INTRODUCTION

All her life, Dorothy was asked, 'Why were you born in Russia?' The immediate answer embraces not only her parents and her own birth in 1900 in St Petersburg, but the long history of St Petersburg itself, and its growth into a thriving mercantile centre where her family and many other English residents had established themselves in thriving businesses since the early eighteenth century.

The growth and history of the city were influenced by its geography. Dorothy was born on Vasilievsky Ostrof, one of the many little islands that are on both banks of the River Neva, which make up the delta; the Neva then flows 42 miles west into the Gulf of Finland and the Baltic Sea. The river is frozen for four to five months between November and April. During World War II, the German Army surrounded Leningrad, (as St Petersburg had been renamed), for twenty-nine months, from September 1941 until January 1944.

Where The River Neva flows into the Gulf of Finland, which is part of the Baltic Sea, the region is called Ingermanland; the Russians, Finns, Swedes and others who lived in the area fought over the region for centuries. The Swedes and the Novgorodians built fortifications in the vicinity. In 1143 the Swedes attacked the Novgorodians' fortifications on Lake Ladoga but were repulsed. In 1323, the Novgorodians increased the strength of their fort at the entrance of the Neva from Lake Ladoga, situated on the Island of Oreshek.

This island changed hands many times during the ensuing years until Peter the Great, Tsar Peter Alexeyevich Romanov, came to power in 1682; in 1702 he captured Oreshek, which was then named Schusselburg, now Petrokrepost, the scene of many pleasant visits for Dorothy.

A year later, Peter the Great ordered the construction of another fort named Saints Peter and Paul, which was built on an island separated from Vasilievsky Ostrof Island by the Malaya Neva, where it meets the Bolshaya Neva.

St Petersburg was founded by Tsar Peter the Great in 1703 and called by Alexandr Pushkin a 'Window on Europe'. In 1702, Peter Alexeyevich Romanov issued an ukaz, decree, inviting thousands of Russians and other nationalities to help build St Petersburg. An Italian architect was put in charge and arrived in 1703. Not surprisingly the styles reflected the trends of German, Dutch and Italian architecture of the times. In 1712 a French architect by the name of J.B. Leblond introduced the Renaissance style and at the same time, Peter proclaimed St Petersburg the capital of the Russian Empire.

The St Petersburg of 1900, the year of Dorothy Raitt's birth, had been a thriving capital of Imperial Russia from 1712 and continued to be so until March 1918, after the Revolution. The city was renamed Petrograd in August 1914, again renamed in 1924 as Leningrad and yet again, St Petersburg, in 1991

In the St Petersburg Dorothy knew, on the other side of the River Neva to Vasilievsky Island, along the wide quays stood — and still stand — the Admiralty, the Winter Palace, the Hermitage and other fine buildings. On the principal streets like the Nevsky Prospect, were the best shops.

The most important streets and quays were paved with octagonal hardwood blocks about two inches thick instead of the usual cobblestones as in most parts of the town, so that the loud noise of horses' hooves and carriage wheels was lessened. Many years later, when Dorothy was in Tientsin, China, after a flood she noticed that some of the streets there had similar wooden blocks, which buckled, rose off the road and floated away, to be gathered up by the poor who dried them out and used them for fuel.

Architecturally, St Petersburg remains one of the most spectacular and beautiful cities in the world, with fine parks and quays along the River Neva and its canals. It has planned squares, wide avenues and straight streets with many gardens and parks which Dorothy often visited.

The government buildings were handsome, with columns and sculptures, and often painted in shades of yellow to pale orange with white, and pale green and white. The Russian government still favours these colours on the old government buildings; the modern ones are of steel, concrete and glass. At the end of every bridge there were small chapels usually with candles burning before the icons. Dorothy remembers them as being of pale-yellow brick with gilded onion domes. The waiting rooms of all the railway stations would have chapels, or if not a chapel, one wall would have icons, candelabra and religious paintings.

Dorothy's family was part of the growth of St Petersburg in the nineteenth century, including trade with Britain. From 1850 to 1870, St Petersburg imported more from Great Britain than from any other country, mainly coal, metal products and machinery. In turn, St Petersburg exported more of its products to Great Britain than to any other country, mainly rye, linseed, tallow and wood.

There had been a large English colony in St Petersburg for a hundred years consisting of business people, owners of businesses, ship owners, professional men, clergy, and of course diplomats. Most were well-to-do and kept several servants, a country house, travelled widely, and sent their children to England to school and college or university.

The history of Dorothy's own family relationship to St Petersburg dates back to the eighteenth century. Her connections there begin in 1769, when William Hubbard went to St Petersburg and established himself as a merchant. In November 1771, William Hubbard, as an English merchant doing business in Russia, was admitted into the Fellowship of the Russia Company. On his death, his two sons William and John carried on the business until 1806, interrupted by the Napoleonic Wars.

In 1816 John Hubbard recommenced the business and by 1842, the Petroffsky calico spinning mill of about 40,000 spindles was erected in the Alexandroffsky suburb of Petrograd on the banks of the River Neva. In 1851, weaving had been added to the spinning business, holding 1,200 looms, which continued all through the Crimean War.

In 1866, the Hubbard family purchased the derelict Schlusselburg Printing Works on the island of Schlusselburg, re-equipped it with modern machinery from Messrs Mather and Platt in England, and turned it into a printing works for clothes and all kinds of materials. In 1869, the Hubbard family purchase of the Spassky mill, employing 813 persons, adjacent to the Petroffsky mill, increased the total production of both sites to 84,000 spindles and 2,700 looms, giving an annual production of 24 million yards of calico per annum. The Anglo-Russian Cotton Factories Company was formed in 1897, by which time they were producing 40 million yards of printed material a year.

The Hubbards were a distinguished family. John Gellibrand Hubbard for example, who was born in 1805, became a Conservative member of Parliament, was a director of the Bank of England and raised to the peerage as Baron Addington in 1887.

As the century turned, in 1900, the year of Dorothy's birth, William MacCallum was the manager of the Schlusselburg calico spinning mill on the outskirts of St Petersburg. The mill was owned by The Russia Company and run by Egerton Hubbard, the second Baron Addington. William MacCallum and his wife had twelve children, three boys and nine girls.

One of the Macallum daughters, Louise Mary MacCallum, married Frederick Henry Raitt; the Raitts' daughter, Dorothy Raitt, was born in 1900. Another daughter, Margaret MacCallum, sister of Louise, married Edward Gibson; their daughter, Marjorie Gibson, died of cancer in 1915; there were also two sons, Edward Leslie Gibson, also born in 1900, and Humphrey Gibson.

In Dorothy's time, in St Petersburg, then known as Petrograd, there were four generations of the family: Dorothy's great-grandmother, Granny Henley, and her daughter, Granny Raitt, her grandmother, her parents, Louise and Frederick and her own generation, including her cousin, Edward Gibson, whom she saw frequently. The family were all British subjects.

Dorothy was a born into a well established and prosperous family, and in 1900, her life bid fair to be privileged and protected.

#