Early life Ada Cambridge was born into a middle-class family 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 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 the town of
Downham Market, where her father became a trader of corn and seeds. The Cambridge family moved again to
Great Yarmouth in the late 1850s, where her father worked as a commercial traveller. While living in Great Yarmouth, at least two of Cambridge's siblings died within a few months, after which the family moved again to
Ely in
Cambridgeshire. While Cambridge'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, 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 interest in literature. She also advised Cambridge during the development of her early literary works. , pictured 1874|alt=Engraving of a large gothic cathedral After moving to Ely, Cambridge'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, 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. Cambridge was engaged to a
curate named George Frederick Cross in 1870. 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 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
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 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 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. 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 conducted his ministry 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 published 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 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 Ada. |alt=Engraved illustration of a small gothic church with a steep roof In December 1874, George and Ada moved to
Ballan, a town located thirty kilometres from
Ballarat. The family's financial difficulties became increasingly urgent, with George unable to keep up with the instalments 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 story. The fourteen-episode romance serial, titled
Up the Murray, was published in the newspaper between March and July 1875 and was Ada's first extended work of fiction. The serial depicted 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. Its success 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''. Ada experienced a carriage accident while travelling between Ballan and
Ballarat in 1877, 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 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. George's stipend was reduced from £300 to £250 in 1879, 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 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 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 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 and settling down into marriage.
Sandhurst and Beechworth In January 1884, the family moved to Sandhurst (now
Bendigo), a town of 50,000 people that was one of the colony's major centres. That year, Ada wrote four short stories and also 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 in
The Australasian between 1885 and 1886. In March 1886 Ada was admitted to hospital due to complications associated with her earlier miscarriage with fears that she would not survive the admission. She remained in hospital for three months before leaving against her doctor's advice; the admission, which cost £200, had severely cut into the family's finances. Ada published another volume of poetry,
Unspoken Thoughts, anonymously in London the following year. The volume features a number of poems centred on loss and grief, as well as Ada's views on religion and marriage. The poems explored controversial and taboo themes, including the nature of God and what Ada saw as the hypocrisy of organised religion, and the topics of marital vows, prostitution, euthanasia, and suicide. She expressed solidarity with those excluded by mainstream society, and presented marriage and religious dogmas as constraints on spiritual freedom and expression. The volume was positively received but sold only 150 of the 500 copies. Ada withdrew the volume from publication for reasons that remain uncertain; she later refused to allow the more controversial poems from the collection to be reprinted. Ada's next novel,
A Marked Man, was serialised under the title
A Black Sheep in 1888–1889 and then published in book form in London the following year; it was her first major financial success, earning her £197. The novel critiques organised religion and explores themes of social reform and conformity. Her next serial, ''A Woman's Friendship
, appeared in The Age'' between August and October 1889. During this period Ada's fiction featured explorations of the "
New Woman" and women's status in society, as well as the social norms surrounding marriage. Her stories also portrayed the clergy as snobbish and hypocritical, and frequently dealt with the theme of unhappy marriages. By the early 1890s, Ada was a well-known and popular writer. She moved away from publishing serials in local newspapers and instead pursued international book publication, increasing her reputation as a writer both domestically and overseas. She wrote a new romance novel titled
Not All in Vain, first serialised in
The Australasian in 1890–1891 and then published in book form the following year. The publication of
A Marked Man,
The Three Miss Kings, and
Not All in Vain between 1890 and 1892 cemented her reputation as one of Australia's leading writers.
Williamstown |alt=Photograph of a small brick church with a steep roof In October 1893 the family moved to
Williamstown in Melbourne. Shortly after their move, the family began struggling financially as a result of Melbourne's
1890s economic depression, particularly because of their sons' school fees. Ada published six books over the next five years:
A Little Minx (1893),
A Marriage Ceremony (1894),
Fidelis (1895),
A Humble Enterprise (1896),
At Midnight and Other Stories (1897), and
Materfamilias (1898). Three of these were based on serials that she had previous published in newspapers. Unlike the majority of her novels,
Fidelis and
A Humble Enterprise explored the challenges of finding a suitable wife from a male perspective. Ada also wrote short stories for English periodicals, and in 1897 she published a collection of short stories titled
At Midnight and Other Stories. Her reputation as a writer continued to grow; in 1896 she was the subject of a chapter in the book
Australian Writers by the critic Desmond Byre, and in 1898 she was identified as one of Australia's two leading "poetesses" in the book
The Development of Australian Literature. By 1897 she was earning around £1000 per year from her writing. Ada's next two novels,
Path and Goal and
The Devastators, were published in 1900 and 1901. In 1902 Ada became the first president of a newly formed society of women writers, the Melbourne Writers' Club, which would eventually become the
Lyceum Club. She also contracted with a publisher to write her memoir,
Thirty Years in Australia. However, she also suffered a series of personal tragedies; in 1902 her son Hugh died of typhoid fever at the age of 24, and in 1904 her son-in-law committed suicide, leaving Ada and George to support their daughter Vera and infant grandson. That year Ada confessed in a letter to the critic and editor
Bertram Stevens that she was without any savings and that her finances had been strained by the need to provide for her daughter. She increased the pace of her writing, and by 1907 had published four new novels:
Sisters (1904),
A Platonic Friendship (1905),
A Happy Marriage (1906), and
The Eternal Feminine (1907). Ada and George returned to England for six months in 1908 to settle the legal affairs associated with the inheritance of his sister's estate. While in England, Ada wrote essays for the
Atlantic Monthly and the
North American Review. In these essays, she wrote about ageing and her view of religious authority. She also wrote about the women's rights movement, characterising herself as a supporter of women's rights while suggesting that women had undermined their own cause and allowed themselves to be treated as inferior to men by acting immaturely. Ada and George returned to Australia at the beginning of 1909.
Later life and death In December 1909, George retired from his ministry in Williamstown. The following year he spent six months acting as a substitute priest in
Carrick, Tasmania; whether Ada accompanied him to Tasmania is unknown. The couple moved to England in 1912 and settled in
Cambridge. There, Ada published three books: a reminiscence on her early life in England titled
The Retrospect (1912), a poetry collected titled
The Hand in the Dark (1913), a novel titled
The Making of Rachel Rowe (1914). George died in February 1917, and Ada returned to Australia that August. |alt=Image of a grave in a cemetery|upright=0.8 Ada had become too frail to write, but continued attempting to support herself independently. In 1919 she offered a volume of short stories to
Angus & Robertson, but the publisher declined the work. Ada suffered a stroke in 1921, and as she became increasingly lonely and ill, she developed a correspondence with the publisher
George Robertson. She published her last essay, "Nightfall", in 1922, in which she described the "secret humiliations" of old age and wrote about her fear of becoming dependent on others' charity. Her final published work was likely a poem that she published for
Anzac Day in the magazine ''Woman's World'' in April 1923. While the serialised republication of her memoir
Thirty Years in Australia had put her in a slightly more secure financial position, Ada remained concerned about her finances and pursued the republication of her other works in her final years. She wrote to Robertson in 1923 that she hoped to leave some money for her daughter, who was also struggling financially. She moved into a nursing home in 1924 and sold Robertson the rights to all of her writing for £100, which allowed her to remain at the nursing home until she was eventually forced to move to a private hospital. She suffered another stroke in 1926, leaving her blind and paralysed. She died in
Elsternwick of heart failure on 19 July 1926 at the age of 82 and was buried at
Brighton Cemetery. ==Writing==