Flora Eldershaw

Flora Eldershaw
Flora Eldershaw, c. 1915
Born	16 March 1897 Darlinghurst, Sydney
Died	20 September 1956 Wagga Wagga, New South Wales
Occupation	Novelist, Critic, Historian

Flora Sydney Patricia Eldershaw (16 March 1897 – 20 September 1956) was an Australian novelist, critic and historian. With Marjorie Barnard she formed the writing collaboration known as M. Barnard Eldershaw. She was also a teacher and later a public servant.

Eldershaw was active in Australian literary circles, including becoming the first woman President of the Fellowship of Australian Writers and being a long-time member of the Advisory Board of the Commonwealth Literary Fund. For both her writing output and her active support for and promotion of writers, Eldershaw made a significant contribution to Australian literary life.

Eldershaw was born in Sydney but grew up in the Riverina district of country New South Wales. She was the fifth of eight children born to Henry Sirdefield Eldershaw, a station manager, and Margaret (née McCarroll). She attended boarding school at Mount Erin Convent in Wagga Wagga.

After school, she studied history and Latin at the University of Sydney where she met Marjorie Barnard with whom she later formed a writing collaboration, under the name M. Barnard Eldershaw. She 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. According to Dever, her Catholic education precluded her becoming headmistress. In 1941, she moved to Canberra to take up a government position, transferring to Melbourne in 1943 where she worked for the Department of Labour and National Service. In 1948 she started working as a private consultant in industrial matters such as women's legal rights and equal pay, and extending her interests into the welfare of Aboriginal and migrant women.