Alice Werner, teacher of Bantu languages, was one of seven children in the family of Reinhardt Joseph Werner of Mainz, teacher of languages, and his wife, Harriett. Alice's father, a naturalised British subject since 1852, indulged his wanderlust during Alice's first fifteen years, and thus she experienced a constant change of scene and sound, living in New Zealand, Mexico, the United States, and Europe, until the family settled in Tonbridge in 1874. Alice Werner's distinguished career as a scholar and teacher was recognised with the awarding of a D.Litt in 1928 by London University. When she retired in 1930,she was appointed CBE, and was awarded the silver medal of the African Society. Myths and Legends of the Bantu (1933) was probably her most popular book.
Percival Serle, who includes her in his A Bibliography of Australasian Poetry and Verse (1925), comments: 'Miss Werner scarcely comes within the limits of this Bibliography, but she spent four or five years of her early childhood in New Zealand and one of her poems 'Bannerman of the Dandenong', has been included in more than one Australasian anthology.' Only that one work by Werner is indexed in AustLit although several of her poems were reprinted in the Bulletin and the Lone Hand.
Ewa Gajer, in her bibliography Australian Women Short Story Writers (1995), attributes several stories published in the Bulletin under the pseudonym 'A. W.' (q.v.) to Alice Werner who used the pseudonym for her first collection of verse King of the Silver City (1882). This appears to be an error.
