Ethel Castilla
BornEthelrita Ramos de Castilla
(1861-06-19)19 June 1861
Kyneton, Colony of Victoria
Died27 March 1937(1937-03-27) (aged 75)
Camberwell, Victoria, Australia
Occupation
  • Journalist
  • poet
  • short story writer
RelativesAmy Castilla (sister)

Ethel Castilla (19 June 1861 – 27 March 1937) was an Australian journalist, poet and short story writer. She was one of the founders of the Austral Salon and is best known for her poem, "The Australian Girl".

Early life and family

Ethelrita Ramos de Castilla was born in Kyneton, Victoria on 19 June 1861,[1][2] daughter of May or Mary (née Robertson) and Frederic Ramos de Castilla.[3][4] Her father, of Spanish descent, was a merchant and property speculator who in 1863 was in debt to the tune of £1,322 net.[5] He sought release from insolvency in 1864[6] and died in Kew, Victoria in 1869.[7] Her mother, a daughter of John Anderson Robertson, a Scotsman and Edinburgh writer to the signet, died in 1910.[8] Her younger sister, Amy Castilla (1868–1898) was a medical practitioner and co-founder of the Queen Victoria Hospital in Melbourne.[9] In 1884 Castilla passed the University of Melbourne's matriculation examination.[10]

Career

Castilla contributed Melbourne news to the The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser and worked for the Melbourne Daily Telegraph and the Weekly Times.[11] She wrote art criticism using the pseudonym Viva. She contributed short stories and poems to The Leader (1889–1904)[12] and The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser (1890–1906).[12] She also wrote poems for The Australasian (1904–1913)[2] and articles for The Sydney Morning Herald, including a series on "The Flower of the Month".[13]

In 1890 she was one of the founders of the Austral Salon, a Melbourne meeting place for women intellectuals.[14] She regularly presented papers at meetings, including on "The Payment of Women", in which she "gave appalling statistics" and "oft-time painful information", concluding with a call for a union for women workers.[15] She nicknamed the club, "The Hen Roost".[16] In 1895, she, together with all the other founders were voted honorary life members of the Austral Salon.[17]

Her best known poem, "The Australian Girl", was first published in The Weekly Times and its associated Victorian country newspapers on 17 September 1887.[18] It was quoted at the Royal Colonial Institute in London by Professor Anderson Stuart of the University of Sydney.[19][20] The poem was included in an English anthology, Australian Ballads and gave its name to her 1900 collection, for which Rolf Boldrewood wrote a "most complimentary preface".[21] The book was accepted by Queen Victoria as a gift, having been sent to London by the Governor of Victoria, Lord Brassey.[22]

Her poems, "The Australian Girl" and "A Song of Sydney", were included in Bertram Stevens' 1907 An Anthology of Australian verse.[23]

In the 1920s she served as honorary secretary of the Camberwell Municipal Library Committee and wrote letters to The Age,[24] The Argus[25] and the Box Hill Reporter[26] to garner support.

Death

She died at Camberwell, Victoria on 27 March 1937.[27]

Selected works

  • Castilla, Ethel (1900). The Australian Girl, and Other Verses. G. Robertson.
  • "Sara Champion: A tale of the early days of Melbourne"[28]
  • "A Bush Violet"[29]
  • "The Australian Girl" (1887)

References

  1. ↑ "Family Notices". The Argus (Melbourne). No. 4, 700. Victoria, Australia. 26 June 1861. p. 4. Retrieved 16 March 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  2. 1 2 "Ethel Castilla". AustLit: Discover Australian Stories. The University of Queensland. Retrieved 16 March 2023.
  3. ↑ "Family Notices". Freeman's Journal. Vol. V, no. 190. New South Wales, Australia. 11 February 1854. p. 3. Retrieved 16 March 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  4. ↑ "Frederick Castilla". Births Deaths and Marriages Victoria. Retrieved 16 March 2023.
  5. ↑ "New Insolvents". The Farmer's Journal and Gardener's Chronicle. Vol. V, no. 22. Victoria, Australia. 30 May 1863. p. 6. Retrieved 16 March 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  6. ↑ "Advertising". The Age. No. 3, 120. Victoria, Australia. 27 October 1864. p. 3. Retrieved 16 March 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  7. ↑ "Family Notices". The Argus (Melbourne). No. 7, 060. Victoria, Australia. 25 January 1869. p. 4. Retrieved 16 March 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  8. ↑ "Family Notices". The Argus (Melbourne). No. 20, 035. Victoria, Australia. 7 October 1910. p. 1. Retrieved 16 March 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  9. ↑ "Obituary: Marie Elizabeth Amy Castilla". Obituaries Australia. Retrieved 16 March 2023.
  10. ↑ "The University of Melbourne". The Argus (Melbourne). No. 11, 717. Victoria, Australia. 10 January 1884. p. 9. Retrieved 16 March 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  11. ↑ "From the Gay Metropolis". Critic. South Australia. 19 November 1898. p. 28. Retrieved 16 March 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  12. 1 2 "Search for fiction in Australian newspapers: Castilla, Ethel". The Australian Newspaper Fiction Database. Retrieved 16 March 2023.
  13. ↑ "The Flower of the Month". The Sydney Morning Herald. No. 21749. New South Wales, Australia. 2 October 1907. p. 5. Retrieved 16 March 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  14. ↑ "The Austral Salon". Illustrated Sydney News. Vol. XXVII, no. 14. New South Wales, Australia. 5 July 1890. p. 7. Retrieved 16 March 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  15. ↑ "Social". Melbourne Punch. Victoria, Australia. 29 January 1891. p. 13. Retrieved 16 March 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  16. ↑ "Personal". Table Talk. No. 291. Victoria, Australia. 16 January 1891. p. 4. Retrieved 16 March 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  17. ↑ "DUNLOP—SCOTT". Melbourne Punch. Victoria, Australia. 12 September 1895. p. 14. Retrieved 16 March 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  18. ↑ "Wit and Humour: The Australian Girl". Weekly Times. No. 940. Victoria, Australia. 17 September 1887. p. 5. Retrieved 16 March 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  19. ↑ "News and Notes". The Berrigan Advocate. Vol. II, no. 18. New South Wales, Australia. 17 February 1893. p. 4. Retrieved 16 March 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  20. ↑ "Women in The Arts". The Sydney Morning Herald. No. 21, 731. New South Wales, Australia. 11 September 1907. p. 5. Retrieved 16 March 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  21. ↑ "Lady's better". Melbourne Punch. Victoria, Australia. 23 November 1899. p. 15. Retrieved 16 March 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  22. ↑ "Lady's Letter". Melbourne Punch. Victoria, Australia. 22 March 1900. p. 15. Retrieved 16 March 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  23. ↑ "An Anthology of Australian verse, edited by Bertram Stevens". State Library of NSW. Retrieved 16 March 2023.
  24. ↑ "Municipal Library for Camberwell". The Age. No. 21, 732. Victoria, Australia. 26 November 1924. p. 14. Retrieved 16 March 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  25. ↑ "Library For Camberwell". The Argus (Melbourne). No. 24, 593. Victoria, Australia. 4 June 1925. p. 7. Retrieved 16 March 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  26. ↑ "Camberwell Municipal Library". Box Hill Reporter. Vol. XXXIX, no. 51. Victoria, Australia. 24 December 1926. p. 6. Retrieved 16 March 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  27. ↑ "286/259 Etheldritha Castilla: Will; Grant of probate". Public Record Office Victoria Collection. Retrieved 16 March 2023.
  28. ↑ "Sara Champion: A tale of the early days of Melbourne". The Leader. No. 1741. Victoria, Australia. 25 May 1889. p. 34. Retrieved 16 March 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  29. ↑ "Australian Short Stories: A Bush Violet". The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser. Vol. LXXXI, no. 2329. New South Wales, Australia. 27 June 1906. p. 1697. Retrieved 16 March 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
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