by Elizabeth Lhuede

A post in our 2025 series featuring works published in 1935 (or by authors who died in 1935). This post includes a poem and a short story by English-Born Australian, Ivy Moore.

Ivy Moore was a prolific writer. Her output in 1935 alone comprised over 30 pieces, and the AustLit database lists 415 works published over the course of her career. The majority of these were poems, but she also published journalistic pieces, short stories and a few collections. What we know about Moore’s life comes mostly from information supplied to AustLit by the poet’s granddaughter, Trish Burgess, complemented by a few references in Trove (not always straightforward, as some are in French).

The daughter of George Varian Walshe, a clerk in the General Post Office, and Edith Marian Walshe née Meux-Smith, Moore was born in London in 1888. Her early life was spent in France, Algeria and Corsica, and later she lived in Spain with her uncle, reputedly a well-known English painter.

In 1913 she married John Irwin Moore, a Queensland-born Sub-Lieutenant of the Royal Navy, and son of the Health Commissioner. In 1919, after the end of the First World War, she first visited Australia, finally settling here in 1924. Moore’s husband later returned to England, leaving Moore with a small remittance and the sole care of their son, also named John.

Moore’s financial constraints most likely influenced her to write and publish prolifically throughout the 1920s and 1930s, both in English and French. It appears Moore was a member of the Fellowship of Australian Writers (though reference to this is in French). Certainly she was known to Mary Gilmore who, in 1937, published and wrote the foreword for her collection, Australian Violets.

Moore had a keen interest in nature and history, writing about such varied topics as the Aurora Australis and historic places of Sydney. She was known too for her interest in aviation. In 1937, she travelled as a guest of the Australian National Airways company on the inaugural flight of their “Douglas Liner”.

With an abiding interest in all things French, Moore was appointed librarian of the Alliance Francaise in Sydney in 1937, and was awarded numerous French honours, including, in 1935, the Palmes Academique for her literary services by the French Ministry/Academy. She later received a Free French Service Medal and was made a Member of Honor of the Free French Soldiers’ Association.

She died in Mosman, NSW, in 1956.

From the dozens of pieces Moore published in 1935, I’ve chosen one poem and a prose piece, both of which were published in The Sydney Morning Herald, and give us a sense of her style at its best.

~

SEAGULL
Whither away on your agile wing?
To the cliffs where the ocean rollers fling
Their sparkling mantle of spume and spray,
And the wind blows cool at the dawn of day.
Whither away in your graceful flight,
So joyous and free in the blithe sunlight?
As circling you dip and swoop and wheel,
Your fluttering pinions are strong as steel.
Whither away on the Wind-God’s track?
To halcyon isles, or in cyclone’s wrack,
Thro Antarctic snows, or blinding heat,
You shall follow the Sea-King’s bidding fleet!

RESCUED BLOSSOMS: The Little Father of the Flowers.

There was nothing to indicate to the customers that they were in the presence of a man of an unusual quality of mind, when they hurried into the little shop on the Quay.

The stout proprietor, genial and obliging, had a cheerful smile for each one, as he served them, and deftly handed the change over the counter. There was an air of good natured content about the whole establishment from the sleek cat, who kept a vigilant eye on the wharf rats, to the fine pair of green parrots in the big cage outside the door, in a patch of gay winter sunshine. These two handsome birds were old identities of the Quay side, who had come, long ago, in their youth, from the great forests of South America, but who now counted innumerable friends among the daily passengers to the city. Surprisingly apt remarks issued from them at times.

Their owner was justly proud of them, but concealed in his heart was hidden also a very intense fondness for his flowers! All the year round his little stall, at the entrance of his shop, was bright with flowers in their seasons: poppies, massed in flaming glory of scarlet and orange, golden marigolds, soft-shaded lupins, rosy snapdragons, sweet-scented bunches of purple violets — so much beauty and fragrance for one small, silver sixpence — amber sprays of wattle, and an abundance of roses and carnations.

Their owner arranged them carefully, shielded them tenderly from the rough westerlies, handled them gently. “For, after all,” he thought, “were not flowers the gracious and beautiful things of life?” It was sad that they were so transient, blooming for so short a space! He grieved over the broken blossoms, roses whose stems snapped in the packing, poppies that would dance no longer on their long, graceful stalks! Throw away all that loveliness? That wealth of colour and perfume. No! He could not bring himself to do it! They should have their chance, their span of life, these victims of misfortune; he placed them in a box, on a layer of cool bracken, and waited, scanning his customers, for one who would understand. Dwellers on the Quay side are swift to sum up character. “Madam, these poor flowers! Have you by any chance a floating bowl in your house?”

She was fastening a bunch of violets in her coat. “To-night, on my way home, I will return for them,” she replied, “for I, too, love flowers.”

As if in gratitude, the blooms gave out an especially sweet fragrance, and for many days the two bowls, the one filled with flame colour, the other with vivid shades of rose, remained fresh and untarnished. “Who gave you that charming idea?” visitors would query admiringly; but the lady of the house only smiled, and replied mysteriously. ‘The little father of the flowers’!”

~

References

“Engagement Announced: Grandson of Late Health Chief”, The Courier-Mail, 10 May 1939: 2: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/40851637
Ivy Moore, AustLit database entry: https://www-austlit-edu-au.ezproxy.sl.nsw.gov.au/austlit/page/A6361
Moore, Ivy. Australian Violets. (1937, no place given)
—–. “Rescued Blossoms: The Little Father of the Flowers”, The Sydney Morning Herald, 14 Sep 1935, p11: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/17192838
—–. “Seagull”, The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 Jul 1935, p2: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/17192213
—–. “Sky Phenomena: The Artilleries of Heaven”, The Sydney Morning Herald, 7 Jul 1934: 11: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/17087668
“Mrs Ivy Moore,” Le Courrier Australien, 6 Dec 1935: 4 [in French, with poor quality photo] https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/160827664
“Woman Writer’s Appointment: Alliance Francaise Librarian”, The Newcastle Sun, 27 Mar 1937: 2: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/166619353

Elizabeth Lhuede has a PhD in Australian Poetry from Macquarie University. In 2012, she instigated the Australian Women Writers Challenge as a contribution to overcoming gender bias in the reviewing of works by Australian women. More recently she has focused on bringing to light the life and works of forgotten Australian women writers.