ALISON SHAN PRICE. A PILGRIMAGE TO NEJD: Lady Anne Blunt (1823-1917)

ALISON SHAN PRICE MBE  

Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society FRGS

Alison is the creator of The Middle East & Victoria’s Women’, a series of presentations, workshops and performances built on archival evidence and detailing the evolving worldview of women travellers through the Near/Middle East. From Imperial Ottoman hegemony, through World Wars, British Mandates and Protectorates, to Arabic Self determination,  their collective archives present a unique insight into proactive cross cultural exchange and innovation. This lecture is the 8th in the series. 

Founder and director of the polycultural One World Actors Centre, Alison works between UK and Kuwait producing and directing shows in English and Arabic,, inclusive of acclaimed bilingual productions.

In 2017, Alison was awarded the MBE by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth 11 for Services to Dramatic Arts in Kuwait and the Middle East, and in 2020 Alison was made a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. 

A PILGRIMAGE TO NEJD: Lady Anne Blunt (1823-1917)

The daughter of the first computer programmer (Lady) Ada Lovelace, granddaughter of Lord Byron and mentor of Gertrude Bell CBE, Lady Anne Blunt travelled Arabia with her husband Wilfred, in the nineteenth century, in the search of the perfect horse. Dressed in male Arab attire and carrying a rifle, her journeys of the Arabian Peninsula took her to the House of Saud and the House of Rashid, the Euphrates to live with its tribes and to London to argue with the Royal Geographical Society about non-existent places on their maps. The founder of the Crabbet Stud in the UK, and the Sheykh Obeyd Stud in Cairo, Lady Anne chose to make Egypt her final home.