1. Ursula Bethell settled at the age of 50 at Rise Cottage on the Cashmere Hills near Christchurch, with her companion Effie Pollen, where she created a sheltered garden with views over the city and towards the Southern Alps, and began writing poems about the landscape.
Bethell was the eldest daughter of the well-to-do sheep farmer Richard Bethell and his wife Isabel Anne, nee Lillie, and was born in Horsell, Surrey, England, in 1874.
Ursula Bethell's parents had both lived in New Zealand in the 1860s, but returned to London where they married.
Ursula Bethell was educated at Rangiora Primary School and Christchurch Girls' High School, and developed a love of the Canterbury landscape that would last for the rest of her life.
Ursula Bethell returned to New Zealand in 1892 and devoted herself to charitable work, before again returning to Europe in 1895 to study painting in Geneva and music in Dresden.
Ursula Bethell continued to perform social work in a religious context in England and New Zealand, travelling between the two, including in the war years.
In 1924 Ursula Bethell permanently settled in New Zealand, in the Cashmere Hills near Christchurch.
Ursula Bethell bought a newly built home, Rise Cottage in Westenra Terrace, which she shared with another returnee New Zealander, Effie Pollen.
Ursula Bethell herself described the relationship as "prevailingly maternal", but there is no way of knowing for sure what the relationship between them was, except that it was a close and loving relationship.
Ursula Bethell only began to write poetry at the age of about 50.
Ursula Bethell wrote little more afterwards, so that most of her output dates from the one decade of 1924 to 1934.
Ursula Bethell acted as a mentor to younger local poets, notably Allen Curnow and Denis Glover.
All Ursula Bethell's work appeared anonymously, as she felt that publicity in "provincial New Zealand" would be a "painful affair".