"Lady Journalists. (Fifth Series)," in the Lady's Pictorial, 10 February 1894 (p.176-177) covers Miss Ella Hepworth Dixon (1857–1932); Miss (Marion) Hepworth Dixon (1856–1936; Ella's older sister); Lady Violet Greville (1842–1932); Miss Annie S. (Shepherd) Swan (Mrs. Burnett-Smith; 1859–1943); Mrs. Mackenzie-McKenna (1868–1929; writes as Ethel Mackenzie-McKenna in the United States and Ethel Morell Mackenzie in England); Miss Catharine Drew (1825/6–1910; "Aurora"); Mrs. (Lucie) Armstrong (née Cobbe; 1851–1907; "Comme il Faut"; "L. H. A." in The Sketch; "Zingara"; "Our Special Commissioner" for the "Fashions and Fancies" column in the Sunday Times). It is illustrated with portraits of Miss Ella Hepworth Dixon from a photograph by Mrs. Fred Wilkinson, Manchester; Miss Annie S. Swan from a photograph by J. H. Killock; Miss Marion Hepworth Dixon from a photograph by Mrs. Fred Wilkinson; Mrs. McKenna from a photograph by R. Faulkner and Co.; Miss Catharine Drew from a photograph by Vernon Keys; Lady Violet Greville from a photograph by Piron; Mrs. Armstrong from a photograph by Russell and Sons.
[The portraits below are in the original piece, but the decorated initials, bold print and dates for each journalist, endpiece, asterisks and links have all been added. Thanks to Valerie Fehlbaum, from the Department of English Language and Literature at the Université de Genève (and the author of a biography of Ella Hepworth Dixon) for sharing the scans that served as the basis of these transcripts for readers of the Victorian Web. — Philip Jackson]
Miss Ella Hepworth Dixon.
MISS ELLA HEPWORTH DIXON is the youngest daughter of the late William Hepworth Dixon, and is fortunate in having grown up not only among books, but in the most brilliant and intellectual society in London, Her first request—easily acceded to by an indulgent father—was to be allowed to accompany him to, the office of the Athenaeum, in order to look at the many picture books sent to the leading literary journal—a journal which Mr. Hepworth Dixon edited for over seventeen years. Later on, a visit to M. and Madame Louis Blanc in Paris brought the somewhat precocious child in touch with the chief political and literary people of the day in France, even before she was sent to complete her education in Germany; two facts which have helped to make her an ardent admirer of the best French and German literature. Before his untimely death, the young girl was constantly employed in her father's study, annotating, revising proofs, and searching the State Papers, and it was to her that the publishers of Royal Windsor assigned the task of revising the last two volumes for the press. Miss Ella Hepworth Dixon's contributions to the periodical press have taken the form of short stories, art criticisms, and letters from out-of-the-way corners of the world, like Montenegro, Dalmatia, the Balearic Islands, and Corsica, for she has inherited her father's love of travel, and a series of visits in New York and Canada two years ago proved one of the most delightful of her experiences. She has written some thirty "Town and Country Tales" for The World, and is a constant contributor to that paper, while the Sunday Times, the St. James's Gazette, Woman, London Society, and other papers and magazines have all employed her pen. Miss Ella Hepworth Dixon has been associated with the LADY'S PICTORIAL as an occasional contributor for several years, writing stories for its Christmas Numbers, and letters from Monte Carlo, the Norwegian Fjords, the North Cape, and the Mediterranean. Indeed, the series of short satirical articles on London society called "My Flirtations," which, published in 1892 under the pseudonym of "Margaret Wynman," achieved so remarkable a success among the critics both in England and America, appeared first in this journal, while her first novel, "The Story of a Modern Woman," has been written expressly for these pages, in which it is now being published, its striking originality and power having already caused considerable sensation, and elicited much admiring comment.
