Beatrice Grimshaw (?1870-1953)
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Life
| [var. 1871;] b. Cloona[gh], a country house nr. Dunmurry, Co. Antrim; ed. Margaret Byers’ Ladies Collegiate College, Belfast, and in Caen, Normandy; worked as journalist in Dublin, 1891-99, converting to Catholicism at 23; she moved to London in her 20s to work as journalist; ed. Social Review; 1895-99; became a record-breaking woman cyclist and sub-edited Irish Cyclist; she wrote press coverage for shipping companies in exchange for passage to exotic places; |
| she travelled to Tahiti, 1906; ran a coffee plantation in Papua, New Guinea; she was first white woman to travel up Sepik and Fly rivers; settled in Australia; and commissioned by the Australian Govt. to publicise the development of the country; contrib. to Wide World Magazine and National Geographical; issued 42 books incl. thirty novels, some short fiction and numerous travelogues, all based on her South Seas experiences. DIB DIW ATT DUB OCIL |
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Works
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Also commonly noticed: In the Strange South Seas (1907); When the Red Gods Call (1910); Guinea Gold (1912); The Beach of Terror (1931); South Sea Sarah (1940); Note: all abridged edns. presumed 2nd edns. or later. |
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Criticism
Clare McCotter, ‘An Elizabeth of the Pacific: The Monarch in Motion in Beatrice Grimshaw’s Travel Writing’, in The Irish Review, 39, 1 (Winter 2008), pp.161-74; also A. A. Kelly, a paper presented to IASAIL (TCD July 1992; See Conference papers, ed. T. Brown. ]
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References
Stephen Brown, Ireland in Fiction (Dublin: Maunsel 1919), lists When the Red Gods Call (Mills & Boon 1910) [in which the hero is Hugh Lynch, a Clareman]; Guinea Gold (Mills & Boon 1912) [with character Geo. Scott, A Belfastman],, both set in Guinea; IF lists as first novel Broken Away [sic] (Lane 1897) [set in Dublin and Belfast, in which a written-out novelist Alfred Moore attempts to murder and steal the manuscript of Stuart Rivington; Dublin literary milieu].
Ann Owens Weekes, ed., Unveiling Treasures: The Attic Guide to the Published Works of Irish Women Literary Writers: Drama, Fiction, Poetry (Dublin: Attic Press 1993), Biog. [as in Life, supra] and Bibl. [as in Works, supra.]
Brian Cleeve & Ann Brady, A Dictionary of Irish Writers (Dublin: Lilliput 1985) calls her the ‘first white woman to penetrate Borneo’ [cf. ATT, ‘white woman’ also]; but DUB reports that there is a misleading claim to this effect, based on Who’s Who entry, where she said she had often met natives who had never seen a white person – that is easy in Papua’.
[Note: bio-date vars. ?1880 - DIW; 1880 - DIB; 1871 - ATT; 1870 - DUB.]
Bernard Share, ed. Far Green Fields, 1500 Years of Irish Travel Writing (Belfast: Blackstaff 1992), excerpts from From Fiji to the Cannibal Islands (Nelson 1917) [err. for 2nd ed.]; Katie Donovan, A Norman Jeffares, and Brendan Kennelly, eds., Ireland’s Women, Writings Past and Present (G&M 1994), selects From Fiji to the Cannibal Islands [pp.301-04]. SEE also account of her in A. A. Kelly, ed., Wandering Women: Two Centuries of Travel out of Ireland (Dublin: Wolfhound 1995).
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Notes
Kith & Kin?: Richard Ryan (Biographia Hibernica: Irish Worthies, 1821) lists ‘Nicholas Grimshaw’ (Vol. II, p.288). Note also that there is a character ‘Sylvie Grimshaw’ in Forrest Reid’s novel, The Genlte Lover: A Comedy of Middle Age (1912).
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