Ann Haysham Becher: The Fareham Grandmother Behind Vanity Fair

Ann Haysham Becher (1737–1825) was born in Gosport and married Royal Navy officer Commander John Becher in 1761. Together they had seven children, several of whom entered the Navy, the Church or the East India Company. After John's death in 1783, Ann eventually became closely associated with Fareham, where she lived for many years and where she was buried.

Her most remarkable connection comes through her granddaughter, Anne Becher. Anne's father, John Harman Becher, had served with the East India Company and died in Calcutta in 1800. The young Anne was subsequently brought to England and spent part of her childhood under her grandmother's care in Fareham. Family accounts portray Ann Haysham Becher as a formidable and determined guardian. When the teenage Anne fell in love with the young army officer Henry Carmichael-Smyth, her grandmother strongly opposed the match and eventually sent her granddaughter back to India. Some of the more dramatic details of this family story come from later recollections and should therefore be treated cautiously.

In India, Anne married Richmond Thackeray in 1810. The following year they had a son: William Makepeace Thackeray, who became one of the great Victorian novelists and wrote Vanity Fair. This means that the woman buried in St Peter & St Paul’s churchyard was Thackeray’s great-grandmother and played a direct part in the extraordinary family story that preceded his birth.

It is another unexpected connection hidden in our churchyard: Fareham, the Royal Navy, British India and one of Victorian England’s greatest writers, all linked through one family grave.