Two Dianas in Somaliland ‪-‬

Agnes Elsie Diana Herbert was a writer and big game hunter.



The daughter of James Bateman Thorpe, she was born Agnes Elsie Diana Thorpe on the Isle of Man and grew up there. She was privately tutored. With a cousin, she visited the Canadian Rockies, where the two women taught Chinese kitchen workers in mining camps how to cook English-style food; they also tried hunting. In 1906, the two cousins left on a hunting trip to Somaliland. She had one daughter, the novelist Bradda Field.



She first married a Mr. Herbert and became a widow some time later. In 1913, she married Archibald Thomas Stewart, a commander in the Royal Navy.



Herbert was a member of the Society of Women Journalists, also serving as its vice-chair and later vice-president. She was editor of the Writers' & Artists' Yearbook from 1922 to 1929. In 1931, Herbert was named an officer of the Order of the British Empire.