Grimshaw, Beatrice (c. 1870–1953)

Irish writer . Born in Cloonagh, County Antrim, Ireland, in 1870 (some sources cite 1871); died in Bathurst, New South Wales, in 1953; educated at Margaret Byers' Ladies' Collegiate College, Belfast, and in Caen and London.

Beatrice Grimshaw was born in Cloonagh, County Antrim, Ireland, around 1870, and began her writing career in 1891 as a journalist in Dublin. From 1895 to 1899, she edited the Social Review. Succumbing to a growing ennui, she went to the Pacific in 1903, working as a tour promoter and eventually settling in New Guinea, where she was commissioned by the Australian government to publicize the region. The results were several travel books: In the Strange South Seas (1907), which was illustrated with her own photographs, From Fiji to the Cannibal Islands (1907), and The New New Guinea (1910). The South Seas also inspired some 40 romance and adventure novels, among which When the Red Gods Call (1911) is perhaps the best known. She also produced ten volumes of short stories and contributed articles to the National Geographic.

In her early years, Grimshaw was an avid cyclist and surpassed the women's world 24-hour record by five hours. She was also mistakenly credited in a British Who's Who entry (1928), as "the first white woman to ascend the notorious Sepic and the Fly River." She later disavowed the claim, saying, "I have no new range of rivers to my credit, though I have mapped a few odd corners here and there, and often met natives who had never seen a white person—that is easy in Papua." Grimshaw died in Bathurst, New South Wales, in 1953.