurse in the Strand union workhouse and was so appalled by the squalid conditions that she began campaigning for the right to make regular visits and offer support and comfort to the inmates. The source text used is the original printed edition of 1893, published by Edward Arnold. Like many of the other autobiographies reproduced in this collection it has been recently republished in a number of paperback rare books editions, such as Lightning Source, General Books and BiblioBazaar.
