Frances Fitzgerald Elmes

Frances Fitzgerald Elmes (23 April 1867 – 1919) was a British-Australian feminist writer and columnist based in Melbourne and London.[1][2][3]

Biography

Frances Fitzgerald Elmes was born in Somerset, England, 23 April 1867. She emigrated to Australia with her family and was raised in Berwick, Victoria, where her father was a medical practitioner. She became a journalist and wrote for The Australasian, The Argus and, after returning to England in 1905, the British Australasian. Her columns, short stories, two books and a play appeared under a variety of pen names, including F. F. Elmes, Frances Fitzgerald, F. F., and Frances Fitzgerald Fawkner.[2]

In London, Elmes established a relationship with the British Australasian's editor, Charles Henry Chomley (who was married to her close friend Ethel Chomley), during which she is reported to have had two children, a son in 1906 and a daughter in 1908. The relationship was apparently accepted by Chomley's wife and mother.[4][5]

Elmes died in London in 1919 during the Spanish flu epidemic. After her death, her children were brought up by their father and his wife.[4]

Selected works
  • Fitzgerald, Frances. The New Woman, a play, performed but not published, 1895.[1]
  • Elmes, F. F. The Melbourne Cookery Book: compiled especially with the view of assisting the housewife in the cottage and villa home who must carefully study ways and means. Melbourne: Fraser and Jenkinson, 1906. OCLC 221287128
  • Elmes, F. F. "Fashions in Whims: A London Sketch", The Argus, 29 February 1908, 6.
  • F. F. "The 'Tail' of a Fish", The Age, 24 April 1915, 18.
  • Fitzgerald, Frances. The Children at Kangaroo Creek, London: British Australasian, 1916. OCLC 560859564
  • Fitzgerald, Frances. "The Woman Pays", British Australasian, 16 August 1917, 31.

References
  1. "Frances Fitzgerald", AustLit, University of Queensland.
  2. Peter Morton, Lusting for London: Australian Expatriate Writers at the Hub of Empire, 1870–1950, Palgrave MacMillan, 2011, 84–85, 255, note 27.
  3. Laura Olcelli, Questions of Authority: Italian and Australian Travel Narratives of the Long Nineteenth Century, New York and Oxford: Routledge, 2017, 159–160.
  4. Brenda Niall, The Boyds, Melbourne: Melbourne University Publishing, 2007, 150.
  5. Brenda Niall, Martin Boyd: A Life, Carlton, Victoria: Melbourne University Press, 1990 [1988], 74–76.

Further reading
  • "List: Frances Fitzgerald Elmes". Trove. National Library of Australia.
  • Maria De Jong; Rosalind David, Two Remarkable Women: Frances Fitzgerald Fawkner and Sara 'Sally' Rainforth, Auckland, New Zealand: Remember the Days, 2013. ISBN 9780473257064 OCLC 0473257068


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