Known by her middle name, Ursula Bethell was born in Surrey, England in 1874 and shortly afterwards travelled with her parents, Richard Bethell and Isabel Anne, née Lillie who settled in Nelson and later, Rangiora. She was a celebrated local poet. Her early works were published under the pseudonym Evelyn Hayes.
Early life
Ursula Bethell came from a privileged family. Her education at Christchurch Girls High School was followed by finishing schools in Europe and the study of music and painting in Dresden and Geneva. She also undertook charitable work in London.
Poetry in mid-life
Bethell returned to Christchurch after the First World War to live in Rise Cottage, in Westenra Terrace, with her beloved companion Henrietta Dorothea 'Effie' Pollen (1879-1934), and between her 50th and 60th years produced numerous beautifully crafted poems rich in content and austere in form, illuminated by her religious outlook, humanity, scholarship and perceptiveness. A new awareness of the country was beginning to pervade New Zealand writing in the twenties and in her search for meaning and identity she led the way for a new generation of poets.
Capturing New Zealand in verse
Ursula Bethell ‘digging very earnestly’ in her Cashmere garden, paused sometimes to look at the majestic Canterbury landscape, changing with the weather and the seasons, and reflected on life and its impermanence. The poems that resulted from her observations, meditations and sympathies helped readers look at themselves and their country with a clearer vision. ‘New Zealand wasn't truly discovered until Ursula Bethell… raised her head to look at the mountains ’, wrote a contemporary poet, D'Arcy Cresswell. ‘Almost everyone had been blind before’.
A published poet
Though reserved and retiring, Ursula Bethell was at the centre of the city’s cultural and intellectual life of the period and she was finally persuaded to publish her work, at first under the pen name of Evelyn Hayes. One of her loveliest poems, 'The Long Harbour', first appeared in The Press and gave great satisfaction to the literary editor, J.H.E. Schroder, who remarked that nothing the paper had printed, not even Butler, gave it such cause for pride.
Four major collections of her work were published: From a Garden in the Antipodes (1929), Time and Place (1936), Day and Night (1950) and Collected Poems (1950), the latter (after her death) under her own name.
Her poetry collection Time and Place was dedicated to the memory of Effie Pollen, who passed away on 8 November 1934, and whose death was, in her own words, ‘a complete shattering of my life.’ The poems were written around the anniversaries of Effie’s death.
You were laughter, my liking, and frolic, my lost one,
I must dissemble and smile still for your sake,
Now that I know how spring time is heart-break,
Now you have left me to look upon all that is lovely, alone
Legacy
In 1979 the University of Canterbury established the Ursula Bethell Residency in Creative Writing. A commemorative plaque featuring a quote from her poetry can be found in Library Plaza outside Tūranga.
Sources
- The Christchurch Writer’s Walkway, E. Beardsley, Canterbury Branch, New Zealand Society of Authors, 1999.
- Looking back to an Antipodean garden, The Press, 7 February 1976, page 10
- Transcript of Ursula Bethell’s life on PrideNZ from Dr Alison Laurie
- Ursula Bethell Residency in Creative Writing University of Canterbury
Related Links
- Search our catalogue for items by Ursula Bethell
- Search our catalogue for items about Ursula Bethell
- Mary Ursula Bethell at the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre
- Mary Ursula Bethell Biography at the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography