Ethel Pedley

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
Died 6 August 1898(1898-08-06) (aged 39)
Darlinghurst, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Cause of death Cancer[1]
Resting place Waverly Cemetery, Bronte, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Alma mater Royal Academy of Music (1882)
Occupation Author, Musician
Years active 1882-1898
Cover of a 1920 publication of Dot and the Kangaroo

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

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 most well-known 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 her books from this perspective, singling out 'man' as disconnected from nature and the rest of the animals.

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

Works

  • Woolley, Emmeline Mary Dogherty; Pedley, Ethel C, 1859-1898 (1895), The captive soul, s.n.], retrieved 19 June 2018 [8][9]
  • Pedley, Edith; Mahony, Frank P. (Frank Prout), 1862-1917 (1899), Dot and the kangaroo, Tomas Burleigh, retrieved 19 June 2018

References

  1. 1 2 "Pedley, Ethel Charlotte (1859–1898)", Norst, M., Australian Dictionary of Biography Volume 11, (MUP), 1988.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Norst, M., "Pedley, Ethel Charlotte (1859–1898)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 2018-06-19
  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 2018-06-19.
  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 2018
  8. ↑ "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.
  9. ↑ "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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