Ada Cambridge
Ada Cambridge was an English-born Australian writer. Born in Norfolk into a middle-class farming family, she began writing hymns in her teenage years and then became a contributor of poetry and short stories for church magazines. In 1870 she married a clergyman and moved to Australia, where she and her husband resided in a series of rural parishes between 1870 and 1893. To supplement the family's income, she began publishing serial novels, short stories, and poetry in Australian newspapers. She became a popular writer, particularly of romance fiction.
By 1893 when the family moved to Williamstown in Melbourne, Ada had begun to publish her novels internationally and had established herself as one of the country's leading authors. She wrote around 25 novels, two memoirs, and five volumes of hymns and poetry during her lifetime. She also contributed essays to international magazines and periodicals, including the Atlantic Monthly and the North American Review. Her writing largely consisted of romance novels, in which she often explored the status of women and the social norms surrounding marriage.
While Cambridge was a popular and well-regarded writer during her lifetime, her literary reputation suffered in the years following her death. Her writing was widely dismissed as consisting of shallow and formulaic romances rooted in English traditions, which placed it at odds with the emerging "bush nationalist" genre of Australian literature. However, interest in her work saw a resurgence from feminist scholars during the 1970s. Scholars have since argued that her writing features more complexity and radicalism than had previously been appreciated, including frequent critiques of organised religion and social structures, as well as the usage of irony and satire.
Biography
Early life
Ada Cambridge was born in Wiggenhall St Germans, Norfolk, on 21 November 1844. Her mother Thomasina was the daughter of a doctor, while her father Henry was a gentleman farmer. Around 1845 or 1846, the family moved to the nearby town of Thorpland. Their financial fortunes began to suffer as a result of her father's neglect of his business in favour of recreational pursuits, including hunting and horse-riding. During the 1850s the family moved to the town of Downham Market, where her father became a trader of corn and seeds. In the late 1850s the Cambridge family moved again to Great Yarmouth, where her father began to work as a "commercial traveller". While living in Great Yarmouth, at least two of Ada's siblings died within a few months, after which the family moved again to Ely in Cambridgeshire.While Ada's parents regarded her as a gifted child, she received a limited education. She was educated by a series of seven governesses, who were themselves largely poorly educated, and spent a few months at a boarding school before returning due to homesickness. Despite her limited education, Ada was a voracious reader. Her youngest aunt, who worked as a governess for European royal families, took an interest in her education and encouraged her interest in literature. She also advised Ada during the development of her early literary works.
After moving to Ely, Ada's life became increasingly centred on religion. She became a district visitor—women in the church who volunteered to assist the clergy, such as by visiting the poor and elderly—and later wrote that she had considered becoming a nun. At around the age of 17 of 18, she began writing hymns for a church magazine. She published her first volume of hymns, Hymns on the Litany, in 1865, and followed this with a second volume, Hymns on the Holy Communion, in 1866. She appeared in biographical dictionaries of hymn writers, where she was described as a talented and popular writer, and her works were included in several major hymnals.
At the encouragement of her rector's wife, Ada wrote her first works of fiction for a church literary competition, in which she won both first and second prize. The priest who judged the competition encouraged her to continue writing, and she began to regularly contribute poetry and works of fiction to church magazines and periodicals. Three of her early short stories have survived—"The Two Surplices", "Little Jenny", and "The Vicar's Guest"—all of which are moral tales centred on religious themes and the experiences of the poor.
In 1870 Ada was engaged to a curate named George Frederick Cross. Cross was the son of a local grocer and had recently graduated from St Augustine's College, a missionary college that had been established to prepare men to join the colonial clergy. After a seven-week engagement, they married on 25 April 1870 in the Holy Trinity Parish Church at Ely Cathedral. On 1 June they sailed for Australia, with plans to return to England soon.
Life in Australia
Wangaratta
Upon their arrival in Australia on 19 August 1870, Ada and George spent their first weeks in the colony touring Melbourne. Ada later wrote that she was impressed by the standard of life in the city and by the new public infrastructure that had recently been established, including the University of Melbourne, the Botanical Gardens, and the new Public Library. On 31 August they left Melbourne and travelled to the country parish of Wangaratta, 240 kilometres north of the city, to which George had been appointed curate. The expansive parish was a farming district with a population of around 1400.Ada and George settled in a cottage on the edge of the town. In March of the following year, Ada gave birth to the first of her five children, Arthur Stuart. She became actively involved in the town's social and community life, as well as helping to raise money for George's church. In February 1871, Ada published her first literary work written in Australia in The Sydney Mail: a romantic poem titled "From the Battlefield, Good Night". The income that she earned from her writing helped to supplement her husband's meagre clergy stipend; the Church of England in Victoria persistently struggled to support its clergy, paying them far less than other denominations' ministers.
