ABSTRACT
Helen Caddick was born in West Bromwich to a land-owning family from Hereford. She travelled widely and became a Governor of the University of Birmingham. Her travel diaries for the years between 1889 and 1914 describe her trips to, and meetings with people from, many countries, including Palestine, Egypt, Japan, China, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, India and Mexico. Caddick regrets the replacement of musical and significant local place names with British ones that 'have no meaning out there'. She feels for the porters, many of whose loads were heavy and awkward to carry. She has an eye for local hairstyles. The sympathy is also undercut by what seems like a racist jibe about the thickness of her porters' skulls. She wonders pointedly how much of the general mission activity 'is for ourselves and how much is honestly and solely for the good of the natives'.
