Anna Leonowens was born Anna Crawford in Wales and traveled around the world, but she spent most of the last years of her life in Canada and died in Montreal in 1915.

Anna, who was later immortalized in the book Anna and the King of Siam which was later turned into the popular Broadway musical and movie The King and I, was born in 1834 and spent some of her youth living in India. She married a British officer Thomas Leonowens in 1851 and moved with him to Singapore where he was stationed in 1856. When he died a few years later after an all-day tiger hunt, Anna received an invitation to teach the royal children in Siam (now Thailand).

She and her son arrived in Bangkok in 1862 and stayed there until 1867. She had become quite a prominent citizen by then, but after five years decided she and her family needed a better climate for health reasons. The family moved back to England, and with the children in boarding school she went to the United States. Leonowens wrote about her experiences in two books, The English Governess and The Romance of the Harem, and became much in demand as a lecturer in the U.S. Her daughter married a Scottish banker, Thomas Fyshe, and went to live in Halifax. Leonowens joined them sometime around 1880, although one source says she moved to Halifax in 1876.

During her Halifax years, Leonowens organized a book club, a Shakespearian society, and was founding secretary of the Halifax Council of Women. She also helped start the arts university there. One source says she left Halifax in 1897 to move to Germany, but her obituary in the Montreal Gazette says she moved to Montreal that year to join the Fyshe family. During her years in Montreal, Leonowens was once president of the Baby and Foundling Hospital. She died in January 1915. Her obituary described her as "a woman whom it was a privilege to know."