Traveller, Collector and Writer. Annie Brassey was the only child of John Allnutt a wealthy London wine merchant and jockey. In 1860 she married Thomas Brassey junior, son of Thomas Brassey, the famous Victorian railway contractor. Annie and Tom Brassey travelled around the world on their steam yacht the Sunbeam. Annie wrote about their adventures and collected artefacts and natural history specimens everywhere they went. The things Annie collected were displayed at the family home, Normanhurst Court, in Catsfield and at the Lady Brassey Museum in London.
Parts of Annie’s collection are now at Hastings Museum and here at Bexhill Museum. Annie Brassey wrote eight books, seven of which were about the family’s ocean-going journeys and one on the aims and objectives of the St. John’s Ambulance Association, an organisation she did much to promote. She helped organise the Bexhill and Battle branches of the St. John’s Ambulance and exhibited her suggestion for a first aid ‘hamper’. In 1883 Annie Brassey visited Col. Henry Lane at his house in Bexhill to presented certificates to those who passed an exam in first aid.