iss [Marion] Hepworth Dixon, now one of our most successful and sympathetic art critics, has been all her life devoted to the study—practical and theoretical—of art. When she was quite a girl she travelled in Italy, Germany, France and Belgium, with her father, studying the old masters, and after his death became a pupil of the famous French portrait painter, Charles Chaplin, becoming acquainted with Carolus Duran, Munkacsky, Boldini, and other famous painters. M. Boldini painted a delightful picture of the two sisters during a summer spent at Etretât. Later on, at Julien's famous studio in the Passage des Panoramas, she became a fellow-student of Marie Bashkirtseff, a circumstance which led indirectly to Miss Hepworth Dixon developing into a writer on art and artists. "Marie Bashkirtseff: a Personal Reminiscence," appeared in the Fortnightly Review in answer to a previous article by Mr. Gladstone on the famous young Russian, and it at once attracted so much attention that she received the unusual compliment of a special editorial request for more articles from her pen. A memoir of Charles Chaplin, in the Magazine of Art, followed, since which time Miss Hepworth Dixon has been a tolerably constant contributor to that journal, while a series of papers on "Recent Fashions in French Art," were undertaken at the special invitation of the editor of the Art Journal, and resulted in Miss Dixon's crossing the Channel to study the various symbolistic schools. Miss Hepworth Dixon has also contributed at various times to the Pall Mall Gazette, The Sketch, All the Year Round, and Belgravia, as well as many American journals, while some of her dialogues in Black and White are, it is believed, to be republished before long in volume form. Miss Hepworth Dixon illustrated two of her father's books, "Her Majesty's Tower" and "British Cyprus," as well as finding a ready market for her pictures, which she exhibited both in London and Liverpool. She has had critical articles in the Magazine of Art and the Art Journal on Onslow Ford, Thomas Faed, David Murray, Frank Dicksee and Ernest Parton, and is now engaged on articles on Monticelli and Miss Henrietta Montalba.
ady Violet Greville is one of those ladies who have by no means taken up literary and journalistic work as a fad or a pastime, and has long been a regular and industrious contributor to various newspapers and periodicals. Amongst the journals to which Lady Violet has been a constant and valued contributor are the Graphic, the World, the Pictorial World (now merged in Black and White), Vanity Fair, the Morning [Post], and Piccadilly, and she has also written occasional articles in the Fortnightly Review, the Nineteenth Century, the National Review, Good Words, Fraser's Magazine, the Whitehall Review, Sala's Journal, the Girls' Own Paper, &c. It will be seen by this catalogue of journals and magazines that Lady Violet Greville has the pen of a ready writer, and as a matter of fact she is gifted with an excellent versatility and lightness of style, readily adapting her manner to her matter, and never failing to treat her subjects with refinement and with knowledge. Lady Violet is always busy, but combines the claims of society and her profession with skill and tact.
iss Annie S. Swan's literary career extends over a period of fourteen years. During that time she has done very little magazine work. Miss Swan (Mrs. Burnett-Smith), began by writing books for children, gradually growing into the novel, which she generally published first in serial form. Miss Swan has done a great deal of work for Messrs. Leng, of Dundee, a great many of her stories having appeared first in their miscellany, The People's Friend, which has a wide circulation in Scotland. Miss Swan has also written serially for the Sunday Magazine, in which her new novel, "A Lost Ideal," commenced this month. It deals with literary life, and it has taken her two years to write. Miss Swan has done very little fugitive magazine work, having been always so fully occupied by her stories. Her new magazine promises to be a great success. She does not edit it, and is only responsible for her own departments in it. Though Miss Swan has often been asked by various magazines to contribute either short stories or serial articles, she has not found the time, her long stories fully occupying her thoughts. This year Miss Swan is doing a good deal of work in her magazine, The Woman at Home, viz., the correspondence columns in "Over the Teacups," and a short complete story, one of a series, every month. Miss Swan's frank geniality of manner has won her many friends, both in, and outside of literary circles, and her wide womanly sympathies and keen perceptive powers have no doubt helped her greatly in the accumulation of types of characters for her stories, as well as in her subsequent treatment of them. Miss Swan is a rapid writer, and her work appears in print almost precisely as it first leaves her pen. She is a Scotchwoman by birth, having been born in Leith, where her father carried on business as a merchant, and she owes her literary career, in a sense, to a Scotch firm of publishers — Messrs. Leng, of Dundee — as it was owing to the fact that she won a prize of three guineas, years ago, for a short story in their paper, the Dundee Advertiser, that she adopted literature as a profession — with what success all the world now knows.
