Viscountess Emily Anne Eliza Strangford

“I have looked upon nothing with such satisfaction as upon the six hospitals which I have built. Where there were most afflicted by the insurrection, old men, children, and mothers, nothing that was strange, because of typhus and dysentery. Sofia, one of my sisters, was only 18 years old – she died here, in the village of Radilovo, again from typhus, but before she died, she fed the hungry and treated the sick.” ~Lady Emily Strangford

Emily Ann Beaufort was born in 1826 as the youngest child in the family of the renowned geographer and oceanographer Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort, of French origin. The intellectual atmosphere of the Beaufort household actively encouraged her interests in travel, the natural sciences, and writing. From an early age, Emily accompanied her father on extensive journeys, which profoundly shaped her scientific curiosity and cosmopolitan outlook. Between 1843 and 1845, during travels along the coasts of the Orkney Islands in northern Scotland and Ireland, she collected marine algae and systematically preserved them in a two-volume herbarium.

Around the same time, Emily Ann Beaufort, now known as Lady Emily Strangford appeared in Bulgaria as the widow of the noble friend of the Bulgarian people and former president of the Royal Asiatic Society, Lord Strangford. As early as the beginning of the summer of 1876, Lady Strangford issued and circulated in England an appeal for the collection of relief funds for the victims of the April Uprising. Within the first weeks of the campaign alone, £29,000 were raised, a sum that continued to increase thereafter. The death of Lord Stranford in 1869 was a turning point in her life. The widow devoted herself to philanthropy and to voluntary work. After her curiosity for the exotic worlds, which was further developed under the influence of her husband into a stable interest and devotion, she changed her life and dedicated her efforts to help solve the issues of poverty, sufferings and social injustice.

On 15 August 1876, Viscountess Emily Anne Eliza Strangford publicly announced the establishment of the Bulgarian Peasant Relief Fund. Addressing the British public, she appealed for a total of £10,000 to assist Bulgarians left homeless and destitute in the aftermath of violence and devastation. At the same time, she volunteered her personal services, committing herself not merely as a donor but as an active organizer of relief on the ground. Upon her arrival in Bulgaria, Lady Strangford continued the work of the first hospital founded by the American missionary James Clarke, and soon expanded these efforts substantially. She organized and financed the construction of five additional hospitals in Karlovo, Panagyurishte, Perushtitsa, Petrich, and Radilovo. From Plovdiv, where she was primarily based, she personally supervised the organization, staffing, and operation of these institutions, either directly or through trusted collaborators. The Ottoman authorities permitted her voluntary activities and assigned a police officer in Plovdiv both to accompany her as a bodyguard and to monitor her work.  Convinced of the transformative role of education, Lady Strangford deliberately located her shelter for homeless families in Plovdiv near a school, ensuring that children could attend classes regularly. Her vision of relief thus extended beyond immediate survival toward long-term social recovery. Drawing on reports by James Clarke, she structured her humanitarian activities across six rural districts identified as being in particularly deplorable condition. Material assistance was distributed on an unprecedented scale: clothing, bedding, cooking utensils, medicines, and other necessities reached tens of thousands of people. In addition, one hundred wooden huts were provided to homeless families. The total value of distributed aid reached £24,874, a sum remarkable both for its scale and for the speed with which it was deployed. From the very beginning of her stay, Lady Strangford provided extensive clothing assistance, including over 12,000 women’s traditional garments (sukmani), 10,000 pairs of men’s trousers (poturi), an equal number of men’s cloaks and coats, more than 5,000 rain cloaks (yamurluks), and nearly 1,500 blankets. In total, clothing was supplied to more than 20,000 individuals. Beyond emergency relief, she also funded the construction of dwellings, a mill, 110 distillation cauldrons for rose-oil production in Klisura and surrounding villages, five sawmills in the Rhodope Mountains, and large quantities of essential foodstuffs.

A public dining hall in Koprivshtitsa was likewise established, reinforcing local networks of support. Until that time, Bulgarian society under Ottoman rule had not witnessed a charitable initiative of comparable scope carried out within so brief a period. Lady Strangford’s philanthropy was distinctly personal and participatory. She worked in close contact with the local population, assisted by several young Bulgarian men who served as collaborators and translators. She entrusted reliable local figures with the direct management of relief activities. Nevertheless, the establishment of new institutions was not without difficulties. As a British woman operating independently, she was sometimes suspected of being a Protestant missionary or a foreign spy. In Karlovo, rumors circulated that the newly founded hospital might be a psychiatric institution or even a brothel, reflecting the climate of suspicion and uncertainty that accompanied her efforts. Several months after the establishment of these hospitals, Pastor Ivan Tondjorov founded another hospital in Plovdiv, which functioned for many years. During its early period, this institution provided medical care and refuge to members of Bulgarian revolutionary committees. Remarkably, the hospital continued to operate even after Tondjorov himself was arrested and imprisoned as a revolutionary in Yedi Kule in Thessaloniki, while other Bulgarian evangelicals were exiled to Diyarbakir for similar activities.

Before departing Bulgaria, Lady Strangford expressed her intention that the hospital buildings she had founded be converted into schools, thereby ensuring their continued service to Bulgarian society. She also facilitated the education of several young Bulgarian men who had worked with her, sending them to pursue studies at British universities. After her return to Great Britain, Lady Strangford remained energetically engaged in philanthropic and educational initiatives. She organized the Female Emigrant Society in Dorset Street, contributed to the establishment of a Medical School in Beirut, founded a geographical award in memory of her husband at Harrow School, and supported the creation of another hospital in Cairo, Egypt. When Emily Strangford died in 1887, she left behind extensive documentation, correspondence, and scholarly materials. In accordance with her will, she bequeathed a copy of a highly valuable Bible and her herbarium to her Bulgarian collaborator Valko Shopov, a gesture symbolizing the enduring personal and intellectual bonds she had formed during her humanitarian mission in Bulgaria.

Dony K. Donev, D.Min., is a prominent researcher and author specializing in Bulgarian Protestant, Evangelical, and Pentecostal history, with over three decades of study. His work, including 19th Century History of Protestantism in Bulgaria and The Unforgotten: Historical and Theological Roots of Pentecostalism in Bulgaria, documents the development of these movements, their suppression under Communism, and the subsequent post-1989 revival. Key aspects of Donev’s research on Bulgarian Protestant history include:
Origins (19th Century): Protestant work began in the 1800s, with denominations like Congregationalists (1856), Methodists (1857), and Baptists (1865) establishing missions, culminating in the first Bulgarian Protestant Church in 1871. Donev also highlights the 1871 publication of the Protestant Bulgarian Bible translation. His research, often in collaboration with the Institute of Bulgarian Protestant History, has focused on preserving, digitizing, and recovering documents, including church diaries, photographs, and, in some cases, saving records from destruction during the communist era.