Grimshaw was born in Cloona House in
Dunmurry,
County Antrim, Ireland into a well-to-do family. Her parents were Nicholas William Grimshaw of Belfast, a wine-and-oil merchant, and Eleanor Grimshaw (née Newsam) of Cork. She was the fourth of six children. Grimshaw was educated privately, first at
Victoria College, Belfast, at the Pension Rétaillaud in
Caen,
France, then
Bedford College, London and
Queen's College, Belfast but never took a degree. though it was later claimed she had been a lecturer in
Classics at
Bedford Women's College. Her family were members of the
Church of Ireland, but she converted to Catholicism after leaving home. Grimshaw defied her parents' expectations to marry or become a teacher, instead working for various shipping companies including as a publicist for the Cunard Line. She was an outdoor enthusiast and had a keen interest in bicycling, undertaking long cycle rides culminating in a record 338 km ride in a 24-hour marathon. In 1891, Grimshaw began her writing career when she became a sports journalist for
Richard J. Mecredy's
Irish Cyclist magazine, later becoming a sub-editor. She then took over the magazine's sister publication, the
Social Review, which she edited until 1903, publishing a range of content including poems, dialogues, short stories, and two serialised novels under a pen name. Grimshaw had long harboured a desire to travel the world, especially the largely unexplored - for Europeans - Pacific Ocean, and in 1903 she was engaged by the
Daily Graphic to report on the Pacific. She became a close friend of Lieutenant-Governor
Sir Hubert Murray and his unofficial publicist. The Australian government commissioned her to write a pamphlet, The
New New Guinea to promote the country to new settlers. Grimshaw had a keen sense for adventure and joined exploration parties into the jungle and up the Sepik and Fly Rivers, and, in 1933, she established a tobacco plantation with her brother Ramsay. In 1907, she published two non-fiction books detailing her experiences,
From Fiji to the Cannibal Islands and
In the Strange South Seas, illustrated with her own photographs. In the same year, she also published
Vaiti of the islands, a fictionalised account of a young adventurous travelling woman. This adventure and romance novel is typical for Grimshaw's later writing featuring the unique landscape of the South Pacific islands. Well received at the time of publication, her works have been criticised for their paternalistic and racist overtones. There has also been a study of her writing technique, particularly with proverbs, focusing on ''The Sorcerer's Stone.'' ==Filmography==