Frances Fitzgerald Elmes Explained

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 Australasians 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.
• 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.
• Fitzgerald, Frances. "The Woman Pays", British Australasian, 16 August 1917, 31.

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.

Notes and References

1. https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A26233 "Frances Fitzgerald"
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]
5. Brenda Niall, Martin Boyd: A Life, Carlton, Victoria: Melbourne University Press, 1990 [1988], 74–76.