Ethel Pedley

Ethel Charlotte Pedley (19 June 1859 – 6 August 1898) was an English-Australian author and musician.

Ethel Pedley
Ethel Pedley's photograph from the author page of Dot and the Kangaroo.
Born
Ethel Charlotte Pedley

(1859-06-19)19 June 1859[1]
Acton, London, England
Died6 August 1898(1898-08-06) (aged 39)
Darlinghurst, New South Wales, Australia
Resting placeWaverley Cemetery, Bronte, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Alma materRoyal Academy of Music (1882)
OccupationAuthor, musician
Years active1882–1898
Cover of a 1920 publication of Dot and the Kangaroo

Early life

Ethel Charlotte Pedley was born on 19 June 1859 at Acton, near London.[2] She was the daughter of Frederick Pedley and his wife Eliza, née Dolby.[2] Pedley began piano lessons aged 5.[2] Pedley migrated to Australia with her family in the 1870s but returned to London to study at the Royal Academy of Music,[3] where she studied with her uncle Prosper Sainton, professor of violin, and won a medal.[2] She was also trained by her aunt, the famous contralto Charlotte Sainton-Dolby, at her Vocal Academy.[2]

Career

Musician and music teacher

Pedley returned to Sydney in 1882, and began teaching singing and the violin.[2][4] In 1896 Emmeline Woolley and Pedley visited London and persuaded the Associated Board of the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music to extend their examinations to the Australian colonies.[2] Pedley was appointed the solo representative of the Royal Academy of Music for New South Wales.[5] The first examiner visited in 1897.[2][6]

Author
A scan of a first edition copy of Dot and the Kangaroo, which included a photograph of Pedley and a copy of her signature.

Pedley's only published book is Dot and the Kangaroo, which featured a little girl named Dot who becomes lost in the Australian outback, and is helped to find her way back home by a friendly kangaroo. The illustrations were drawn by Frank P. Mahony.[7]

Pedley was a believer in the conservation of the Australian flora and fauna, and usually wrote from this perspective, singling out 'man' as disconnected from nature and the rest of the animals. It is thought her writing was inspired by her visits to the property owned by her brother Arthur, near Walgett.[8]

Ethel's preface to Dot and the Kangaroo is as follows:

To the children of Australia
in the hope of enlisting their sympathies
for the many beautiful, amiable, and frolicsome creatures
of their fair land,
whose extinction, through ruthless destruction,
is being surely accomplished

Illness and death

Stricken with cancer, Pedley died on 6 August 1898 at the Darlinghurst home of her companion Emmeline Woolley at the age of 39.[8] Her only novel, Dot and the Kangaroo would be published posthumously the following year. Pedley was buried in the Anglican section of Waverley Cemetery.[8][9] Following her death, her brother established the Ethel Pedley memorial travelling scholarship for music students.[9]

Works
  • Woolley, Emmeline Mary Dogherty; Pedley, Ethel C, 1859-1898 (1895), The captive soul, s.n.], retrieved 19 June 2018CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)[10][11]
  • Pedley, Ethel; Mahony, Frank P. (Frank Prout), 1862-1917 (1899), Dot and the kangaroo, Tomas Burleigh, retrieved 19 June 2018CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

References
  1. "Pedley, Ethel Charlotte (1859–1898)", Norst, M., Australian Dictionary of Biography Volume 11, (MUP), 1988.
  2. Norst, M., "Pedley, Ethel Charlotte (1859–1898)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 19 June 2018
  3. "Miss Ethel C. Pedley". Table Talk (218). Victoria, Australia. 23 August 1889. p. 15. Retrieved 19 June 2018 – via National Library of Australia.
  4. "MISS PEDLEY'S "AT HOME."". The Daily Telegraph (2764). New South Wales, Australia. 28 May 1888. p. 3. Retrieved 19 June 2018 – via National Library of Australia.
  5. "Obituary - Ethel Charlotte Pedley - Obituaries Australia". oa.anu.edu.au. Retrieved 19 June 2018.
  6. "DEATH OF MISS PEDLEY". The Sydney Morning Herald (18, 845). New South Wales, Australia. 8 August 1898. p. 3. Retrieved 19 June 2018 – via National Library of Australia.
  7. Pedley, Edith; Mahony, Frank P. (Frank Prout), 1862-1917 (1899), Dot and the kangaroo, Tomas Burleigh, retrieved 19 June 2018CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  8. "Ethel Pedley: author of Dot and the Kangaroo". AustLit. Retrieved 25 July 2019.
  9. "Biography - Ethel Charlotte Pedley - Australian Dictionary of Biography". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Retrieved 25 July 2019.
  10. "Miss Woolley's Cantata". The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser. LIX (1823). New South Wales, Australia. 15 June 1895. p. 1209. Retrieved 19 June 2018 – via National Library of Australia.
  11. "ST. CECILIA CHOIR CONCERT". The Sydney Morning Herald (19, 105). New South Wales, Australia. 7 June 1899. p. 10. Retrieved 19 June 2018 – via National Library of Australia.
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