rs. Mackenzie-McKenna, a talented and busy worker for the Press, is the eldest daughter of the late Sir Morell Mackenzie, and took to journalism because her father held very strong views that all women should have a profession or occupation, whether they might need it financially or no. Her first regular work was as correspondent to the Evening Telegraph, Philadelphia, a position Mrs. McKenna still holds. Her work is much better known in America than in England, as until the year before last she wrote almost exclusively for American papers and magazines, specially for several leading syndicates, and for the Ladies' Home Journal. During the last two years, however, Mrs. McKenna has also done work for a number of English provincial papers, including the Newcastle Leader, and still writes weekly for many of them. She is also working pretty regularly for McClure's Magazine. When writing for America Mrs. McKenna has adopted the custom so usual there and signs herself Ethel Mackenzie-McKenna, but in England she still uses for her literary and journalistic work her old signature Ethel Morell Mackenzie.
iss Catharine Drew is one of the many Irish women who have crossed the Channel and made journalism in London their profession. Her father was the Rev. Thos. Drew, D.D., rector of Loughinisland, and precentor of Down, Ireland, for seven-and-twenty years incumbent of Christ Church, in the busy and prosperous city of Belfast. To Dr. Drew's own literary tastes his daughter owes that miscellaneous knowledge which is, above all acquirements, essential to successful catering for readers of various tastes. In the midst of a busy life, the care of an ecclesiastical district in which 24,000 people, chiefly factory workers, claimed his spiritual care and material help and sympathy, Dr. Drew found time to help his daughter. During four years' residence in Dublin with her brother, the well-known ecclesiastical architect, now President of the Royal Institute of Architects, Ireland, and President of the Royal Society of Antiquaries, Ireland, Miss Drew had other experiences. Journalism for her began in assistance given in the editorship of The Irish Builder — work taken up in hours not occupied with the business of an architect's profession. In 1871, when her home was broken up by the death of her father, Miss Drew came to London, and was fortunate in being received with more than kindness by editors who knew her personally and professionally. The British Architect, London Society, and later on The Literary World accepted her services for miscellaneous articles, and many minor journals took as much fiction from her pen as she had time to produce. The proprietors and editors of the Belfast News Letter allowed Miss Drew to initiate a new departure in journalism, a column especially devoted to women's interests, and the "Ladies' Letter," now a feature in so many popular journals, came into life. When Miss Drew started in London women journalists were few in number. There were, it is true, three great lights who ruled that day the Hon. Mrs. Norton, Miss Harriet Martineau, and Miss Frances Power Cobbe. The first and second have joined the great majority; the third still lives, but at a distance from London, and occasionally wields her vigorous pen for benevolent objects. But a wide gulf lies between these ladies, who turned out severe and critical essays, political leaders, reviews of books dealing with science, philosophy, and ethics; and the modern journalist, who is expected to be ubiquitous, rushing from place to place with notebook and pencil, looking up every subject discussed alike in drawing-room and kitchen. The triad of clever ladies catered [176/177] for the few, but the modern journalist never throws her care for the many off her mind. Mrs. Humphry, another Ulster woman, and Miss Drew, were the pioneers of a new school of journalism, which has developed into a social power in the land. Miss Drew soon turned her back on the pleasant but uncertain work of fiction, and took to the exacting but steady line of newspaper contribution, The Belfast News Letter still retaining her services. Some small journals claim her surplus time, and her, letters issued by "The National Press Agency" find acceptance with a large circle of readers. When professional cares can be thrown aside, Miss Drew, true to early paternal teaching, finds recreation in philanthropic work. The Work and Leisure Court of the United Sisters' Friendly Society includes her in its Council. The Caroline Biggs Memorial Fund, which lends women students fees for technical training, had her among its founders; and in the Orphan Fund established by the Institute of Journalists she finds never-ceasing interest.
