Ella Sykes

Ella Sykes or Ella Constance Sykes (11 November 1863 – 23 March 1939) was a traveller and writer from the United Kingdom. Life Sykes was born in Stoke near Plymouth in 1863. Her parents were Army chaplain Rev. William Sykes (born 1829) and his wife Mary, daughter of Captain Anthony Oliver Molesworth, of the Royal Artillery, descended from Robert Molesworth, 1st Viscount Molesworth. Her father was honorary chaplain to Queen Victoria. Her sister Ethel Sykes was also a writer, and their only brother Percy Sykes became a brigadier, diplomat and writer. Her father William was the second son of Richard Sykes, of Edgeley House, Stockport, owner of the Sykes Bleaching Company; Percy Sykes was thus the nephew of Richard Sykes, the rugby player who founded towns in America, and cousin of Sir Alan Sykes, 1st Baronet who was MP for Knutsford, Cheshire. She was educated at Plymouth High School and then the boarding school Royal School for Daughters of Officers of the Army in Bath. She then joined the recently opened Oxford college for women Lady Margaret Hall in 1881 and left in 1883. Her sister, who had a nearly identical education, left in 1884. She had enough money that she did not need to work. In 1894 her brother Percy was tasked with establishing consulates in Kerman and Baluchistan and he invited her to come along. They spent two years travelling. When she returned she used her experiences to write Through Persia on a Side-Saddle, which was published in 1898.