Eliza Anne "Annarella" Warington

Late in life she recounted how, aged 11 (in about 1799), she had sat upon the knee of "the ugly little admiral" Nelson, and upon arriving home her mother had washed her hair for "it had been touched by that adulterer". In 1804, when she was 16, her likeness was drawn by Giuseppe Cammarano; the portrait is now held by a grandson's grandson's daughter who is named Annarella after her.

Annarella had sung before the Court of Naples and was an accomplished artist and painter, though she never exhibited. Some of her illustrations were incorporated into her husband's published books.[1][2] An oil painting of her and her husband was destroyed in the London Blitz, but copies survive.[3]

On 7 October 1815 in Messina she married William Henry Smyth, and by him had eleven children - three sons, each of whom are notable; and eight daughters, the first two of whom died in infancy, the third and fifth died aged 21, the seventh died aged 25, and the other three married notable spouses:

• Elizabeth Smyth, July 1816 - 1820, died aged 4
• Sir Warington Wilkinson Smyth, 26 Aug 1817 - 19 June 1890, geologist, whose son, Sir Nevill Maskelyne Smyth, was awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery during the Battle of Omdurman.
• Charles Piazzi Smyth, 3 Jan 1819 - 21 Feb 1900, was Astronomer Royal for Scotland from 1846 to 1888.
• Elizabeth Anne Smyth, Dec 1819 - 1821, died aged 2
• Jane Phoebe Smyth, June 1821 - 1842, died aged 21
• Henrietta Grace Smyth, 3 Sept 1824 - 13 Oct 1914, who married Baden Powell, who held the Savilian Chair of Geometry at the University of Oxford from 1827 to 1860, and was mother of nine, including Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell
• General Sir Henry Augustus Smyth, 25 Nov 1825 - 18 Sept 1906, senior British Army officer.
• Josephine B Smyth, Nov 1826 - 1847, died aged 21
• Ellen Philadelphia Smyth 17 March 1828 - 1881, who married Captain Henry Toynbee of the Honourable East India Company.
• Caroline Mary Smyth, Feb 1834 - 25 Sept 1859, died aged 25
• Georgiana Rosetta Smyth, 19 Feb 1835 - 7 Jan 1923, who married Sir William Henry Flower, an English surgeon, museum curator and comparative anatomist, and had seven children, including Stanley Smyth Flower.

In 1886, she was described in her husband's obituary as "a lady of great ability and rare accomplishments, who through all his scientific labours of every description was his devoted companion and assistant."[4]

Annarella died on 9 January 1873 aged 84 at 25 Inverness Road, Paddington, and is buried with her husband at Stone, Buckinghamshire.