Yackandandah and Ballan
In January 1872, following George's ordination to the priesthood, they left for his next posting at Yackandandah. The town was located near Beechworth to Melbourne's north-east and had a population of around 800. The parish that George was now responsible for spanned more than 100 miles, forcing him to spend much of his time separated from Ada as he travelled to minister in the far reaches of the district. Ada played an active role in the parish, playing the church organ, teaching classes at the Sunday School, and conducting the church choir. She also began to publish more poetry and fiction in newspapers, making an increasingly substantial contribution to the family's income. In November 1873 Ada gave birth to her second child, a daughter named Edith Constance, who died of whooping cough just 10 months later. Her grief at Edith's death led to a crisis of faith and acted as the catalyst for an increasing scepticism towards religious authority, which would endure for the remainder of her life. She fell into a depression and became unable to bear to remain in their home; in response, George requested a transfer to less expansive parish that would require him to spend less time separated from Ada.In December 1874, George and Ada moved to Ballan, a town of 700 located thirty kilometres from Ballarat. The family's financial difficulties became increasingly urgent, with George finding himself unable to keep up with the instalments owed on his debts following their relocation. Ada wrote to the newspaper The Australasian in December 1874 and offered to contribute a serial novel, enclosing the first two chapters of her proposed story. The fourteen-episode romance serial, titled Up the Murray, was published in the newspaper between March and July of 1875 and was Ada's first extended work of fiction. The success of the serial caused Ada and George to be welcomed into the colony's literary and intellectual circles. Later that year Ada followed the serial with a volume of romantic and religious poetry titled The Manor House and Other Poems.
In 1876, while Ada was nearing the birth of her third child, her four-year-old son died of scarlet fever. She gave birth to her third child, Vera Lyon, two weeks later on 26 April. That year, she published another romance serial, My Guardian, in Cassell's Family Magazine. In 1877, Ada experienced a carriage accident while travelling between Ballan and Ballarat, leaving her with permanent disabilities and back pain.
Coleraine
In July 1877 Ada and George moved to Coleraine following the establishment of the new Diocese of Ballarat. Their new parish, the Parish of the Wannon, was an expansive sheep-farming district with a population of 800 located 370 kilometres to Melbourne's west. The rural parish's isolated location forced the family to take on a larger staff, and they quickly found that the parish was in financial difficulties. The strain this placed on George's clergy stipend forced Ada to increase the pace of her writing. Ada gave birth to her fourth child, Hugh Cambridge, on 14 August of the following year. She also published her first novel in book form—My Guardian: A Story of the Fen Country—based on the serial that she had published two years earlier.In 1879 George's stipend was reduced from £300 to £250, placing further pressure on their finances. They attempted to raise cattle on their land, before abandoning the plan and instead leasing the land to a corn farmer. Ada also continued writing, producing two new serial romances: In Two Years' Time for The Australasian, and The Captain's Charge for The Sydney Mail. She followed this with another romance serial, Dinah, published in The Australasian between December 1879 and February 1880.
On 3 January 1880 Ada gave birth to her fourth child, a son named Kenneth Stuart. She suffered a breakdown and became housebound, and eventually went away to a retreat in Mount Macedon to recover. She also suffered a near-fatal miscarriage soon after. During her period of recovery, she devoted herself to her writing. Her next serial, A Mere Chance, was published in The Australasian between July and November of that year. As her depression deepened in 1881, she began to write increasingly melancholy poetry, including a poem in which she expressed her support for euthanasia. George continued his visits to the remote parts of his parish, leaving Ada alone for long periods with her young children. She began to publish many poems expressing her sadness and her crisis of faith. She also published three more serials in 1881 and 1882: Missed in the Crowd, A Girl's Ideal, and Across the Grain. In 1883 Ada published what would be one of her most popular works, The Three Miss Kings, as a serial in The Australasian.