rs. Armstrong, like most other writers, showed a taste for composition at a very early age. She had a good deal of success and encouragement at first starting upon her career professionally, although she almost drifted by chance into active journalism. Mrs. Armstrong sent a good many articles to the Globe and Evening Standard and other papers, and a great many were accepted. She wrote a doll story for Sylvia's Journal, and Mr. Sonnenschein asked her to write about twelve more of the same kind, in order to make up a children's book. This was published under the name of "Doll Stories," by Lucie Cobbe, and was very well reviewed. About this time the National Press Agency, moved by the great success which had attended their "Ladies' Letter" written by "Aurora" (Miss Catharine Drew), proposed to start a second Letter, and consulted Miss Drew as to the most suitable person. Miss Drew kindly mentioned Mrs. Armstrong (then Miss Lucie Cobbe), and she accepted the post, not without trepidation, but carried it on without a break for ten years. She chose "Zingara" as her signature.
At the same time Mrs. Armstrong commenced to contribute articles to Household Words (edited by Charles Dickens), where she worked under Miss Mary Hooper, to whose kindly encouragement she owes much. Accident, rather than choice, led her to write about etiquette. Questions on the subject were constantly coming in, and she used generally to get them to answer because she went out so much, and was able to say what was being done; and Miss Hooper suggested to her that some articles on card-leaving, and various kinds of parties, might be useful to the readers. The series was started by way of supplying a direct want, and when a well-known publishers advertised soon after for some one to write a book on etiquette, Mrs. Armstrong sent these articles to them as specimens of her work. The book was well noticed, and the post of etiquette-writer being vacant on the LADY'S PICTORIAL, the editor offered the post to Mrs. Armstrong, who has written for him for many years under the signature of "Comme il Faut." She commenced a series of social articles under the heading of "Good Form," which were afterwards reprinted, and added to, and brought out by Mr. F. V. White. She has written three other books on etiquette — "Modern Etiquette," published by Messrs. F. Warne and Co.; "Etiquette for Girls" (by the same publishers), and the "Etiquette of Parties," published by Messrs. Ward, Lock, and Bowden.
Mrs. Armstrong started a new feature in the Star — an account of stage dresses and audiences at first-nights, and has since contributed similar work to the Pall Mall Gazette, and afterwards the Westminster Gazette. She has lately written some interviews for the Sketch, which she signs "L. H. A.," and is writing a weekly article for Winter's Weekly, called "Letters to my Cousin," signed "Zingara"; and also a weekly column for the Sunday Times, called "Fashions and Fancies," by "Our Special Commissioner." Mrs. Armstrong's maiden name was Lucie Cobbe. She was the daughter of Major Charles Henry Cobbe, 60th Bengal Native Infantry, grand-daughter of General George Cobbe, R.A., and, on her mother's side, of Colonel Gravatt, R.A. Miss Frances Power Cobbe (who has written so many important works, and is the President of the Anti-Vivisection Society) is Mrs. Armstrong's second cousin. Mrs. Armstrong married Mr. J. C. Heaton Armstrong in 1885, but was widowed very shortly afterwards.
Left to right: (a) Miss Annie S. Swan. (b) Miss Marion Hepworth Dixon. (c) Miss McKenna.
Left to right: (a) Miss Catherine Drew. (b) Lady Violet Greville. (c) Mrs. Armstrong.
In the biographical notes which accompanied the portrait of Mrs. Clarke, published in this series of articles, one passage read as though that lady assumed the editorship of The Lady in succession to Miss Mabel Collins and has held it ever since. But the paragraph in question unintentionally conveyed a wrong impression. The editress of The Lady is Mrs. McHardy Gooche, who has been on the staff of that paper from the commencement, and has held the position of editress for some years.
Mrs. Roy Devereux desires us to correct a printer's error in the biographical notes which accompanied her recently-given portrait in this journal. Her maiden name should not have been given as Incledon, but as McAdam.
Link to Related Material
Created 19 December 2024