18 Facts About Flora Eldershaw

Flora Sydney Patricia Eldershaw was an Australian novelist, critic and historian.

Flora Eldershaw was a teacher and later a public servant.

For both her writing output and her active support for and promotion of writers, Flora Eldershaw made a significant contribution to Australian literary life.

Flora Eldershaw was born in Sydney but grew up in the Riverina district of country New South Wales.

Flora Eldershaw was the fifth of eight children born to Henry Sirdefield Eldershaw, a station manager, and Margaret.

Flora Eldershaw attended boarding school at Mount Erin Convent in Wagga Wagga.

Flora Eldershaw worked as a teacher, first at Cremorne Church of England Grammar and then, from 1923, at Presbyterian Ladies' College, Croydon, where she became senior English mistress and head of the boarding school.

Flora Eldershaw died in hospital of a cerebral thrombosis in 1956.

Flora Eldershaw was a leading figure in Sydney literary circles, becoming, in 1935, the first woman president of the Fellowship of Australian Writers, a position she held again in 1943.

Women, including Flora Eldershaw, were significant in the reviewing community, held office in major literary societies, judged literary competitions and edited anthologies.

Flora Eldershaw actively promoted the needs of writers and in 1938 helped persuade the Commonwealth Literary Fund to include grants and pensions for writers, and funding for university lectures on Australian literature.

Flora Eldershaw was a member of the CLF from 1939 to 1953.

Flora Eldershaw left teaching, disillusioned, and obtained employment with the Department of Labour and National Service.

Flora Eldershaw worked first in the Division of Post-War Reconstruction and then in the Division of Industrial Welfare.

Flora Eldershaw developed some of Australia's first policies on industrial welfare and undertook comprehensive research into personnel practice in government munitions factories and private industry.

Flora Eldershaw lobbied for writers to receive Federal government subsidies.

Flora Eldershaw strongly supported the FAW's pro-Soviet stance and, with Katharine Susannah Prichard, Miles Franklin and Frank Dalby Davison, was invited to speak at the Cultural Conference of the NSW Aid Russia Committee.

Dever quotes Melbourne writer John Morrison as saying that Flora Eldershaw was "socially and politically inclined to the left" and says that her pro-Soviet position and involvement in the Peace Movement resulted in her having "a slim if predictable ASIO file".