Adelaide Mary Donnet

A carte-de-visite portrait of Adelaide Mary Donnet, daughter of James Donnet, Inspector-General of Fleets and Hospitals. An inked inscription verso in a period hand gives the date, 1866.

Her father, later Sir James John Louis Donnet, was a British Royal Navy surgeon. His work on Yellow Fever was the foundation of modern medical practice in dealing with the disease. In 1870 he was appointed an honorary surgeon to Queen Victoria.

According to the 1881 census, Adelaide was born in Portugal in or about 1862. At the time of the census, she and her parents were living in Dover. In 1883 at Dover Adelaide married Colonel James Corballis. The couple had at least two sons.

Photographed by Moira and Haigh of Edinburgh.

From an album compiled by William Owen Lanyon (1842-1887), who served as Private Secretary to his uncle, Sir John Peter Grant, Governor of Jamaica. James Donnet was staff surgeon at the Port Royal Hospital in Jamaica between 1866 and 1867.