Poets

Ada Cambridge, later known as Ada Cross, was an English-born Australian writer.

Overall she wrote more than twenty-five works of fiction, three volumes of poetry and two autobiographical works. Many of her novels were serialised in Australian newspapers, and were never published in book form.

While she was known to friends and family by her married name, Ada Cross, she was known to her newspaper readers as A.C. Later in her career she reverted to her maiden name, Ada Cambridge, and it is thus by this name that she is known.

Biography

Ada was born at St Germans, Norfolk, the second child of Thomasine and Henry Cambridge, a gentleman farmer. She was educated by governesses, an experience she abhorred. She wrote in a book of reminiscences: "I can truthfully affirm that I never learned anything which would now be considered worth learning until I had done with them all and started foraging for myself. I did have a few months of boarding-school at the end, and a very good school for its day it was, but it left no lasting impression on my mind." (The Retrospect, chap. IV). It was, in fact, an unmarried aunt who most contributed to her intellectual development.

On 25 April 1870 she was married to the Rev. George Frederick Cross and a few weeks later sailed for Australia. She arrived in Melbourne in August and was surprised to find it a well established city. Her husband was sent to Wangaratta, then to Yackandandah (1872), Ballan (1874), Coleraine (1877), Bend..