Ada Cambridge (21 November 1844 – 19 July 1926) was an English-born Australian writer. Born in Norfolk into a middle-class farming family, she began writing hymns and short stories in her teenage years. In 1870, she married a clergyman and moved to Australia, where she and her husband lived in a series of parishes in country Victoria until 1893. To supplement the family's income, Cambridge began publishing serials, short stories, and poetry in Australian newspapers.
By 1893, when the family moved to Williamstown in Melbourne, Cambridge had begun publishing her novels internationally and had established herself as one of the country's leading authors. She wrote around 25 novels, 2 memoirs, and 5 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 examined society's treatment 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, placing it at odds with the emerging nationalist school of bush-centred Australian literature. However, the 1970s saw a resurgence of interest in Cambridge's writing from feminist scholars. Literary scholars have since argued that her writing features more narrative complexity and radicalism than had previously been appreciated, including frequent critiques of organised religion and restrictive social structures.
Biography Early life Ada Cambridge was born into a middle-class family in Wiggenhall St Germans, Norfolk, England, 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 finances suffered due to her father's neglect of his farm in favour of recreational pursuits, including hunting and horse riding. During the 1850s the family moved to Downham Market, where her father became a trader of corn and seeds, before moving again to Great Yarmouth in the late 1850s. While living in Great Yarmouth, at least two of Ada's siblings died within a few months, after which the family relocated 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, the majority of whom were poorly educated, and spent a few months at a boarding school before returning due to homesickness. Despite her lack of a formal education, Cambridge 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 pursuit of literature. She also advised Cambridge during the development of her early literary works.
After moving to Ely, Cambridge's life became increasingly centred on religion. She became a district visitor—a woman 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 or 18, she began writing hymns for a church magazine. She published her first volume, Hymns on the Litany, in 1865, and followed this with Hymns on the Holy Communion in 1866. By the late 1860s she appeared in biographical dictionaries of hymn writers, where she was described as a talented and popular writer. Her works have been included in several major hymnals.
At the encouragement of her rector's wife, Cambridge 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 regularly contributing 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 Cambridge was engaged to a curate named George Frederick Cross, whom she had likely met while working as a district visitor in his parish. Cross was the son of a local grocer and had recently graduated from St Augustine's College, a missionary college established to train men to join the clergy in Britain's colonies. 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 Ada and George arrived in Australia on 19 August 1870 and 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 been established, including the University of Melbourne, the Botanic Gardens, and the newly-constructed 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 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 May of the following year, Ada gave birth to the first of their five children, Arthur Stuart. She became involved in the town's social and community life and helped 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 the north-east of Melbourne and had a population of around 800. George's parish spanned more than 160 kilometres, forcing him to spend much of his time conducting his ministry in the remote parts 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 published more poetry and fiction in newspapers, allowing her to make 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 endured for the remainder of her life. She became depressed and unable to bear remaining in their home; in response, George requested a transfer to a less expansive parish that would require him to spend less time separated from her.
In December 1874, George and Ada moved to Ballan, a town 30 kilometres from Ballarat. The family's financial difficulties became increasingly urgent, with George unable to keep up with the instalments he owed on the debts incurred by 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 work. 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 serial depicts a young woman who migrates to Australia and marries a wealthy man after struggling with the question of whether she is motivated by his wealth or by love. 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 Arthur Stuart died of scarlet fever. She gave birth two weeks later, on 26 April, to a daughter named Vera Lyon. That year, she published another romance serial titled My Guardian in Cassell's Family Magazine. Ada experienced a carriage accident while travelling between Ballan and Ballarat the following year, leaving her with permanent disabilities and back problems.
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 located 370 kilometres west of Melbourne. 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 stipend forced Ada to increase the pace of her writing. Ada gave birth to her fourth child, Hugh Cambridge, on 14 August the following year. She also published her first novel in book form—My Guardian: A Story of the Fen Country—based on the serial she had published two years earlier.
George's stipend was reduced from £300 () to £250 (equivalent to $) in 1879 due to a widespread economic depression, placing further financial pressure on the family. They attempted to raise cattle on their land before abandoning the plan and leasing it to a corn farmer. Ada continued writing, producing two new serial romances about young women finding husbands: 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 fifth child, a son named Kenneth Stuart. She suffered a breakdown soon after, became housebound, and eventually departed for 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 that year. As her depression deepened in 1881, she began writing 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 published a number of 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. The following year Ada published one of her most popular works, The Three Miss Kings, as a serial in The Australasian. The novel, set upon the backdrop of the Melbourne International Exhibition, depicts three newly orphaned young women who consider what to do with their new-found independence before eventually finding husbands.
Sandhurst and Beechworth
In January 1884, the family moved to Sandhurst (now Bendigo), a town of 50,000 that was one of the colony's major centres. That year, Ada wrote four short stories and reworked some of her earlier writing to support the family financially. In March 1885 the family moved again to the large goldfields town of Beechworth where they remained for the next nine years. While George's stipend had finally been increased, Ada continued her writing. She published her next serial, A Little Minx, in The Sydney Mail in 1885, and followed this with a novel about divorce titled Against the Rules published in The Australasian between 1885 and 1886.